It certainly seems odd that the CGN management encouraged a CGN-SEN route while being in the final stages (presumably) of negotiations for Ryanair to set up a base at CGN. The proposed route network must surely have been discussed.

I don't see it as damaging to the Flybe/Stobart Air operation, it having caused a sensible but annoying change of plan well before operations commence, as there are probably other substitute destinations which didn't quite make it to the final six.

While I agree that it will not be a major hiccup in the grand picture of things, it nicely shows the problems of franchising a brand. The media will now report along the lines "Flybe's new route to CGN cancelled after only six days". "Flybe axes new Cologne link before it even started" - and this with Flybe being totally innocent and not involved at all.

I guess we can be sure that CGN will be crossed off the airport map hanging in the Stobart office for the foreseeable future :}

LTNman,
There is a saying "we don't have problems, we only have solutions" but when it comes to SEN you only raise problems, in this instance, that have already been resolved with the cancellation of the referred to route.

And as for your claim that I make silly comments, how silly, s your comment referring to SEN as "that big Essex airport"?

:sad::sad: Oh dear you are confused, that big Essex airport I was referring to was Stansted and not Southend.:sad::sad:

Get real, a single runway with a single terminal airport and you call that "big", perhaps only "big" to anything that might appear on the top of a Bedfordshire hill.

And my local airport is "IAO" ... Apparently work has begun on extending the runway whilst some runway lighting, navigational aids, and a fuel truck might also be appreciated :)

Stansted is big compared to Southend and that was the point I was trying to make although I seem to have lost you. Also Luton is not on top of a hill.

I think you need to visit the UK more often as Geography is not your strong point.:ok:

Hi guys. Despite rumours that this is a heavily censored forum, I always welcome news and views....but please don't start bitching at each other again. It's so boring. Thank you.

tophat27dt Your comment is spot on. I don't normally bite back when some ignorant clever dick is rude to me. I apologize to everyone here including the mods. :ok:

Does anyone know if Stobart Air is being loaned money from the banks or is all the start up costs coming from in house?

It really doesn't matter as far as funding is concerned. Stobart have invested £millions into Southend. As they are listed on the Stock Exchange, investors will require a profit as dividend and/or share price.

How difficult is it in practice to set up a route and associated schedule and have it ready with publicity for a launch in June to replace SEN-CGN ?
Feasible (just) or completely pie in the sky ?

With apologies to davidjohnson6 for seeming a bit petty - Cologne was not actually due to commence until July - so that gives a little extra time to re-jig things!

This is, by the way, the email customers have received with a booking for SEN-CGN:

Interesting that they are offering BHX-CGN as an alternative - which is BE's own metal - rather than SEN-FMO which would keep the problem in the Stobart Air corner. Southend - Birmingham is 150miles, whereas Münster - Köln is "just" 100miles.

Why take just a franchise fee when you can sell your own seats.

With others getting the SEN thread shut down, this is a good thread with which to get genuine Southend news in through the back door in a more coordinated way. The title could relate of course to the airline, or the airports Stobart Air operate.

Please just leave the trains and the airports geography out of it though - and let any serial antagonists have their say and ignore them.

So Skywork are moving over at the end of the summer. Will be interesting to see how loads hold up, or the extent to which ticket prices are reduced with a move from LCY.

Anything else of note from the last couple of weeks?

Skywork is very interesting indeed, hope it works well for them, I'm sure it's going to be much cheaper for them to operate from SEN.

Nothing of note but I'm looking forward to seeing how the stobart routes are doing at SEN in their first month!

Stobart seem to be a serious player.

- they invested in decent facilities at SEN
- realizing they had a success on their hands, they've invested in further terminal expansion
- they have attracted 4 completely new airline operators in under 2 years - EZY, RE, BEE and now Skywork. Has any other airport achieved that?
- they have invested in RE and brought them in to SEN
- now they have sold a big chunk of their haulage business and will concentrate on bio-energy and aviation

Let's hope they are financially strong enough to remain independent, and that they manage to turn a profit sufficient to fund their investment, and give shareholders a return.

No mention of CAX in that rundown - they're certainly persistent but there must be a point where you're throwing good money after bad

Well "Branston", with some outside investment, went from a chain of music stores to airline, "Rubber Johnnies" :), cola, mobile and home telephones, broadband, money loans and gawd knows what else :)

Just out of curiosity what, if anything, is preventing Stobart from operating any CAX/SEN/CAX service before any planning permission for their mega freight distribution warehouse may be granted?

Does CAX not have a runway, an ATC service, a terminal, a car park etc., why does Stobart need planning permission for a mega freight distribution warehouse before it may start a passenger air service?

Additional Caen Flights
 

In addition to the 4 x weekly flights already on sale, Tuesday and Saturday flights have been added to the SEN-CFR schedule which starts next week. These additional rotations will operate from 26 July until 23 August.

Yes but with a 12.5 tonne weight limit for commercial flights

Ah, OK .....

EI-REM has had a spot of trouble today in Munster (Hence SEN showing cancelled flights)

Anyone have any further info? Was there an engine fire?

Incident: Stobart AT72 at Muenster on Sep 29th 2014, engine fire indication

Stobart Air growth....
 

So much new routes coming on line in the guise of Aer Lingus Regional and speculating where the gaps/ opportunities that are outstanding Dublin/ UK wise, I'd see them as;

Dublin to;
Liverpool, Luton, Stansted, Newquay and the proposed Carlisle route when that airport comes on stream. All of the above could be EIR except Carlisle, which I'd see as being Flybe territory? The rest of the dots are joined, now that EIR model seems quite happy and able to compete against Ryanair with the support of the transit passengers to the US routes.

Perhaps it is time for Stobart to start thinking about a few Jet types e.g. C Series, to look at opportunities for near european destinations, in support of Aer Lingus, take BRU as an example, won't be much different to MAN and BHX Dublin routes with overload of capacity, A320 may be hard to fill off peak. A jet type may offer opportunities on other routes not served by Aer Lingus.

On a separate note, Loganair as a franchise operator seem to be getting some opportunities on Flybe routes, e.g. GLA MAN. Does anybody foresee that Stobart may get opportunities for BE routes that are under performing outside of say SEN, in the regions? We may see future direction including expansion of the Flybe franchise to include additional bases in the UK?

When they were still Aer Arran, Stobart Air wrote to Carlisle Council saying that they plan to operate an Atr-42 twice daily to SEN and DUB daily - whether that will be as part of the EIR deal, flyBE or in their own right (or any combination?) isn't clear...

With regards to LOG, they operate smaller a/c than BE, where as BE and Stobart fleets are more comparable

After completing an order for some new ATR's, why would they move to jets? Doesnt make any sense whatsoever.

I think there is a gap for a small jet to fill the hole between an A319/320 and the ATR for EI. Whether they would be operated by Stobart or Lingus is another question.

As for the next EIR routes, its a difficult one. There isn't that many more they can go to. Liverpool, Luton, Stansted, Newquay is about it!

I would like them to try MME and DSA again. Used to fly these routes regularly and I will say that they weren't given a proper chance. Whether that is EI or Peels fault I don't know. There was little to no advertisement of the routes.

At the time RE were having a nightmare. The start of the EIR franchise was rocky. I used to be on the MME flight on a weekly basis - initially the loads were fairly good for a new route 45-60ish. Then the rest is down to RE. The schedules were terrible. It felt like each week they changed the operating days and the departure times to suit their network expansion and lack of aircraft. They tried to progress to quickly. By mid summer when they had opened other routes and stretched the fleet too much. Cancellations after delays after delays. I'm not surprised that people left it and towards the end there was usually only 20 on board. Similar story at DSA.

I still think that these airports could support a good, daily 42 service at least to start with. Stobart have sorted the old issues out. Infact, I've gone nearly 200 sectors without a cancellation (other than horrendous weather!). Even delays are pretty infrequent - I would say 3 times out of that 200.

During the MME days I may have flown 60 sectors, there was on at least 4 occasions I recall being cancelled and driving like hell to NCL to catch the FR. Delays were also much more common - quite regularly an hour or so late.

I would love to see them give Humberside a try. Ryanair had a go back in the mid-00's, and were attracting circa 100-150 pax, but this was obviously not enough for a B738. A daily Dublin service, with the right size aircraft, and connections onto the US would no doubt be very welcome and popular.

bigjim99,

It's not just that the size being between the airbus and the ATR, it was more about range I was referring to!

In terms of the times being awful on some of the routes that were axed e.g. DSA, I expect this is true but the challenge there is that the fleet cannot support peak flying times due to the commitment of these to the peak routes, MAN BHX etc currently help fill the off peaks, and others like JER etc.

I'd be very interested to see if they venture to BHD in the EIR guise, though I have no doubt that EI and BE will encounter a conflict of interest, that will make for an interesting outcome.

EI-BUD, indeed I understood that! ;)

Its not that the times were off peak - people can make provisions for that. Its more the regularity. At MME, on Monday the flight would leave one week at 14:40, next week at 16:20, third week there would be no flight. How can you build your regular travellers with that?

sorry I didn't realise the services were so ad hoc and changeable like that.

It is great to see them on such a good trajectory in recent times. However, FR activity e.g. SNN MAN is resulting in the axing of the EIR route. Hopefully FR do not embark on a plan to launch service on too many of the Cork and Shannon EIR routes.

Moreover, I have no doubt FR will look a alternative ways to penalise them for infringing on their existing routes ex DUB.

If anything I would say EIR need some smaller a/c for some of the thinner, riskier routes mentioned and things like ORK-DUB. Also I'm sure they have yet to exhaust all the possibilities from ORK. EMA being one.

I think Jets are a bit of a double edged sword. The extra range would be useful, the issue with Large regional jets are the seat costs. The props offer lower seat costs and lower capacity than the A320/737s on the shirt UK hops. RJs just offer less capacity, but at a higher seat cost. As flyBe found, operating large RJs in a price sensitive market is very difficult.
The question is do EI have a large enough volume of routes with time sensitive, high yielding traffic which are byond the range of an ATR, but don't have the passenger volume to operate an A319 profitably.

Speculation in the Irish Independent concerning a potential merger with Flybe:

Flybe CEO won't rule out future link with Stobart - Independent.ie

This could work well.

I read that article, it said a lot about nothing. Beside Flybe should get their own house in order before they start talking about taking over anyone else.

It would appear that Stobart are now operating BE's IOM services to LPL and BHX? Not heard any formal announcements of this?

I wonder when we will see the new orders ATR orders being placed? Yet again OY-RUG on lease......at least the flying skip LY-MCA has disappeared!

where did you see they are operating the IOM routes for Flybe?

Look at flightradar24- EI-REI doing a number of rotations to the IOM from BHX and LPL.

As it's a short term wet lease one would not expect anything by way of an announcement

Any idea when the Stobart air schedules for Summer 2015 will be released for the aircraft operating under Flybe and EIR? (only a partial DUB one has been released) Cheers

For anyone wondering where EI-EHH has gone, it is at SEN (to the best of my knowledge) wearing a new coat of white paint.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/458986...-poYyQt-pw16Qz

Will it also get an small internal overhaul?

Is stobart closing its Shannon operations in a few weeks its very bad form on the airports part letting Ryanair on Manchester thus ruining their operations if it turns out to be true