Back onto the topic of CWL, i find it interesting that BE and Christine Ourmieres has said that it will be 'central' to their 5 year plan. I wonder what that means ?

There was some speculation started up by Roger Lewis, CWL chairman (Ex WRU) that they were keen to get BE to move their whole support operation there ?

:cool::D

Not even maths. Arithmetic or sums!

However this is yet another American phrase which has entered our language, for good or ill.

Winter 2017/8
 

Obviously early days but Doncaster is certainly the biggest loser so far going from a high of 2 x 118 seat 195's based to just one 88 seat 175.

Talking of the 195's just four in schedule (all I could find), two at Cardiff, one at Newquay and one at Exeter although I didn't try that hard to look for them, just checked the usual suspects.

The 175's are 6 @ BHX and 4 @ MAN and the Doncaster one.

Luxembourg not bookable from BHX or MAN

Cardiff - London City not bookable yet but you can see the schedule in the background and the aircraft does Glasgow in between and Jersey afterwards all on the Dash 8.

Some strange timings again BHX-MXP early morning only, the first BHX-DUS is away based and the last inbound to BHX lands at 18.40. I am sure this will change at some point like it did with this summers initial release as it makes little sense.

Pete

I think the difficulty flyBe have with the E-Jets is that their seat mile costs aren't competitive with the likes of Wizz and Ryanair. There is a lot of radio advertising from flyBe on Capital & Heart Yorkshire, focussing on DSA, predominantly Faro, but mentioning other routes too. I used the flyBe DSA-CDG service over the last week, the 175 was full both ways, but I only paid ~£50 each way. Sky scanner suggested these as the cheapest flights from the LBA/MAN/DSA/EMA area - which might suggest weak pricing, which is a shame as the experience from DSA was brilliant. I loved how easy DSA was to park, get through and be gone - it really is everything a smaller regional airport should be.

The C-Series was mentioned up thread. The CS100 would seat ~125 at 30" or 130 at 29" according to Bombardier, which isn't much of a step up from the E195, but with per-seat costs equal to, or less, than an A320/738, potentially a perfect mix for an airline wanting to say under the radar of the big LCC's but also needing to be price comparable.

The CS100 is a great option for that exact function noted above, although you have to ask, is it too big for BE but too small for the likes of EZY/FR etc ? I think so.

running costs are one thing, huge investment in new Bomb fleet, training, spares, slot availability etc would be a whole different ball game.
They should just stick with the Dash, and not try to be too many things for too many markets

There are unsubstantiated posts on various aviation news and/or analysis websites that Boeing and Airbus are being exceptionally agressive with pricing to keep the Series out of major airline fleets. United and easyJet being the two most often mentioned.

The investment in a new fleet would be huge - I agree, but I don't think the E-Jets are sustainable. easyJet and Ryanair started off with much smaller capacity aircraft. EZY's -300s sat 149 compared with their A320s with 186 seats, Ryanair will have 198 on the 200MAX - big aircraft for thinner routes. So their may be a gap forming, if frequency is desirable. Of course newer technology, denser aircraft will make the gulf in costs between the E195 even larger, so I do share your thought that the Q400 should remain the backbone of the future fleet.

E195 bases
 

With regards to the current E195 bases, I was recently doing some reading into the 'success' of these bases particularly EXT, NQY, DSA, and CWL before I read the recent posts in this thread.

It comes to mind that whilst LGW and MAN are enjoying high loads from NQY (last 3 LGW flights I have been on have all had over 95 passengers onboard albeit at peak times), these could probably be adequately served by a E175 and there seems to be a general trend that all the bases would be OK with a E175 and DH8D mix eventually. Also one could say that the NQY operation is safeguarded by the LGW PSO. Presumably if MAN loads are good on the current twice daily then a DH8D could be based as well to operate MAN, LBA, BHX, and STN year round...

CWL currently has 2 E195s and a DH8D, but looking into the look term it looks as if the base could be with 2 DH8Ds and an E175. DUB, DUS, JER, GLA, ORK all would be suited to the DH8D with some of these flights operated by the DH8D this summer. If FAO continues against FR, then EDI, CDG, FAO, MXP, MUC can be operated by the E175.

I'm sure the EXT sun routes are always well patronised and presumably the E175 could slot in to operate the EXT-AGP-NWI-EXT-NWI-AGP-EXT schedules etc similar to this summers schedule.

As previously mentioned with the one E175 based at DSA in the winter, it seems as if the E195(s) may well be removed before S18? Looking at the passengers figures they are not to dissimilar to EXT/CWL which also have similar daily services. I don't know if the year round operation of LBA-NQY will impact DSA-NQY figures?

Just for a bit of comparison - 2016 figures:

EXT-CDG 40,381 (albeit operated by a DH8D with different operating costs etc)
CWL-CDG 52,823
DSA-CDG 48,431

EXT-AMS 44,040
DSA-AMS 45,803

CWL-JER 16,630
DSA-JER 32,825

EXT-FAO 11,359 (seasonal)
CWL-FAO 28,352 (year round higher frequency)
DSA-FAO 12,302 (seasonal)

CWL-DUB 108,159
DSA-DUB 21,580

CWL-ORK 11,473
CWL-MXP 25,603
CWL-MUC 18,674

DSA-ALC 22,977
EXT-ALC 27,620

DSA-AGP 21,068
EXT-AGP 27,335

DSA-TXL 19,755

Also worth remembering the DSA operation didn't commence until March 2016.

Perhaps NQY-LGW could take the E75 rather than the 95, it could even go back to four daily passenger number wise.

NQY-MAN is now twice daily on the 75 Monday to Friday.


cs

CFO resigns
 

Never a good sign when the top numbers man resigns during a difficult trading period.

Or maybe he's been offered a deal elsewhere that he can't refuse? This is pprune after all so let the rumours commence.

Exactly! Far too many people claim to know a lot about the aviation business, but surprisingly little about business and commerce in general.

Probably the offer is ship loads of cash, better pension, closer to home, more holidays, excellent bonus scheme - a combination of some or all of those - or some others I haven't bothered to list.

CFOs and CEOs for that matter move jobs all the time, for all sorts of reasons - it's how business and commerce works. Of course as Flybe is a publicly quoted company such a move is higher profile than in a privately owned business.

It seems that he lives in Guildford, so a role in London rather than Exeter might well suit him better.

That said, CFOs (and CEOs) have an absolute allergic reaction to being in charge of the finances of a company which they think is in serious trouble - and will normally jump to anything to avoid being seen as the person who led the company finances into disaster territory.

Might well all be completely innocent, but for a company that is struggling to turn a profit, this all adds to instability

Any up to date news re how the Heathrow flights are doing? I'm intrigued.

The noise from inside is that they are performing really well.

There's always quite a lot of noise from the inside (of a Q400!!!), especially towards the front.

Good to hear the LHR routes are performing well.

Guys - quick question... what a/c are they operating on the SEN-MXP?
1:55 flight time, says operated by Stobart, I'm right in thinking that's an ATR type, yes?:rolleyes:

No, it will be either an E175/195 or a Jota RJ initially. The flight time is correct for those types.

Surely that's a question for the Stobart thread.