2019
 

Anything new or different from Tui in the offering for Summer ‘19?

Well doesn't look like long-haul is making a come back as sure we'd of heard something by now. Certainly no expectation of additional short-haul aircraft.

I was hoping that TUI would announce a return to long haul from Stansted for summer 2019 especially considering that they are going to fly from Doncaster to Sanford for summer 2019.

I'm surprised that TUI are allowing Thomas Cook to dominate the long haul charter market from Stansted and not going up against them as the market can surely be big enough for both operators.

But in saying that I am confident that TUI will recommence long haul from Stansted at some point in the future.

Looks like TCX long haul is not on sale anymore for STN , spoke to someone who has had their flight moved to LGW for 2019.

If so that's even more of a bummer for Stansted and it's long haul ambitions and to be honest I'm rather surprised by this if it turns out to be the case.

With the addition of Emirates and the transatlantic operations from PRIMERA I was looking forward to see the long haul network from Stansted expanding and I was hoping that TCX might have expanded their long haul operations from Stansted in a similar way to Manchester.

N887X is definitely a FA7X due in from the states tomorrow morning. Cannot remember the airport it was due from. I saw this on the ‘Chroma’ flight system.

TCX is not currently on sale for 2019 but is for this year, this is the current schedule.

CUN Tu,Sa
LAS Mo
MCO Th,Fr,Su

Not as many flights as last year though. I seem to remember them increasing frequency on LAS and MCO last year later in the year so hopefully they do and add flights to next year.
From what I remember TCX and TOM both had good load factors last year.
I know TOM didn’t find it finically viable flying the plane in from other bases for the flights and believe this was a factor in them pulling their services.
But TCX I think would be silly to totally pull ‘Long Haul Charter’ service when they now hold the monopoly at the airport and the region.

I also thought TCX would expand their STN long-haul network, especially in light of the gap available north of London whereas BA, VS, TOM, TCX, Norwegian and others fight it out at LGW

It was the other way round surely? Norwegian ended up at LGW in the pre-MAG days when the newly independent and more nimble LGW swiped STN’s airlines.

The Achilles Heel has always been a lack of a very high frequency fast rail connection to the Capital. This should have been addressed many years ago. Four per hour and a journey of just under 50 minutes is far from ideal.

And SEN has 8 trains an hour to London and a journey time of 45 mins. It's weakness is a lack of early morning and late evening services.

It's the train time from SEN to Stratford that is 45 minutes while to Liverpool Street the fastest is 53 minutes.

As far as frequency goes it is the Stansted Express at 4 per hour in each direction.

There are further frequencies each hour to London with an intermediate stopping service.

Don`t forget the Cambridge service with Norwich coming on line.

NAX were aided a lot at LGW originally by the void & slots left by the demise of Sterling.

Since acquisition MAG have championed & lobbied for updated/faster train services to London & make & continue to make a very valid business case.

Caught up with Government malaise as always concerning any addition & any updates generally to national infrastructure.

One physicality to overcome on the airport site itself in terms of frequency at least is the single track rail tunnel under the runway into the terminal.

I believe it is probably at maximum usage now.

The quick answer is a second tunnel....however.

Stansted Express has the capability to use 12 carriage trains.

Qatar Airways Cargo.

With commencement of the Summer scheds it appears QTRC have switched BACK to STN one of their three LHR A330F services .

Witness the Monday QTR8285/6 routing over DOH-STN-BSL-DOH with the first arriving yesterday.

The story goes with perhaps the remaining two at LHR to be switched BACK ultimately.

Their B77F service on behalf of BAWC appears to have increased by one for a total of 6 PW in the summer timetable.

I believe Stansted Express have started to use 12 carriage trains on peak time services now. I think in the coming year all services will be 12 carriages.

I think it’s about time they linked Stansted up with Witham or Braintree making Stansted a through station this would have a a positive effect not only on Stansted but when there is problems on aether the line into London via Chelmsford or indeed the normal Stansted Express line their would be a alternative routing.

Wonderful sentiment...

The idea at least of a lighter local rail link to the towns to the east using in part a non airport historic layout from decades ago has been resurrected from time to time & I believe the original airport re-development plans in the eighties showed the rail link from/to London being branched from the Braintree line not from the Cambridge line as exists today.

The whole area would benefit with many airport employees residing to the east too.

Sections of the track in the airport`s vicinity became footpaths & I have no doubt other sections have now being built over.

But with this infrastructure deficit Government we must expect nothing to change unfortunately.

Definitely a new line towards Braintree, Witham and Chelmsford would be brilliant. The bus service for airport workers is absolutely terrible I have colleagues who rely on lifts or have to wait 2 hours for buses at night as their is no buses. And during the day the services are just about every hour and they are always full. Stupid really when buses towards Harlow are every 10 mins during the day.
I know the Airport wants to make staff travel via public transport better though.

With the new GA fleet coming they will actually be 10 cars I believe, but a similar length to the current 12 car sets.