Manchester is growing but Stansted ic cut

I'm shocked that they are getting rid of one of the coolest callsigns flying. What's even the point if it's not something the public going to see?

"Kestrel" goes right back to the start and the MD 83 way before MYT. Happy days.

Have heard Kestrel has caused confusion on the leased aircraft.

Was Thomas Cook not the call sign of TC Belgium ?

It was. I'm guessing that's the most probable reason why they're changing it.

Does anyone know what seating config the leased TS A330's will be in? Will they be in TS's standard or the TCX standard? As they are doing l/h flying from Germany I doubt they will go all economy like the leased Air Tanker frames.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....635e9947b3.jpg

Taken from the website when doing a dummy booking from FRA-VRA or FRA-PUJ

Premium has only 4 seats:

Is C-GJDA the 1st A330 to arrive as this has just landed at Manchester in an all white scheme with a non standard flight number

Ian

G-NIKO and G-TCDA are now in the full grey sunny heart livery.

As far as I am aware that just leaves G-CHTZ in the old blue scheme and the hybrid ex MON a/c, all of which I assume will be repainted over the winter?

G-TCDB too.

Please can someone explain the logic to me of TCX A321 fleet this winter?

They've leased a number of their own (that they had from new, sharkleted) frames to Transat. This has obviously left them short as they have two Avion frames on lease over the winter. So to me this raises a couple of questions.

Is the deal from transat that good they were willing to leave themselves short?
Are the avion frames that cheap to lease its more cost effective to do so?
Are the TCX fleet planners that poor that they didn't realise they were leaving themselves short?

Remember this deal with Air Transat is a 2 way deal and lasts for about 7 years so I would guess that it is a good deal

Yes - that's just what it's like at a major airline - sometimes they have some many planes, so many flights they just forget or run out of fingers to count on.... :ugh:

I think the leasing out and in makes sense myself. The aircraft going to Canada for the winter are A321s which are larger than the A320S being leased in.
Europe needs fewer seats in the winter months. I also expect the leased in A320s are not that expensive to operate and can be returned whenever. The 7 year
deal with Transat is lucrative because it keeps aircraft and crews busy in the winter with costs covered plus a bit of profit.

My point was regarding the 2/3 Avion aircraft that per Jethros are staying all winter.

So why lease a shed load of your own A321's to TS for the winter and then need to keep 2 Avion frames for the winter? That's why I asked if the TS deal was that good that they were willing to leave themselves short of their own a/c or are the Avion frames that cheap to lease, because to me it seems a bit of a long way round to do it, lease your own a/c out and lease someone else's in.

To be fair, i think you've answered your own question. There's a lot more to these deals than "just aircraft". Things in aviation never look simple and straight forward (nor rarely are either), but there's almost always a reason of why its done that way from a financial point of view.