Well, if Jet Airways needed to offload a slot at short notice because of their financial problems (whether leased or sold), I could see this as being the cheapest form of "slot sitting" possible at short notice. But (because of the late notice) it smells much more to me like a short-term babysitting exercise than a long-term LHR-IOM route (sorry!).

Question is if these Cobalt (for GCI) and Jet Airways (IOM) slots will be available in winter as well? Or do new routes get preferential treatment when it comes to allocating unused slots? If not, quite surprising that BE has been able to snap up the slots for both routes, given that there will be long queue of airlines waiting for slots.

Btw, I am wondering if any serivces from IOM or GCI are sacrificed for the new LHR routes? Or is there so much slack in the schedules of the IOM/GCI based aicraft that BE was able to throw in an additional rotation to LHR?

Ok, so here are some of the elements.

• Jet Airways is stopping 9W115/116 (DEL-LHR) from the start of the summer season, i.e. Sunday March 31.
• Business Traveller magazine says "it is believed the slots for 9W115/116 were owned by Delta/Virgin Atlantic."
• But ACL's slot trades website lists a slot transfer from Jet Airways to Delta, filed on 26 March. The actual slot swap request form is below. It seems that the slot is being transferred to Delta for a DTW (Detroit) flight... but on a 78-seater Q400 :hmm: That'd be a long flight.:cool:

So the best theory I have is that Delta got the slots from Jet Airways last week (perhaps at shorter notice than expected given Jet's worsening financial troubles - or if they are originally Delta slots, perhaps Delta called them back rather than taking the risk of losing them due to Jet Airways failing and the slots not being operated under the 80/20 rule and being caught up in some sort of bankruptcy proceeding) and then Delta called in flybe to babysit them for the summer season (either because Delta didn't have a spare aircraft at short notice, or more likely because a long-haul flight typically needs many months of forward bookings to have a chance of profitability).

The slots need to be operated 80% of the time to keep them (80/20 rule).

The summer season is about 7 months (let's say 210 days) so 80% is 168 days.

They start the babysitting on 21 April because that makes approximately 189 days (90% of 210) so leaves a bit of leeway (10%) for other cancellations during the rest of the season, while also not flying with ~0% load factors for the first couple of weeks.

Other theories?

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....aae5128ba8.png

I have not looked at the IOM-Man service closely but they did announce the dropping of the 3rd Lpl daily
rotation a couple of weeks ago. Coincidence?

I've been told the aircraft routes BHX-GCI-LHR-GCI-BHX

Re Cyrano's fascinating slot swap document. .
One wonders why it's worth having all those columns if the supplementary data is rubbish - DH4s to DTW etc. Would be far more entertaining to request a summary of what's actually happening (and for the edification of industry observers, the dosh changing hands if applicable). Still, if 9W really can turn a 77W in 5 mins they'll soon be back into mega profit!
I know this example may not involve cash, but does ACL make a processing charge (like stamp duty on a house or the Avios transfer fee)? Even a small percentage of recent transactions would soon add up...

Seriously. A 6 sector day for a crew is usually a long day. Especially if disrupted on a W pattern.

6 sectors is tough, particularly when the weather is poor, as it can be around the islands. 6 sectors will shorten the allowed duty day and coupled with bad weather could lead to crewing problems

The kids of today, no stamina. 6 sectors a day is great fun!

On that journey it would be approx a 9 hour from clocking on to clocking out. From memory I think a 6 sector day starting at a reasonable hour is 11 hours max (I'm sure someone will correct me if I've made an error!)

GCI - LHR
As has been discussed, the new GCI-LHR route will be operated by a BHX based DH8D. This aircraft will operate 6x sectors: BHX-JER-GCI-LHR-GCI-JER-BHX.
These 6x sectors will take just under 9 hours from blocks off in BHX at 12:15 to blocks on in BHX at 20:50 - (this info is for a Monday in April).
There will be 25 minutes turnarounds in GCI and JER and 1hr 35 scheduled on the ground in LHR.

Heres a typical schedule:

dep BHX 12:15
arr JER 13:25 // dep JER 13:50
arr GCI 14:15 // dep GCI 14:40
arr LHR 15:45 // dep LHR 17:20
arr GCI 18:25 // dep GCI 18:50
arr JER 19:15 // dep JER 19:40
arr BHX 20:50

That is cutting it quite fine given the factors involved with channel islands fog and LHR congestion. With a one hour report and 15 minutes after duty to factor in, it doesn't leave that much wiggle room.

Surprised they aren't selling a JER-GCI-LHR service too.

As the route is heavily subsidised by the Bailiwick of Guernsey, maybe the cash cow has not entertained the idea of getting milked by Jersey punters?

Not long after the GCI-LHR announcement, the Jersey Evening Post ran an article in which Flybe said they would be opening bookings for JER-GCI-LHR as a through booking about 10 days after the GCI-LHR went on sale so it was on the cards but maybe Guernsey States managed to close that down.

Poor start to the summer Schedule from DSA. 3 days in and more than half the flights cancelled.
No 2nd aircraft has been brought in, hence the cancellations. Expecting to see a cull of routes soon.

Wrong again TimmyW. Where do you get your information from? A second aircraft HAS actually been "brought in" to DSA and operated a full timetabled schedule yesterday.

What is infact happening is an operation-wide crew shortage. Both flight crew and cabin crew. I would probably go to say they will soon be in crisis mode if not already. Flybe however only have themselves to blame. No solid reassurance for their employees jobs before and now after the consortium take-over. This coupled with an extremely late winter schedule release - which would have reassured employees of future plans, then i can fully understand why so many have left or jumped ship to other airlines. I'm also not aware of any recruitment campaigns to make up for these losses, so i can't see the crewing issues ending any time soon.

The second aircraft went back out to Birmingham yesterday.

I can assure you it did not. Oh dear TimmyW. I think you will find the plane will actually still be parked up at DSA after arriving back from AMS yesterday evening.

Todays BHD has been cancelled. Yet again due to a network wide crewing crisis.

I can assure you, it did.

Show me evidence other than the one i'm physically seeing right now and then i'll never believe my eye sight again.

So you've driven there just to check?

100% guarantee there are two based E175s at DSA. I work there so i should know :ugh:

Not sure why someone would spend time on a forum lying - very sad :{

Best to ignore Timmy

not very good start
 

Meanwhile over at NQY also not a good look - First day of LHR-NQY Ops - last evenings goes tech at 8pm and folk bussed up to LHR - 6 hours - nice (not)

I would have preferred they put me on the GWR sleeper

My daughter flew to EMA from JER on Friday for a visit. Her return Monday flight was cancelled, so she booked today. Three hours before departure that was cancelled for "technical reasons". Having read the above posts I suppose it is crew shortages causing the cancellations.

Flymaybe are the worst airline I've ever flown on and they continue to plumb the depths of customer service. What a shambles they are cancelling flights on consecutive days so my daughter can't get to work. She says she will use easyJet to Liverpool next time. Oh how I wish easyJet had remained at EMA, they are so much better than Flybe.

TimmyW is DSA's naysayer. He is ignored on the EGCN thread hence turning up here with his usual inaccurate information.

Still these cancellations are vexing. I need to book for Dublin next week, and was planning to return to Manchester with a different airline. A cancellation would murder that plan. Choices are to use a different airport, or double the risk and book both ways with Flybe and an overnight stop....

There are two cancellations out of EDI tomorrow as well. Early SOU flight and the 10.30 BHX.

Cancellations
 

Add BHX-BHD again, BHX-BOD BHX-ABZ plus the EDI mentioned above, then today BHX - BHD and BHX- GLA,, BHX -NQY yesterday and so it goes on, a sorry state of affairs.

Just for balance add Newcastle - Southampton, Belfast City to East Mids. Leeds, Glasgow and Aberdeen and Glasgow - East Mids - well into double figures..

Mind you al from an airline that operates a 175 on short sectors such as MAN-NQY and MAN - SOU but a Dash on BHX-STR or TXL says it all really and I do know why this is the case but I thought the new owners might have other ideas.

Pete

Flybe Winter 2019/20
 

The Flybe winter schedule is expected to be released tomorrow (3rd April). I'm expecting to see big changes and not the good kind either...

Cazza was that meant to read not the good kind ?

STR
 

78 seats on a Dash and 88 on 175 is not going to make much difference and it is more the way these routes are financed which dictate where the 175 jets go if you catch my drift. I was going to do a fare comparison but came unstuck as I couldn't get any MAN-NQY fares up for several weeks (May on flybe) - I assume a glitch as the service operated today?

Pete