Could klm not settle for a 6:30 dept?. Have the flight boarded early and aircraft lined up on the runway?

KLM & BA hopefully will move up the road. If they do then I will be able to use them.

Aye may well yet happen. As David Lloyd George said an Irish solution to an Irish problem. We all know never does not exist in aviation as an option

KLM has 3 main waves of European flights (2 morning, 1 evening), as well as a more spread out fourth wave in the afternoon.

The most popular wave for UK/Ireland flights is the third wave, with 17 out of 18 airports (including BHD) operating during this period. The first wave includes 14 airports, and the second wave includes 15 airports.

The early morning wave of KLM European flights depart the UK/Ireland between 05:55-06:30, and arrive in Amsterdam between 08:10-09:00. A 06:30 departure from BHD would arrive in AMS at 09:05. However, the final European arrivals in this wave are at 09:15, meaning a 06:30 departure from BHD would be feasible.

If however it is impossible for KLM to operate out of BHD during the early morning wave, it is completely feasible to add a second daily flight during the second morning wave, with departures between 09:00-10:00, and arrivals in AMS between 11:00-12:00. Several UK/Ireland airports have their first KLM departure during the second wave.

Operating during the second wave would allow for almost the same number of connections to European, Asian and North American destinations as if BHD had a first wave departure.

A very considered and sound assessment of a difficult situation. A second flight would seem to make sound commercial sense

I'm not sure what's difficult about it, the KLM morning flight from Dublin goes eastbound at 08:40 to catch the second wave. As has been pointed-out several times. And it doesn't even require an overnight stay.

Maybe the pre 6.30 flight requirement, if there is one, is an excuse to pull the service? Seems they could schedule another departure for another bank at Ams quite easily.

A320,that sounds like a good analysis,I.e. the detail about the waves, so it seems on the basis of that a non arguement to suggest that they want an 06:00 departure.

BHD will have a new DSA route with BE this summer, and that will comfortably cover the loss of the KEF route. US connections are comfortably catered for via LHR AMS, or some obviously drive down to Dublin.

Nonetheless, despite the investment talked about and recent sale, it seems hard to see , in the face of current incumbents in the market ,it seems hard to see any of the airlines at BFS moving over.

Ryanair now have some examples of a 738 with short field capabilities, so in the fullness of time it is conceivable that they could operate to BHD from UK airports, and they did have what appeared publically to be a great relationship with BHD. Clearly, the need to serve currently unserved routes to get an attractive deal, so BRS, STN and LTN would appear to be the only gaping opportinities, though all of that is speculation.

CAA December Stats
 

December was a rather good month for BHD, with the airport recording 1% growth. 182,563 passengers used the airport in December. However the rolling passenger figure is 2,558,428 which is down 4.0%.

Domestic Routes

Domestic routes generally performed well, with strong growth on most routes;

Aberdeen (+12%), Cardiff (+56%), East Midlands (+17%), Exeter (+6%), Inverness (+2%), Leeds/Bradford (+8%), Liverpool (+42%), London City (+49%), Manchester (+2%), Southampton (+6%)

Five routes experienced a fall in passenger numbers however;

Birmingham (-2%), Edinburgh (-3%), Glasgow (-21%), Heathrow (-4%), Isle of Man (-66%)

International Routes

Only two international routes operated during December;

AMS is continuing to perform well (+18%), with 3,145 passengers in December.

KEF continues to perform poorly with an average load of 24 pax, which gives an average load factor of just 33%.

Provisional 2017 Stats
 

Below I've calculated the total passenger numbers based on CAA Jan-Dec stats.

2017 total passenger figure is 2,558,428 (-4.0%).

Domestic Routes;

BHD handled 2,350,693 domestic passengers in 2017 (-0.5%). The majority of routes saw modest growth, though 6 routes saw a fall in passenger numbers.

1. *Heathrow - 686,687 (-0.3%)
2. Manchester - 287,251 (+7.8%)
3. Birmingham - 269,092 (+4.9%)
4. Edinburgh - 172,135 (+4.0%)
5. Leeds/Bradford - 166,872 (+4.9%)
6. *Glasgow - 163,541 (-3.7%)
7. East Midlands - 148,897 (+3.2%)
8. London City - 121,661 (+8.6%)
9. Southampton -118,840 (+1.3%)
10. Cardiff - 50,909 (+16.6%)
11. *Aberdeen - 42,261 (-0.5%)
12. Exeter - 36,249 (+11.4%)
13. *Liverpool - 35,170 (-64.1%)
14. Inverness - 33,097 (+9.3%)
15. *Isle of Man - 10,864 (-53.6%)
16. *Newcastle - 3,633 (-63.3%)
17. Newquay - 3,534 (+110.5%)

International Routes;

BHD handled 207,735 international passengers in 2017 (-19.3%). 2017 was a bad year for international traffic, with Brussels Airlines axing their service to Brussels, and Aer Lingus slashing capacity on all of their international routes from BHD.

1. *Malaga - 57,175 (-15.4%)
2. *Faro - 56,236 (-16.3%)
3. Amsterdam - 46,528 (+13.4%)
4. *Palma de Mallorca - 17,887 (-38.6%)
5. *Alicante - 13,982 (-51.2%)
6. Keflavik - 6,392 (NEW)
7. *Brussels - 3,856 (-80.5%)
8. Salzburg - 3,562 (+629.9%)
9. *Verona - 2,118 (-41.1%)

2018 will likely see a further decline in international passenger numbers, given that ALC, KEF and PMI have all been cancelled. It looks like 2017 will be the last year for a long time that BHD handles more than 200,000 international passengers, unless the airport can attract new international routes.

They need to pull some rabbit out of the hat to buck the trend. They would need a high frequency route to stem those kind of reductions. A London route perhaps or get KLM to stop arsing around and put a decent schedule in place.

From the start of the summer season, Eastern Airways will be operating at least two of Flybe's four daily flights to LCY. The seat map has 76 seats, meaning it's going to be operated by one of Eastern's E170s. The flight time will be reduced from 1hr35 to just 1hr10.

Wow that's great news. How long will they be operating there for. The embraer 170 beats the dash 8 anyday !!!

Eastern operate the route almost every day until mid July, and then on select days until the end of October. The winter schedule hasn't yet been released, so I don't know if this is a long term move.

Belfast City Airport - Routes Europe Marketing Awards 2018

Am I living in some kind of parallel universe or what is going on? Nominated for doing what exactly?:confused:

"Voted for by airlines, the awards recognise the route development work carried out by airports across Europe"

It's baffling that BHD have been nominated for this award three times in recent years, given that just two airlines that have commenced operations from the airport over the last decade have remained, while 10 airlines have axed BHD from their route network. Clearly BHD's marketing strategy is not working, as there have simply been too many key routes and airlines lost after just 1 year of operation.

What I must have over mrdicated...an award for what exactly. Surely in jest!! BHD really needs some additional capacity. Prob too late now for S18

BE have put on sale winter 18/19. No major cutback on MAN, on an odd few weeks there is one less rotation on some midweek days but many weeks its 7x daily. NCL showing 2x daily but no fares loaded currently. No obvious other major changes.

Flybe are increasing the frequency on BHD-LCY from May, adding 12 extra weekly flights (x35 weekly in total). There'll be an extra morning and evening service during weekdays (x6 daily), and an extra service on Saturday and Sunday.

https://www.irishnews.com/business/2...lfast-1273864/

Looks like the new BHD-LCY rotation comes at the expense of 6x BHD-LBA rotations. (Reduced from 29x to 23x weekly)