It's not the curse of APD, it's the fact that Dublin is a much bigger airport with a much larger market than Belfast. Honestly I'm surprised that it took KLM and Icelandair this long before commencing flights to Europe's 15th largest airport.

If anything BHD should be congratulated for being the first airport on the island of Ireland to have KLM, Icelandair and even Brussels Airlines (albeit with less success) commencing operations.

Bad News

BA has cancelled flights out of the City for the summer schedule.

So much for the claim that the previous cancellations were due to poor load factors over the winter. (untrue in any case).

We are now 6 flights a day down to LHR/LGW. This is reflected in already high prices for the winter holiday period

CaptJ: do you have a source for this?

Not good news!
Can another airline use these LHR slots or just BA

London Heathrow changes - Summer 2018

In response to commercial feedback and demand, British Airways have announced a number of changes to our schedule for Summer 2018. The changes will be processed on Thursday 05th October and Friday 06th October.

• New route from London Heathrow (LHR) to Almeria (LEI) in Spain
• Suspension of routes from London Heathrow (LHR) to Kos (KGS), Montpellier (MPL) and Biarritz (BIQ)
• Increase in frequency from London Heathrow (LHR) to Inverness (INV) and Basel (BSL)
• Reduction in frequency from London Heathrow (LHR) to Belfast (BHD), Edinburgh (EDI), Glasgow (GLA) and Istanbul (IST)
• Day of week change from London Heathrow (LHR) to Tallin (TLL)
• Reduction of season length, day of week change & increase of frequency from London Heathrow (LHR) to Nantes (NTS)

New route to Almeria
Flight Number Route Timings Days of week Commences
BA 420 LHR – LEI 13:15 – 17:00 TUE, SAT 27 MAR 2018
BA 421 LEI – LHR 17:50 – 19:35 TUE, SAT 27 MAR 2018

Route Suspensions
• Kos and Montpellier will be suspended from 30th September 2017
• Biarritz will be suspended from 24th September 2017

Frequency increase and decrease
• Increase INV frequency from 7 to 10 per week
• Increase BSL frequency from 25 to 26 per week
• Reduce BHD frequency from 38 to 31 per week
• Reduce EDI frequency from 76 to 74 per week
• Reduce GLA frequency from 67 to 66 per week
• Reduce IST frequency from 21 to 14 per week

Day of week change to Tallin (from Saturday to Friday)
Flight Number Route Timings New day of week Commences
BA 876 LHR – TLL 15:45 – 20:35 FRI 27 MAR 2018
BA 877 TLL – LHR 21:25 – 22:30 FRI 27 MAR 2018

New schedule for Nantes
Flight Number Route Timings Day of week Commences
BA 386 LHR – NTE 13:05 – 15:25 WED 03 JUL 2018
BA 387 NTE – LHR 16:10 – 16:25 WED 03 JUL 2018
BA 386 LHR – NTE 13:20 – 15:45 TUE, FRI 03 JUL 2018
BA 387 NTE – LHR 16:30 – 16:45 TUE. FRI 03 JUL 2018
BA 386 LHR – NTE 13:30 – 15:50 SUN 03 JUL 2018
BA287 NTE – LHR 16:40 – 16:55 SUN 03 JUL 2018

Advice for agents
Please refer to Standard Customer Guidelines for Flight cancellations

Regards,
British Airways

Yes, the email and text of the cancellation of my connecting flight returning from Las Vegas.
Getting fed up with this. Third time this year. I would have been better off connecting through Dublin. I'll now be sitting in T5 for longer than the duration of the coach ride back to Belfast.

Is it confirmed that Aer Lingus is dropping Alicante and Palma for S18?

Not due to return, lot of hastle involved running then.

Thanks EI-A330-300! Not looking good for BHD with EIN dropping ALC & PMI and BA reducing LHR service! Hopefully BHD will have some good news soon.

From BT
Emergency crews attend Belfast City Airport after plane returns after take off - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

As a passenger, I am always amazed to learn of routes like Palma not doing well. Of course, the explanation must be that the market is saturated, yields etc. No route is sacred I suppose.

Doing well and making a profit isn't good enough for EI, they will place the aircraft where they get the biggest return simply because they have not really expanded their short haul fleet in a long time just maximize profit.

The change of crew is also a pain when doing such route planning.

I thought VY were taking over the EI sun routes next year?

Where did you get the idea that VY were EI sun routes?

Alteagod,

VY for Aer Lingus , outrageous nonsense. Did you just make that up?

Why would it be outrageous nonense? They are both IAG airlines and Vueling has a base in Malaga so would be a good candidate to take that over if EI doesn't want to operate it anymore.

Jerry123,

Where did the suggestion of VY come from?

Who said EI doesn't want to opetate it?

The poster you replied to.

EI may not be able to in a couple of years. They will be an EU airline, with Brexit coming up it may well be easier for IAG to have VY to operate routes from Spain and possibly Portugal to Northern Ireland. Unless EI is willing to do it using W patterns from the continent.

Yes a couple of sunshine routes out of BHD is right up there in the IAG priority list!

More like a contractual liability