Reported by the BBC that bmi went under owing £38m, and that Bristol Airport are a creditor. (Apparently £3.8m was also due in EU261 compensation for passengers, which does tend to support my view that they were overstretched and messing up too often).

I would guess AIL won't be welcome back at BRS until the creditor situation is resolved.

Flight info system not updating on the website according to the airport's official Twitter account


Did they forget to upgrade the webhosting from Windows Vista as well?

There still appears to be a fallout from the cyber attack last September. The arrivals and departures website pages are never fully to be relied upon, as we've discussed in some detail in recent months on another aviation website to which I post, although I've been told that particular problem is unrelated.

Mayfly remains unpublished online and the airport website Facts and Figures section that publishes monthly passenger numbers and associated aircraft movements remains stuck at last December.

Until the most recent CAA stats (for March) the airport has consistently been one of the last to be pubished each month for the past six months, and March's CAA BRS passenger stats are obviously incomplete in a number of areas.

Changing subject, the fourth based TUI aircraft has arrived this morning and it's a B 757-200, the others being three B 737-800s and a part-based (five days per week) B 787-8 which is operating both long-haul and short-haul.

This morning's first group of TUI departures were:
0600 Dubrovnik B 787-8
0600 Ibiza B 737-800
0600 Thessaloniki B 737-800
0720 Kefalonia B 757-200
0730 Corfu B 737-800

With the departure of the airport's two TUI B 757s intended to be from this summer, it's good to see a 757 for at least part of another summer. I'm told (but cannot confirm) that the BRS 757 will be capped at the level of the 737-800 passenger numbers presumably to build in flexibility around the fleeet with the MAX problems still casting a shadow.

Could be down to the handlers dealing with the first wave of departures.

BRS-BRU
 

As far back as last November the Brussels Airlines booking engine showed AR8 (RJ85) as the aircraft type on the route from 31 March this year with Brussels Airlines flight numbers. At the time flybmi (bmi regional) was operating the route as a code share with Brussels Airlines, using the former's ER4s with BM flight numbers, although prior to that BM had flown the route for Brussels Airlines using the latter's flight numbers.

The future change had been noted by BRS-watchers last November and the assumption was that the aircraft would be CityJet RJ85s. The frequency was the same as the flybmi service then operating. As far as I'm aware nothing was ever officially announced about the change, either by the airline or the airports involved.

This was three months before flybmi suddenly ceased operations in mid-February this year.

Shortly after flybmi's cessation as an airline Brussels Airlines' BRS-BRU booking engine removed the April flights but showed a new commencement date of 1 May. That was later altered to show that there was no flight availability until 1 September which is still the situation and has been for the past couple of months. The aircraft type is still shown as AR8 and the frequency similar to flybmi's.

BRS-BRU
 

The Brussels Airlines booking engine has been updated in recent days.

It's still showing the resumption of the BRS-BRU route on 1 September but only at single daily (no Saturdays) using CRJ-900 aircraft.

Towards the end of October the aircraft type is switched to ARJ85 and from the first week in November the service becomes 2 x daily M-F and single daily on Sundays, all with ARJ85s.

Limping back into existence, but not back to 3x M-F, and 1x SS. And I wonder who's going to be providing the equipment - CRJ900?!?

LH to start MUC-NCL
 

Related to the previous msg about BRU, LH have announced they're starting a 1x M-Sa MUC-NCL. It's a single middle-of-the-day ("what are we going to do with their aircraft") rotation using an A319.
At this point it feels a bit like BRS either aren't trying to (or not succeeding in) getting airlines in to operate business routes.

It does seem odd to me that they don't seem to be attracting at least daily flights on routes like Munich. It makes me wonder if they are hoping Easyjet will takeover the route and any transfer pax will use the likes of KLM.

Miaaaow! the middle of the day flight links in to LH's long haul morning arrivals and the late afternoon long haul departures as well as plenty of European destinations. First LH arrivals tomorrow morning are Mexico City, Hong Kong, Delhi, Shanghai, Mumbai, Singapore

For the first time ever (I think?) BRS handled more passengers in the month than BHX.

This is quite an achievement and shows the massive catchment area available at BRS.

April 2019 saw 44% year on year growth to over 1,013,000 beating BHX by 9,000 pax.

2 x daily ARJ85s will provide more seats than the previous 3 x daily E145s but obviously not the flexibility for passengers in terms of frequency.

Brussels Airlines' website booking engine shows CityJet operating the CRJ900 for them on the BRS-BRU from September. When the route switches to the ARJ85 in the autumn there is no indication as to the carrier, although prior to the recent web booking engine revamp it too was shown as CityJet.

It may only be 2x daily, but at least the timings are sensible for business travellers.

The schedule from the 4th November 2019 is:
Mo - Fr
BRS-BRU 0605-0820
BRU-BRS 1640-1650
BRS-BRU 1730-1945
BRU-BRS 2120-2135

Su
BRS-BRU 1730-1945
BRU-BRS 2120-2135

All flights are operated on RJ85 (95 seats)

*It's worth noting that Brussels Airlines operates 3x daily flights from BHX. The timings on the morning and evening flights are nearly identical to Bristols, however there is an additional flight Mo-Fr at 10am out of BRU, and a 11am departure out of BHX. Of course, these additional weekday flights would be another positive step, but at least BRS is getting the important morning and evening flights and not stuck with useless timings for business, leisure and of course connecting passengers.

July 2019
From the beginning of July, the easyJet Bristol base will increase to 17x aircraft - 7x A319s and 10x A320s.
This is an increase of 2x aircraft in comparison to July 2018 - an increase of 1x A319 and 1x A320.

July 2018 had 349/350x departures per week - operating to 58 destinations
July 2019 will have 386x departures per week - operating to 65 destinations

The increase of 37x departures each week are over the following routes:
EDI (+1x per week),
GLA (+2),
BFS (+3),
PMI (+2),
CDG (+7),
SXF (+1),
BOD (+2),
SVQ (+1),
DBV (+1),
ZTH (+1),

plus 7x new routes:
MXP (4x weekly),
LYS (2x weekly),
LCA (2x weekly),
RHO (2x weekly),
MPL (2x weekly),
BDS (2x weekly),
BIQ (2x weekly),

Below are the weekly route frequencies in July and the peak-Summer period from BRS.

25x weekly - EDI
21x weekly - GLA
20x weekly - BFS
19x weekly - PMI
16x weekly - AGP, FAO
14x weekly - ALC, BCN,CDG, NCL
12x weekly - AMS
10x weekly - GVA, NCE
7x weekly - BOD, FCO, INV, MAD, PSA, RMU, TLS
6x weekly - PRG, SXF
5x weekly - LIS, SPU, VCE
4x weekly - BSL, IBZ, KRK, MAH, MXP
3x weekly - BIO, BJV, CFU, CPH, DBV, DLM, GIB, MRS, NAP, NTE, OLB, OPO, PFO, SVQ, TFS
2x weekly - ACE, ARN, ATH, BDS, BIQ, CTA, EFL, FNC, FUE, GOA, HER, IOM, LCA, LRH, LYS, MPL, PUY, RHO, VIE, ZTH

*Increase
*New Route

So 17 during peak summer season and afterwards back to 16 or 15 a/c?

It's currently 16 with number 17 arriving at the beginning of July.

In the past easyJet has tended to add an extra aircraft at BRS for peak summer which then returns the following summer with another arriving for peak summer that year, and so on. In that way the base has gradually built up over the years.