David Lees I believe is ex BAA from years gone by as is Janis Kong, the interim CEO. Maybe they know each other from the past.

Fair to say this guy hasn't exactly set the world on fire at SOU (plenty of mostly negative opinion over on the SOU thread). General view seems to be that he has presided over years of under-investment and missed opportunities.

Janis Kong is the chairman of Bristol Airport in normal times albeit she is standing in as interim CEO at present. Presumably she had some input in the search for a new CEO.

CAA stats show that BRS handled 8,234,086 terminal passengers in the year, up 8.3% on 2016.

2018 is expected to see a smaller increase both in numbers and in percentage terms than recent years but should still take the airport well past 8.5 mppa.

Most of the growth will be concentrated on easyJet (15 based aircraft with a 16th for peak summer - was 14 in summer 2017); TUI (2 x B757s and 2 x B738s based - an increase of one B738 over summer 2017); Thomas Cook (2 x A321s and 1 x A320 based, an increase of 1 x A320 over summer 2017).

Ryanair has today announced a new route for next winter - Seville at 2 x weekly. They operated this route in summer 2010 and summer 2011. A few weeks ago easyJet also announced they would be flying to Seville at 2 x weekly from 2 June but their announcement spoke only of a summer route.

Even with the Airbus connection between Bristol and Seville two airlines on the route might be too much.

Ryanair also announced today that their Valencia route would continue through next winter at 2 x weekly. Previously it was summer-only and was in fact switched to Castellon in 2015 but returns to Valencia next month.

Bristol (BRS) > Shannon (SNN) to return. Starts 17th May this year with Ryanair (FR) at twice weekly Monday & Thursday.

https://corporate.ryanair.com/news/r...ool/?market=ie

Shannon...another pointless service going to fail. its in the middle of nowhere just like Knock

Yet Knock continues to be operated 3x weekly during the summer.

And it has for many many years too. Shannon was one of bristols original Ryanair routes before we had a base. It was very popular and was only dropped following a dispute between Shannon and Ryanair. I'm sure it will be very successful.

NOC-BRS has been operating every summer season since 2008 - some years 3 x weekly, others 4 x weekly.

Ryanair operated SNN-BRS from late 2005 until 2009 before ceasing it for the reasons Marko points out.

In its four full years of service from 2006 Ryanair's SNN-BRS carried 97,000, 97,000, 85,000 and 81,000 passengers respectively - courtesy of CAA stats. I imagine these passengers didn't consider the route to be pointless.

Aren’t most airports in ‘the middle of nowhere’.

But that was 2006.....that was the celtic tiger. alot changes in 12 years. Ryanair shouldve utilized the aircraft to go to Frankfurt not some place in the back end of ireland with 10 flights a day

Was always a very successful route, culled by Aer Lingus back in 2015 when Ryanair forced them to close their base.

Shannon, by the way is basically Limerick City airport, just not by name (it's closer to Limerick than Aldergrove is to Belfast) and also very near Galway. I'm sure the reason for the begrudging is all in your username ;)

You just described Cardiff's one and only long haul route.

Celtic Tiger
 

You mentioned Knock. BRS-NOC was a year-round route, initially at 4 x weekly then 3 x weekly, from the inception of FR's BRS base in the winter of 2007/2008. Prior to that the airline operated Dublin, Shannon and Girona from BRS using aircraft from other bases.

In summer 2011 BRS-NOC became a summer-only route as experience showed that there was insufficient demand in winter, and has remained summer-only ever since. The annual loads have been fairly consistent since 2011- see below. We don't know the yields of course but Ryanair has maintained the route for all this time. It has dropped some routes at BRS in the past with consistent monthly load factors of over 90%, so it can only be presumed the airline is happy with BRS-NOC.

These are the annual passenger figures from 2008 until 2017 in thousands:
41, 33, 30, 26, 29, 28, 22, 28, 29, 27.

In 2006 BRS-DUB handled 363,000 passengers. This dropped to a low of 268,000 in 2010 mainly because of the major recession, but since then has climbed steadily to just under 430,00 in 2017.

These figures suggest there has been no noticeable falling off in passenger demand between BRS and the Republic of Ireland since the days of the Celtic Tiger. It remains to be seen if BRS-SNN is the odd one out. History suggests it won't be but only time will tell of course.

Addendum

I forgot to mention BRS-ORK (Aer Lingus Regional in its various coats). In 2006 the Cork route handled just under 30,000 passengers but has climbed steadily ever since to reach over 43,000 in 2017. Further evidence to suggest that loads between Lulsgate and the Republic of Ireland have not been adversely affected by any diminishment of the Celtic Tiger. All above passenger stats courtesy of CAA.

Cardiff to Doha , Brigetown and montenegro bay have great potential

MerchantVenturer

ok but whats special about shannon, knock ect ect? nothing. even cardiff to cork has bad loads. these places are rubbish. bit like skegness

cwlwatcher

Of course they do. Just as Shannon would have great potential, had it been added from Cardiff and not Bristol?
The level of fantasy centred around CWL is laughable. If you keep telling yourself that CWL is a major long haul hub you might actually start to believe it.

While those of us living on planet earth can see Qatar are reducing Cardiff's one and only long haul route before it has ever started.

Ps, let us all know how you get on in Montenegro Bay. I've heard great things.

Cardiff has lots of potential for long haul route. your new yorks, bostons ect. look at shannon they have LOADS. ive had this argument before. (yes i am kind of anti irish) :d

Bristol to Reykavick failed...

But back to the original argument..frankfurt or munich wouldve been better for brs than snn

And as has been pointed out to you before, Shannon and Cardiff are two completely different markets. If you fail to accept that then it proves you are the delusional fantasist that that you appear to be.

Anyway, let's get back to discussing Bristol. Take the fantasy chat back to the CWL thread.

Shannon may be in the middle of nowhere but you can pre-clear there for the USA - much faster than going to LHR or Brium and standing in a line for 2 hours on arrival stateside

It failed with WOW but not with easyJet which continues to operate the route. WOW’s problem was was two fold:

First, they were competing with easyJet on point to point where there is probably not a big enough market for two airlines to Keflavik. easyJet was always likely to come out top on point to point because of its prominence in the UK.

Second, WOW's transatlantic connectivity via Keflavik was often found to be no cheaper than using EIR or KLM via DUB or AMS from BRS when all the add-ons were taken into account. Furthermore, they were particularly unreliable at BRS with many delays of up to eight hours or more leading to missed connections at KEF.

It’s not as straightforward as that from the BRS perspective and certainly not from the point of view of many passengers. bmi regional operates BRS-FRA 3 x daily and BRS-MUC 2 x daily. Both routes are Lufthansa code shares and are well patronised.

If Ryanair began a BRS-FRA or BRS-MUC route (Ryanair only operates from Dublin to Munich so a BRS route would be highly unlikely) or both, they might not even be daily and would only be point to point. It would undoubtedly affect bmir's routes to these German cities from BRS as the point to point element would almost certainly be reduced. This might lead to a reduction of the bmir schedule or at worst the axing of the route or routes.

As I mentioned in an earlier post the DUB, ORK and NOC routes are well used from BRS and there is no reason to believe that SNN will not enjoy similar patronage. You might not think the provincial Irish routes are worth much and of course you are entitled to that opinion. Clearly it’s not shared by the airlines or the many passengers or they would not be using these services.

So far new routes this year include Shannon , cologne , Gothenburg , genoa , Valencia , seville , enfidha ,Hurghada and punta Cana with Montego Bay for April next year plus extra flights from to the likes of Bilbao , Malaga , nice , Pisa , Copenhagen and many more. Not bad is it ?

And therein lies the rub, it's miles away from the nonsense of modern life. Lovely part of the world.

I'm assuming you meant MONTEGO BAY in Jamaica rather than MONTENEGRO BAY as in the country which hasn't a bay of that name.

I think that Cancun would probably work better from Cardiff than MONTEGO BAY which has seen a decline in bookings over the last year and especially regarding the recent events shown on TV with troops on the streets of MONTEGO Bay, the reputation of Jamaica being a relaxing and prestigious long haul destination is slowly diminishing as their are other countries offering the same but in a more safer environment.

New scheduled routes from BRS for Winter 17 onwards

Cologne - 4x weekly, RYR - Started November 17
Stockholm - 2x weekly, EZY - Started November 17
Athens - 2x weekly, EZY - Started November 17

Gothenburg - 2x weekly, BMR - Started January 18

Shannon - 2x weekly, RYR - Starts May 18
Genoa - 2x weekly, EZY - Starts June 18
Seville - 2x weekly, EZY - Starts June 18

Seville - 2x weekly, RYR - Starts November 18


New regular charter flights from BRS for Winter 17 onwards

Hurghada - 1x weekly, TUI - Starts March 18 (Will also be new route for TCX)
Punta Cana - 1x weekly, TUI - Starts April 18 (New Route for BRS)

Burgas - 1x weekly, TCX - Starts May 18 (Currently served by BH Air and TUI)
Enfidha - 1x weekly, TUI - Starts May 18 (New route this year)
Girona - 1x weekly, TCX - Starts May 18 (Currently served by Ryanair and TUI)
Hurghada - 1x weekly, TCX - Starts May 18 (Will also be new route for TUI)
Kos - 1x weekly, TCX - Starts May 18 (Currently served by TUI)
Paphos - 1x weekly, TCX - Starts May 18 (Currently served by easyJet and TUI)
Preveza - 1x weekly, TCX - Starts May 18 (New Route for BRS)
Skiathos - 1x weekly, TUI - Starts May 18 (Currently served by TCX)
Verona - 1x weekly, TUI (operated by NEOS) - Starts May 18 (New route this year)

Marrakesh - 1x weekly, TUI - Starts November 18 (New route this year)
Keflavik - 2x weekly, TUI - Starts November 18 (Currently served by EZY)

Thanks for the list, Severn. Having said that WOW had pulled out of Keflavik partly because there was not enough room for two point to point airlines on the route I'd forgotten that TUI is to start its own service next winter. Presumably easyJet will continue next winter too.

SNN is a resumption and Seville isnt even bookable, not huge tbh

Seville is bookable with easyJet. It's not bookable with Ryanair yet because it doesn't begin until the winter and nothing from BRS is bookable yet for that season. Ryanair's TFS route from CWL is not yet bookable for next winter either.

Sevilla is bookable just done some random dates in July.

Shannon axed from october knock going year around

I'm sure it's been axed a week after it's been announced ;)

It's seasonal.

Yes Shannon is released as a summer route. Knock returns as a year round service.

Are you still in school with that childish attitude or just ignorant with your lack of knowledge about the west of Ireland & it’s inbound US tourism? & hard luck at the weekend, you tried hard but ultimately weren’t good enough ;)

Ryanair Winter 2018-2019
 

Yet to be officially announced but the Ryanair booking engine shows four new routes for next winter:

Limoges 2 x weekly - has been summer only for much of the past decade
Valencia 2 x weekly - previously summer only and was switched to Castellon in 2015, but returns to Valencia for summer 2018
Seville 2 x weekly - new route, previously operated in summer 2010 and 2011
Knock 3 x weekly - was year-round until 2011 but summer-only since then

In addition Alicante increases from 5 x weekly in winter 17/18 to 6 x weekly and Venice MP increases from 4 x weekly in winter 17/18 to daily (if easyJet maintains its Venice MP schedule of winter 17/18 there will be 14 flights per week across both airlines in winter 18/19 which might be a touch ambitious).

On the debit side Arrecife reduces to 3 x weekly in winter 18/19 from 4 x weekly in winter 17/18.

The above addtions are all bookable for winter 18/19 except Limoges and Valencia that currently show booking availability only until 17 December.

If all of the above is confirmed winter 18/19 will see 24 routes and 88 weekly rotations.This would be a continuation of Ryanair's winter growth at BRS over recent years with winter 15/16 operating 15 routes and 55 weekly rotations; winter 16/17 19 routes and 69 weekly rotations; winter 17/18 20 routes and 76 weekly rotations.

The summer offering has seen very modest growth over the same period in terms of the number of flights, with one or two routes disappearing to be replaced by others.

My feelings exactly after previously reading his post!

Some posters really show their immaturity don't they :-)

Snow
 

52 of the airport's scheduled 79 departures today were cancelled and 53 of the 79 arrivals were also cancelled (Thursday).

Nothing departed after about 1400 following airlines' operational decisions but inbounds continued to land until around 1800. A TUI B757 from Arrecife due in at 1845 diverted to MAN after circing overhead BRS for about 40 minutes.

Of tomorrow's 85 scheduled departures 34 have already been cancelled.

Snow
 

The BRS runway re-opened around 1200 today (Friday). However, most of today's 85 departures and 85 arrivals have been cancelled by the airlines as a precautiionary measure.

A few have operated or are not yet shown as cancelled:

Ryanair from to Cologne and Alicante operating - both inbounds already arrived
Thomas Cook to Tenerife operating - has departed
TUI to Tenerife showing 'checkin'
bmi regional to Munich, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Brussels and Aberdeen showing 'checkin' (these are the afternoon departures; the earlier rotations on these routes and other bmi regional routes were cancelled)
Blue Islands/Flybe to Jersey showing 'checkin'

Surrounding roads are still difficult and all bus services to and from the airport have been taken off the road by their operators because of road conditions.

Addendum

bmi regional flights to FRA, MUC and DUS now cancelled as is the Blue Islands/Flybe flight to JER. The TUI to TFS is showing 'final boarding' so it looks as though it will operate.

Good job
 

Great job by the airport for keeping the runway open to allow the flights which are operating to operate safely.

Some airports are closed until 6am tomorrow at the earliest.