Bournemouth-4
 

A small increase, but an increase!

Bournemouth handled 81 , 376 passengers in July

Load factors were were as usual for the month high for both Ryanair and Thomson

Krakow seems to be performing very well with Ryanair with average loads about 170 per flight

Ryanair have started to load there Summer 2018 schedule at the moment its a carbon copy of this year . Would be good to see some new destinations again or even a return of IBZ , RHO or ACE but who knows

Dalaman loads averaged about 143 pax on a Freebird A320 on behalf of Thomson and is back on sale again for next summer

Newmarket have axed the 2 flights next summer to Verona and now only use seats on scheduled flights with Ryanair or Thomson to Naples
They have in fact axed all regional departures for next summer , a long way from when they used to have the highest number of charters in the summer from BOH

P & O cruises are continuing there Barbados charters with Thomson with 3 operating at the moment in 2018/ 19

Super Break have added another flight to Iceland using Enter Air for Feb 18

This now takes the total to 7 flights to Bergen , Kiruna , Tromso and Akureyri using Germania and Enter Air , not bad going

Do you know if Enter Air will be doing all their flights to Iceland and not just from BOH?

Mark,

Can BOH get back to that elusive one million passenger mark again? It briefly achieved it in 2007 / 2008 but hasn't come close since. It only needs another one or two based aircraft but that has remained as elusive as ever. I think it only happened in those years when Palmair used two 737-200s for just a couple of seasons as well as Thomson and Ryanair aircraft. It seems amazing that MAG spent all that money back then and have effectively made no real progress at all in attracting just one or two more based aircraft. Either the market just isn't there, which I find hard to believe having reached that milestone before investing 45 million to take the total up to 3 million by now or something more sinister is going on with MAG. I think most locals wish that Palmair hadn't been forced by Ryanair to give up. It would certainly have been a different outcome if they had been able to continue. Since then, as a direct result of Ryanair and MAGs very cosy arrangement, the door has been closed to anybody else trying to muscle in and as a direct result the entire growth of the airport stiffled for the foreseeable future. What is hard to understand is why MAG invested so much when the pax figure was one million to continue that growth, only to go backwards as a result of perhaps their "not quite so cosy" arrangement with Ryanair after all. And now they try and make peanuts out of people dropping off as there appears no other way! Very sad indeed. I've witnessed such incredible growth at Gatwick since 2008 as well as the same at Heathrow, Luton, Stansted, Southend, Southampton etc and even places like Newquay and Doncaster etc. How Bournemouth, in central Southern England, seems to be missing out so much strikes me as just incredible. We've had this conversation before but I think the sad tail of BOH as a commercial airport will rumble on for years to come. At best, simply complete incompetence, at worst just utter gross mismanagement! Most days you can drive past the South apron and it is either empty or very occasionally there is one 737 sat there with just six departures a day on a busy summer weekend day.

I would suggest that Bournemouth will never expand to the degree that you would like because of a more popular airport just up the road used by BEE to operate all the bread & butter services that would otherwise use EGHH.

The interesting thing about BOH is the very wide variety and volume of other flying activity that goes on. The levels of corporate, defence related, maintenance and training flying are more than BRS, EXT and SOU combined. The number of on site jobs is huge: http://www.magproperty.co.uk/cms/wp-...ure_LowRes.pdf

As for passenger traffic, the parking stand and runway constraints elsewhere will eventually spill over into more pax growth at BOH. And that will be largely summer only for a good while. Meantime those of us living on the south coast will continue to trek a couple of hours or more to reach the airport offering the routes for most of the flying we want to do. FF

This subject has been played over and over again and yet the same still applies. Unfortunately for BOU the lack of any half decent transport network ie road and rail, will always limit airline and route expansion

I don't know why people bang on about the transport links being poor and thats why the airport suffers. Have you actually seen Bristol airport? Leeds Bradford airport? They are at the end of almost drive-way type roads - far worse than the access links to BOH.

The fact that BOH has an hourly bus link for the whole day to the train station is wonderful - what gets me is that this is not being used during the Ryanair booking process to try and match flights and timings to ensure a more profitable bus operation.

If the fares are low enough people will travel or find ways to get to the airport.

I just wish the old NATS centre was a hotel instead of a bloody school to encourage more early morning success for the first wave of departures.

to answer MRSHUBIGBUS I think the airport will get to 1m easily with an additional Ryanair aircraft and more w flying - but as you know Ryanair is holding the UK government accountable for it's lack of expansion in the UK due Brexit: again O'Leary using the moment to get people talking and thinking about Ryanair and only Ryanair.

sadly for palmair they never got to grips quick enough nor kept up with the online booking boom - they sat back and relied on their core repeat customer data base, their travel agents booking holidays, and failed to procure new markets so ryanair toddled in and that was that

they also did not have the pax numbers in the lean winter months to keep an aircraft fully occupied at that time - times have now changed and newer markets are there for winter routes but popular destinations like Egypt and Tunisia are off the map and would have hurt Palmair badly had they ventured there

had Palmair got internet savvy back then they may have survived (just)
they also lost the lucrative lease deal from EAC as they went under and had to go to Astraeus for a lease on a much more expensive aircraft although that one was more fuel efficient

I suggest you look at train arrival times and bus connections to get a passenger to the airport two hours before the early morning departures and revise this statement.
Also car hire companies are not open on some days when flights arrive later evening. Is it assumed there are no inbound visitors?

My first comment on bus/rail connection also applies to inbound flights for buses to the station and onward train departure times.

With the current situation unlikely to change then, isn't it about time the South side was partially reused for something else aviation wise? That investment way back in 2008 increasing the ramp to 11 stands has clearly been a complete was of money. Overnight no more than two of those stands are used and during the day most of the time you either see none or maybe one in use. Almost everyone on this particular thread accepts that Bournemouth is what it is and will never attract any more "major" business. Even a third based airframe is only going to require one more stand. Why not develop part of the southside into an executive Jet centre with Signature doing so well at their north side site? Bristol and Leeds Bradford have just been mentioned, both out "in the sticks" but both going through "major booms" along with most of the rest of the country yet Bmth fails to attract anything over and over again, and it's got nothing to do with brexit. I believe there is more traffic to be had but MAG really can't be bothered to chase it as they make so much from other activities on the airport. Or is it really time to just accept once and for all that this airport has completely missed the boat and will "NEVER" attract any more airline business. Back to my original point - Will Bournemouth "EVER" reach one million passengers again? Right now it's in about 28th place and falling in terms of UK airport passenger numbers with most below it being small Island airports or others such as Norwich Humberside, Durham Tees Valley and Blackpool that have met the same fate as Bournemouth! I honestly believe it's now game over for any future airline growth! Such a waste! The airport has always played second fiddle to its Southampton neighbour but they both serve different markets, one business, the other the holiday market. Just look at the three major UK "low cost" airlines over the past 20 years. Between them, Ryanair, EasyJet and Jet 2 have gone from around 20 aircraft in 1997 to a staggering near 800 aircraft in 2017 with as many as 1000 aircraft between them within the next five years. Despite that Bournemouth has managed to get just one based RYR 737! Now that really is a staggering statistic isn't it? From Dorchester to Poole, Blandford to Wimborne, Salisbury to Ringwood, Southampton to Bournemouth, New Milton to Christchurch etc housing / population growth in the past 25 years has been huge yet none of that additional traffic is coming through Bournemouth via a low cost carrier is it!!! And yes, a link to the A338 spur road could have been easily made, a hotel could have easily been built and early / late taxi / bus services easily started but no! With dozens and dozens of Channel Island flights operating from both BOH and SOU alone over 30 years ago it sums it up when BOH can't even manage a single flight a year to Guernsey, Jersey or Alderney any more despite a huge market for that above all else, especially bearing in mind that most elderly folk would prefer a ten minute drive to their local airport in this very large "elderly" area. Just one EasyJet aircraft and one from Jet 2 would give the airport the traffic it once had way back in 2007, but this is as likely as Emirates starting a B777 service to Dubai! In that 10 year period the low cost fleet has increased by between 300 and 400 airframes! And finally let's not forget that it was ten years ago that MAG made that huge 45 million investment, the biggest in Bournemouth Airport's history. They knew the low cost aircraft were coming, but they never arrived! What happened to that predictive growth? It happened elsewhere across virtually the whole country but missed BOH completely, so much so that the airport has almost 40% less passengers now than it did ten years ago! MAG - what have you done??? Overnight / based a/c wise - LHR, LGW, LTN, LCY all full, BRS full STN nearly full, BHX nearly full, SOU nearly full - BOH virtually empty!!! Road traffic to London and the Midlands is worse than ever yet it hasn't made the slightest difference! London is the world's busiest city hub with 170 million passengers in 2017, with Bmth just 20 minutes flying time away. I think that tells you everything you need to know about MAG and their commitment to BOH.

My former colleagues and I all very much regret being forced to close the door end October 2010 and without doubt many locals in and around Bournemouth greatly miss Palmair, but unfortunately, in a race to the bottom, the lowest price will invariably win over good old fashioned service - sad, but in a modern world probably an everyday fact of life.

sad but so true - almost everyone today wants something for nothing (Dave S)

i loved palmair and all what it stood for - sadly those values meant nothing to the internet boom and the low-cost phenomena that arrived and continues to this day to reduce service and standards to an all time low

only one or two similar companies like Palmair today survive such as Sunvil

my first job in the holiday airline industry was with Vistajet and air Spain dc-8s in 1972!

by the way thanks for the memories Palmair and Casadave

(by the way did you keep the Palmair customer data base ? - that might be worth a bomb now lol)

credit to the photographer

Bournemouth handled in August 85 , 866 passengers up 2 %

Ryanair saw the usual high loads for August with extra flights to Palma , Malaga and Faro adding to these figures

Krakow continues to perform really well with an average loads of 181 pax per flight , this must be in for an increase in flights next summer ?

Palma as usual saw huge figures of nearly 19 , 000 passengers fly out with Ryanair and Thomson

Naples the new route with Thomson saw 1444 passengers use the service averaging about 141 pax and Dalaman improved with Freebird A320 averaging about 173 pax

Las Palmas was the most popular route to the Canaries with 3 flights a week taking 4689 passengers down between Ryanair and Thomson

Really encouraging numbers but still far short of August 2007 and August 2008 with well above 120,000 and 115,000 respectively.

If the new MAG director of aviation development at BOH and EMA continues to only talk about EMA despite the fact that his title includes BOH then there is no hope of proactive airline recruitment.

2007. mmm

The Halcyon days when Ryanair flew to

Prestwick 10 , 000 pax
Dublin 9 , 000 pax
Pisa 5 , 000 pax

Air Berlin flew to

Paderborn 4, 000 pax

Thomson Fly flew to

Amsterdam. 6 , 000 pax
Prague 4 , 000 pax
Valencia 4 , 000 pax

And of course Palmair were still flying !!

Big passenger numbers then , but as we know things change

If you consider the following then actually BOH is doing better than in 2007:

PIK - not exactly an essential route
DUB - not BOH's strong point, leave it to SOU with their high frequency
PAD - this was always gonna be a non-starter (!)
AMS - not BOH's strong-point, leave it to SOU with their high frequency
PSA - can think of far more popular Italian routes (FCO, VCE, VRN)
PRG - this route has suffered declines from a lot of the UK, not just BOH
VLC - probably would work if it was done by Ryanair versus TUI

Total lost pax from Aug'07 38,000

Suddenly that 85,000 in Aug'17 doesn't look so bad. With the above we would be looking at + 124,000.

BOH would be very strong if it focused on mid to long-haul and more Spain - if Palma carried 19,000 pax in Aug;17 that is seriously significant; they could support additional daily year-round services. Wizz needs to come back too considering the success of the Krakow service.

BOH's single biggest risk right now is losing easyJet to SOU - why would easyJet swiss operate from both? They have seriously overlapping catchment areas. If BOH lose easyJet to SOU then it's 'curtains'. They should be cultivating easyJet - there are definitely routes no-one is doing that would work for easyJet from BOH. What is MAG doing!

Shamrock7seal
I don't understand your comment about Bournemouth was to lose Easy jet to Southampton "it will be curtains"?
Southampton are operating 3 times a week Geneva easy jet and from pricing enquiries this doesn't look a huge success at the moment.Even if this was a success,it doesn't mean Bournemouth would suffer unduly.Bournemouth will always offer Sun routes and further distance destinations,just because it has the runway capacity.
If Southampton was however to announce that they were to invest in the 450feet RW20 extension ( often mooted ,but nothing more),then I feel this could have a major effect on Bournemouth potential growth.

RW20
 

A 137m extension to take off field length at SOU would have very little effect on the performance of an Airbus A320 or B737-800 flying lounger than 2 hours at full capacity.

This issue is separate to easyJet trying SOU out. In my opinion this is not acceptable for BOH. EasyJet could potentially now serve all sorts of short-haul services from SOU instead of BOH.

Part of me thinks this is still fall-out from the Flybe SOU ransom holding when they operated from BOH.

The bottom line is simple! Bournemouth needs more based aircraft and a level playing field with Ryanair! Ryanair, who have been in the press for all the wrong reasons this week, are effectively "killing" BOH right under the noses of MAG who have allowed them to get away with it! Ask the Prestwick Airport management. Other airlines "CANNOT" take on Ryanair and win. They killed Palmair who simply couldn't compete. Bmth needs an airline that serves its catchment area and offers local people the right mix of destinations, not a Ryanair who only exist because they have "slave labour" and hold many of airports to ransom! Nobody else stands a chance while they are around. I ask you one question. How much have Ryanair expanded in Bmth since they arrived in the mid 1995s? Over 20 years and just one based aircraft out of 400 they operate! Back then they had less than 20! Bmth desperately needs a locally based airline offering JER, GCI, a feeder to AMS, CDG, MAN and DUB and many more holiday flight options? Not Ryanair who have unfairly but legally snubbed out any meaningful competition. What the airport needs is somebody flying Embraer 190 type aircraft Flybe / BA Cityflyer / Eastern Airways or EasyJet A319s to the above destinations. Two based aircraft would do it but somebody has got to do it! Sadly the recent Flybe debacle was the final nail in the coffin I fear. Let's hope that MAG finally wake up to this Ryanair "bullying"! And why shouldn't BOH compete with SOU? There must surely be enough people living in the South to support both - not everybody wants to be forced to fly from a "bursting at the seems" London Airport!

mrshubigbus....You require to think a little more concerning the MAG/RYR relationship in the round & not with your local view regarding BOH unfortunately...The other 3 airports in the group STN/MAN & EMA are probably the three largest RYR bases on the mainland,that perhaps suggests a commercial synergy which none of us are privy too....To suggest that RYR are effectively "killing" BOH right under the noses of MAG is emotive & gives the impression that MAG are unaware of their local & greater national commercial real estates....

And what do you think the reason is for this? Do you really think if there was money to be made Ryanair wouldn't be there making it? Or do you prefer some conspiracy theory?

So, with MAG and RYR in mind, why then did MAG invest 45 million in the airport, virtually rebuild the terminal, build a new arrivals hall, expand the apron to 11 stands and put a CAT 3 ILS in??? Just because they had money to spend? It certainly wasn't in conjunction with the very profitable Northern side industrial estate? Was this for the odd diversion from SOU, LHR or LGW? Since then the low cost carriers have more than doubled in size whilst MAG had originally forecast 3 million, YES - 3 million pax from BOH by now. That would have required around five or six based aircraft yet since 2007 not a single carrier has added to that number. Either MAG had their numbers very wrong or something else has caused this prediction to crash to what is now around 700,000 instead. That is less than a quarter instead. Somehow someone got the maths very wrong whilst BOH has simply been left behind, unless there is another less obvious scenario? Remember BOH is just 20 minutes flying time from London, the busiest hub in the world but has completely missed the boat! I wonder why??? With RYR fares as low as £9.99 for a single flight can you honestly believe that they can only generate three or four hundred thousand pax a year out of BOH and one based aircraft? That's not what MAG believed ten years ago is it! Most folk around Southampton would jump at that / the minor inconvenience of a 30 minute drive to BOH instead of paying many times that with Flybe!

There are airports around the UK who would kill to have a Ryanair base and what they offer from BOH! My local airport CWL being one of them!
Ever thought the reason other airlines don't operate those routes is because they don't believe they'll make money?

Now veering into the meaning of liff I guess.You pose questions no one on here will or can answer absolutely.
Generally with your quoted expectations...ahh if only it was that simple.You too could name at least two other airports with new shiny terminal buildings which are woefully underused but had great expectations..(that`s two book titles mentioned now BTW).
Because LCC`s have doubled in size does not extrapolate with & according to local wishes & aspirations either I`m afraid.
Lastly BOH being 20 mins flying time from London too is no justification to hope or expect....& anyways 20 mins for the aeroplanes but perhaps a little longer for the SLF.

Some time ago somebody did a list on here of the airlines which had tried these sort of routes from BOH over the years and are no more.

Would the Dan Air 748's in the '70s be the last operation that lasted a while on domestic routes?

Not to mention two wide body sized hangars that could support hundreds of local jobs and dozens of airliners for maintenance if it weren't for one unsold 747SP and a 747-8 that flies just twice a month! But that's another story. Let's not mention the CL44 Guppy! That really will get me started!!! The fact is Bmth has two based 737s and passenger numbers of 700,000. That's not going to change anytime soon is it unless my crystal ball knows something. MAG however, must be charging those Qatari guys a lot of money! With Cobham doing less and less thank goodness for those rich boys with their expensive toys and other youngsters with rich Mums and Dads who keep sending them on 120K CTC / BCFT courses. Take them out of the equation and that would be 50% less movements while MAG carry on doing their best to kill off the remaining GA community. There's something very uncomfortable about MAG's ownership of Bmth Airport!

To be honest think MAG is bullying Ryanair when it comes to BOH.

I heard a rumour that Ryanair promised BOH/MAG it would pay more after the Terminal and runway was upgraded and would base 5 aircraft. However after the construction was complete during the financial crisis Ryanair changed their minds. MAG told Ryanair they had to increase the airport charges to help pay off the debt and Ryanair told them to get lost - including literally removing the second based aircraft that they had just added and removed winter flying completely.

MAG knows that Ryanair makes a lot of money from BOH. But i'm afraid Ryanair will not be bullied by MAG. Ryanair definitely made money (more than just covering DVC's) on Nantes, Madrid, Shannon, Prestwick, Ibiza, Carcassonne and more but have pulled the number of aircraft based. Now we are left with just the mega profitable services that Ryanair didn't want to give up and have accepted they need to pay more. They will NOT expand unless MAG do something proactive with Ryanair and reduce the charge.

I guess we need to be thankful we still have a year-round based aircraft and half a million Ryanair customers?

*Not sure if it was mentioned previously but easyJet is starting BOH-GVA earlier this year on 9th Dec instead of 15th as previous years.

Which proves that a five based aircraft operation would have been sustainable and would have created as many as 500-1000 more airport jobs. But that's history now and MAG have failed miserably to attract a single new based aircraft in the past ten years!

Charges
 

Airports in the UK are required to publish their fees, these are always complicated but here for instance are those for BOH and BRS for comparison, and SOU
too:

http://www.magworld.co.uk/magweb.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/BOHFeesCharge.pdf/$FILE/BOHFeesCharge.pdf

https://www.bristolairport.co.uk/~/m...017.ashx?la=en

https://www.southamptonairport.com/m...f-use-2016.pdf

The 747s are parked there as it is much cheaper than parking them up at Stansted between flights - even with the cost of the empty ferry flights to and from Stansted.

Has the word rumour changed it's meaning? Even if true, asking somebody to pay the economic cost of a service isn't bullying

Thought the hangars were built for the Jumbo owner, so not really denying any maintenance opportunity

You clearly thought wrong then! Neither hangar originally had anything to do with the Qatari Jumbo owners! The first was built specifically for VC10 conversions in the early 1990s and the other for Nimrod conversions in the early 2000s! Then the Nimrod hangar was used by BASCO for airliner maintenance when BAe took over the contract at Woodford before the 747SP eventually went in there. Cobham eventually had no use for either hangar so now the two 747s live in both! An opportunity the owners couldn't miss! The two hangars together could hold a dozen or so narrowbodies or around eight widebodies. There aren't many airports in the UK with that kind of capacity.

You forgot the A330 Voyager tanker fitments for the RAF before Cobham decided they could not/would not do it and gave it back to Airbus in Cadiz.

Don't you mean Airbus in Seville rather than Cadiz which has no airport.

Got mixed up - thought the work was done at Puerto Real just outside Cadiz but, as you say, no runway! It's actually done at Getafe near Madrid.

Easy Jet have upgraded the Geneva service on the Saturday and Sunday to an A320 throughout the season