Next summer there will be at least 6 airport stands empty over nights. New stands being built, and no BMIR. Will you please do a check of what you are going to post what ever the subject.

Yet Ryanair have stated in their APD statement I believe that Bristol is full but I personally think that they mean that there is too much competition there hence why they are looking at other airports.

I would guess that the backroom boys at Ryanair have been looking at where their passengers in the South West originate, then planning accordingly. Why should people from the extreme South West have to travel all the way up to Bristol when other airports are closer. Whilst Bristol may offer more destinations, Ryanair probably work on the principal that people prefer to travel from their local airport to the most popular European destinations. Hence increasing destinations from Exeter.

And many of those passengers who are attracted to Ryanair may not have used them before or be Easyjet passengers but most likely be new passengers.

Where does the idea come from that BRS is full up? As yeo valley points out, the departure of flybmi has freed up some overnight stands and anyway two more new ones are in the process of completion for the main summer months, to go with four other new ones built on recent years. The airport is currently asking the local authority for permission to incease its annual passenger limit from 10 mppa to 12 mppa which is expected to be reached by the mid 2020s, with up to 20 mppa planned by the 2040s.

I don't know what Ryanair means if they said BRS is full. The airline has still scheduled eight additional weekly rotations in the main summer months this year compared with last summer, and they could also schedule further flights from other bases to arrive and depart at non-peak times if they really felt BRS was full. Furthermore, Ryanair's BRS winter programme has increased by over 60% in the past four winters to 25 winter routes and 90 weekly winter rotations.

I've gone into some detail about BRS because it suggests that Ryanair's decison to spread to the likes of EXT and CWL is a commercial one rather than operational.

I know this is only a snapshot and it is the Easter holidays but it does seem at the moment that Ryanair's decision to move into EXT and expand at CWL is paying off. For example, on 6 April, the first Saturday of the school holidays in many areas, the next EXT-MLA was sold out and the next CWL-MLA nearly so. At the same time the next five BRS-MLA flights were already all sold out. It does suggest that a lot of new passengers used the services as they obviously could not all have used the 3 x weekly BRS-MLA, had that been the only option from south west Britain as would have been the case last year. The next test will be May when Air Malta and Thomas Cook resume their own BRS-MLA flights.

EXT-AGP seems to be in a similar position with sold out or nearly sold out flights which don't seem to have affected Ryanair's BRS-AGP: one of the two BRS-AGPs flights is sold out tomorrow as are some later in the week. easyJet doesn't seem to be suffering either with its double-daily BRS-AGP operation - four of the next six BRS-AGP are sold out.

So it does seem that EXT (and CWL) are generating considerable numbers of new passengers. Obviously early days, but if this trend continues and yields are satisfactory it might well be the case that these airports can expect more Ryanair routes to the popular destinations.

Yes BOH and EXT do over lap for the IT market

Anyone west of Poole/Weymouth/Dorchester would consider EXT (and BRS) for a package holiday and flights if BOH was not available.
Locals hate going up to LGW

Local Businessmen from Penzance to Dorset would consider EXT BRS NQY or SOU - or the one for them that has best links (train, motorway) and best flights ---
(Well, depending on the current Flymaybe debacle)

Does NQY have any IT or Sun flights? They used to have a PMI at one time...

TUI have loaded Zante into Summer 2020 on Mondays

Isn't it a no-brainer for Ryanair to go for CWL and EXT instead of adding "more of the same" at BRS and compete there with easyJet plus TUI and TCX? If someone from Wales and the Southwest has to travel to Bristol to get to the costas, he will have a choice between up to four airlines to some of those destinations. At EXT and CWL, it will be, if any, not more than one competitor. The advantage for Ryanair really is that they have bases in southern Europe almost everywhere and can serve smaller regional airports in the UK without having to set up shop, unlike easyJet.

Totally agree virginblue.

Even Jet2 seem to be biting at the heels of easyJet at BRS by setting up at BHX for example. (A lot of BRS pax come from southern BHX catchment area)

It certainly seems a win win situation for Ryanair to operate into EXT (and CWL). Taking Malta as an example the new flights from EXT and CWL have been well loaded as have those from BRS with a lot of sold-outs at the latter. The same thing applies with EXT and Malaga. Ryanair has also been adding flights from BRS on some sun routes this summer so they seem to have covered all the South West Britain bases.

Away from the sun, Ryanair thus far seems content to begin new routes at BRS at the moment, rather than try them at EXT (or CWL) instead, even though recent arrivals compete with easyJet such as Seville, Milan MXP (although they got it there before easyJet announced theirs), Sofia (ski season only).

BRS gets most of its non-core catchment passengers from South Wales and Devon. Received wisdom seems to have been that a lot of thinner routes (not just with Ryanair) in South West Britain go to BRS because it has a larger core catchment than either EXT or CWL with BRS's physical location also enabling it to 'top up' from both CWL and EXT catchments. Ryanair's moves on this in the coming years will be interesting to see if it believes that EXT can sustain any of its non-sun routes.

To comment on the point about a lot of BRS passengers coming from the southern BHX catchment, it's not born out by the stats which means that South Wales and Devon have the most BRS passengers to try to re-capture, or capture for the first time with some of them.

Some of our family live 25 miles north of Bristol (the City). They invariably choose BHX over BRS as the route to BRS ftom the north takes as long as the one up to BHX. And trying to get to BRS in the Summer via a car-jammed M5 is a DEFINITE no-no. OK, I know the M42 is no picnic either.
All of which has nowt to do with the subject 'Exeter'. Sorree.

Passenger stats show that a lot more South West people use BHX than West Midlands people use BRS, and that's not a new phenomenon. It is relevant to EXT in a way because as I pointed out in a previous post most of BRS's non-core cachment passengers originate or have a final destination in Devon or South Wales, not the Midlands or South East, so EXT does have a chance of getting some back. I think its problem will always be the thinner routes. The major sun routes have a market - obviously the key is to ensure satisfactory yields - even if frequencies are limited.

My brother-in-law lives on Dartmoor and he is always bending my ear about having to go to Bristol or Gatwick for his sun holiday flights. He keeps asking why Ryanair and easyJet don't fly from EXT. I've now told him that it's up to him to put his money where his mouth is following the Ryanair entry to EXT.

Loads on the new Ryanair services seem very reasonable given the start in April

Malta saw 2607 passengers, an average of 145 pax per flight

Naples saw 2266 passengers, an average of 142 pax per flight

Hard to work out the Malaga as these also include Flybe but certainly up a huge amount

Will be interesting to see if this dented the BOH stats at all for Malta

April total 84,990 up 13.4%
Rolling year to date 960,012 up 4.9%

Positives

Malta 2,607 (New)
Naples 2,266 (New)
Paris 6,686 up 71% (now beating SOU in terms of monthly CDG totals)
Geneva 368 up 65%
Malaga 3,243 up 48%
Guernsey 2,847 up 24%
Amsterdam 4,736 up 16%
Jersey 3,911 up 11%
Tenerife 4,367 up 10%
Norwich 2,497 up 10%
Manchester 10,380 up 8%

Negatives

Paphos 1,417 -1%
Dublin 3,177 -3%
Isles of Scilly 1,331 -5%
Glasgow 3,481 -7%
Alicante 3,243 -8%
Newcastle 3,632 -10%
Faro 1,381 -10%
Lanzarote 2,935 -12%
Palma 3,774 -13%
Las Palmas 1,523 -18%
Bergerac 71 -24%
Larnaca 1,267 -29%
Chambery 0 (last year 175)

Misc

Toulouse 40
Hamburg 71