Thanks Jethro.

Meanwhile, JZDD entered revenue service today running a Leeds to Faro return.

...and G-SUNH just been delivered to MAN within the last hour.

9A-ABC also arrived @ Nqy today as LS070J


cs

G-JZHT, HU, BC, BE, BF, BG, BH and BH now all have the scimitar winglets installed.

Surprised to see the ex Pegasus frames have not had them fitted during entry into service. These are quite young in age so will be in the fleet for a good while, would have thought they’d have preferred to kill 2 birds with one stone so to speak.

G-JZHP arrived on base at Liverpool today, ready to commence operations on 28th March. The second aircraft is due tomorrow, followed by the third aircraft on 27th.

HP...

BP is currently stuck in ACE due FNC weather shenanigans.

Does the ownership status - owned Vs leased have an impact on SSW installation?

New Base number 12 to be announced today
2 aircraft to start with.

Congrats to Bournemouth!

List of destinations shwoing on Jet2holidays website with flights starting in April 2025:IBZ

PMI

MAH

FUE

LPA

ACE

TFS

CFU

HER

RHO

ZTH

FAO

FNC

ALC

AYT

DLM

Unusual seeing Jet2 starting with a 2 aircraft base. They like to start with a bigger presence usually to state their dominance and allow them to do everything (handling etc) in house and be cost effective.

Selfishly though, this does give a little bit of hope that Doncaster may get a look in with Jet2 when it reopens. It would have been difficult to justify opening a large base there with the size of the operations at MAN, EMA, and, to a lesser extent, LBA taking out of the area customer pool. But with Jet2 seemingly happy to start a bit smaller and grow organically that now makes DSA a possibility.

I’m wondering if before DSA we may see

Southend
Norwich

can’t see them getting enough slots at Gatwick/LTN so maybe Southend to take some of the south east away from Gatwick?

Maybe CWL too when they’re established at BRS

They have said if Bournemouth is successful they would look to smaller airports. Southend possibly a bit to close to Stansted but still you never know.

Norwich is an interesting shout with their new relationship with RCA/Rigby group (who have managed to get Ryanair into Exeter and Norwich following Bournemouth). TUI have had a summer base for over 10 years now at NWI so clearly enough demand, however realistically a 1 aircraft base is the maximum NWI could support. Probably too small for Jet2 and may feel it could dilute the Stansted base, however doesn't seem to bother TUI, or Ryanair, so stranger things could happen, I mean I said Ryanair would never set foot in Norwich yet here we are.

Now for me I wonder a more realistic option could be Exeter? certainly seems plausible to me.

Surely now with the fleet size small one a/c ‘bases’ if you wanted to call them that could be done on W patterns to avoid the self handling and maintenance problem. Norwich, Exeter/Newquay, Cardiff, Southend amongst others could all have a daily or couple of daily flights done on W patterns from the likes of MAN, LBA, BHX or STN. They always have a couple of spare aircraft across the fleet so couldn’t that be feasible for the smaller airports?

That certainly could be a good option yes. If they are willing to do W patterns, then they will have a lot of success. Something quite telling is Norwich airport advertisement posts on Facebook for TUI with so many comments below asking for Jet2 :E

Sorry to be a party pooper, but they haven’t said that at all.

https://www.ttgmedia.com/news/jet2-b...rnemouth-45518

Would suggest that they have the U.K covered now, and growth will be focussed on the incumbents.

Well I stand corrected. I must have got rather wrong from the article I read, my apologies. Thank you for posting that. Well there we have it from the horses mouth so too speak. Bournemouth to be the last base, a shame but from a business stand point very sensible.

Still hoping Humberside may feature at some point with Jet2.

We can dream!

Kind regards

BristolexFlyer

If that ship ever existed it sailed many many years ago. I think with today’s news, more than 90% of the U.K. population will be within 90 minutes of a jet2 airport now. Any more than that would be overkill and risks huge overheads with little reward.

It could provide TUI with a niche though, serving local.

Niche and Tui ships sailed way before this…

On BBC South Today this evening (Tuesday 26 May) they broadcasted a lengthy piece about the announcement by Jet2 of setting up a base at Bournemouth Airport.

Part of speech made by the boss of Jet2 to thtose present was a suggestion of moving into smaller airports in the UK. I saw the article on the midday news as well as this evenings. I heard it twice. If I watch the late evening broadcast at 10.35 I'll more than likely hear it said for a third time.

He made note of the fact that Jet2 only serve 12 airports with the addition of Bournemouth and moving forward he would like see the company cover more of the UK.

What was mentioned in the TTG article and what was said in person are obviously two different things.

Having watched BBC South on iPlayer news items regarding the announcement there was absolutely no mention of intentions to open more bases at small airports, no mention of only having 12 bases. It was all about Bournemouth, the gap on a map of the South now being filled and the aims to reach carbon neutral status. Together with the link provided, plus the general feeling around today, that is probably the last U.K. base for jet2 at least for a few years.

I wonder if at some point J2 will also move into the retail market, for example buy Hays Travel, rebrand all the offices and bingo ! take TUI on head to head, this would work extremely well if J2 are talking about operating form more local airports, never say never !

jet2 are already considerably bigger than TUI in the UK, there’s no need to “take on tui” when they’re already the bigger fish. Why would they take on expensive property rents and business rates when they have no need to do so?

Both HUY and NWI (and also EXT) are pretty tiny and are basically one x 737 bases, or use some W flights (TUI)
EXT once, used to be very busy with FCA and TCK and others.

Today BOH will now see TUI base 2 x 738's for this summer, and for next summer Jet2 will also base 2 there.
That is a really big expansion of package holidays available from Bournemouth.

Jet2 have STN, so Southend will not likely be on their radar, plus Easyjet are slowly increasing their leisure flights from SEN.
Jet2 open the LPL Base this week.
Jet2 BRS is doing really well.

If DSA Doncaster were to reopen then its possible that Jet2 (who are now the UK's #1 holiday Co.) may go in, and beat TUI to it.
Jet2 are the ''Darlings of the North'' so it's feasible they may like to add DSA.

A SOU Southampton base is a no-go due to the operational and payload limitations for the 737-800 and that is unlikely to change anytime in the future.

Would a W going LBA>PMI>NWI>PMI>LBA in the current regulatory/terms conditions environment require a crew slip at NWI?

Back in the seventies when BY operated W sectors to LBA with MAN based a/c crew were, IIRC, taken from to MAN by taxi.

yes it would, which is one of the Myriad of reasons why it, or anything like it wont happen. Operationally challenging for minimal incremental reward

Still plenty of W flying happens in the UK, with TUI (HUY EXT LBA MME and ABZ) and also Easyjet do them as well.

You can use the same crew for all 4 sectors if the flight times allow for it.

They won’t do it. Best case they’d reopen Spanish bases and perhaps do inbounds, but even then the whole point in having those overseas bases was to have resilience built in to the operation. Not ideal to have aircraft and crew all over the place. Just doesn’t seem feasible or beneficial.

G-SUNG delivered to MAN

Could they open a Spanish base on the UK AOC nowadays?

Not sure, wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen somehow and at some point but of course you have all the added hoops to jump through post Brexit so guess it comes down to the cost and complexity vs the added risk of passengers being stuck down route and the associated claims that come with it. Unsure if the rules of a U.K. AOC operating purely between Spain and the U.K. from a Spanish base as in my view as any internal flights in Spain would be positioning flights in such a scenario. You’d probably need enough U.K. licenced crew with the right to live and work in Spain. Just my observation and others may think differently.

One of the things they’re exceptionally good at is looking after the customer, so if it pays to keep them ahead in that then they might do it even if it’s not the most desirable situation from a financial and operational standpoint.

Ryanair make it work at Stansted...

BOH-JER?
 

If Jet2 ever did Jersey from Bournemouth it would be a true spiritual return to a route often run albeit by their trusty freighter Heralds and F-27’s many years ago. Would be very fitting to hear the Channex call sign on such a route.

That was an existing set up that was allowed to continue though, I wonder if Iberia could open a base in the UK now though?

Why would it be different to RYR, have they get some sort of dispensation? And RYR have opened UK bases since Brexit.

Interesting question. Going back to last year I am sure I read that the CAA and HMG took a dim view of Jet2 and TUI basing EU registered aircraft in UK to provide extra summer capacity using Czech, Latvian etc crews, even though they were only flying UK to EU routes. I was therefore surprised to see that both airlines are using EU airlines based here for 2024.

On the basis that this allowed, why shouldn't Iberia ppen a UK base, with EU crews to serve EU destinations?

I gather since we left the EU airlines and its crews/staff could not easily ''cross work'' amongst the old existing Bases here in the UK and in the EU (which includes Eire)

Thus we saw various airlines including Easyjet and Ryanair re register a mass of their fleets in Austria, Malta, Poland, the UK and Eire etc,
plus basing what were once UK aircraft now overseas. Both companies set up EU divisions.

This year TUI has set up Fly4, a joint venture for ACMI/sub charter flying with Enter Air. Headquartered in Ireland.
It's all a convoluted deal to get around the EU workplace and EASA rules.

I doubt Iberia could now set up a LHR base, likewise nor could BA at say, MAD.

Which doesn't explain why Ryanair have numerous UK bases with Irish registered aircraft.