While it would be great to have a railway service into Belfast City centre, I'm not sure it'd be any quicker than the existing bus service. The railway from Aldergrove to Europa via Lisburn is around 25miles, factor in having to integrate a timetable with existing services on the currently active part of the line, and how many trains Translink would dedicate to it, I'd doubt you'd see anything more than an hourly service. Plus the line is still a significant distance from the terminal, so need a shuttle to it.
Though it would be great for those wanting to travel via Antrim/Lisburn stations, save having to transit through Lanyon Place.

Bear in mind many people travel from the N and NW and connect with the bus service from Antrim Rail Station

Ryanair adding a 6th weekly flight to Alicante for Summer 2024 using a ALC based aircraft, Sunday flights loaded into system but showing as 'Sold Out'.

More changes for Ryanair for S24 being loaded into system.

ALC now showing Daily flights
FAO showing 4 Weekly
OPO showing 2 weekly

Likely more changes will happen in the next few weeks.

Turin flights for Winter 24/25 being loaded into system. Same date and time as this winter.

CAA
 

CAA stats out for October 5.687 million rolling figure

TUI flights operated by Freebird to Antalya removed for S24, was only a short season for four weeks. Still bookable for S25.

Ryanair

Fourth weekly flight loaded into system to Malaga for S24. Tuesday flight added using a based aircraft.
Departs 09:05
Arrives 16:00
This will fill all gaps for the two based aircraft for S24

Will Warsaw ever happen? Still on website but no flights available

Just been booking flights mid-January on a Wednesday to Lgw ex Bfs. 2 flights operating on the day I need to travel to Lgw, 1 to Ltn and 2 to Stn. I don't think I have ever seen such savage reductions as I am seeing for January/February as I am seeing now on Ezy ( excluding Covid). What is wrong with this airline? I know demand drops off at that time of the year, but to that extent?

I would suggest "what's wrong" is a perfect storm of post-covid reduced business travel combined with high energy costs and increased mortgage rates. Air travel for leisure is for most people a 'want' not a 'need' and 'needs' should always precidence.

A Wednesday in January is about as low as you can go in terms of demand, even on domestics.

Airlines already lose money in winter, no point adding to the losses I guess.

Take a look at Bhd/Lgw in January hardly hardly touched,on saturday 2 flights to Gatwick compared to just 1 at there base Bfs and don't tell me a the route is any different 18 miles down the road soTrue Blue does have a point to disagree with the schedule they plan to operate.

Agree with TB they are ruining the BFS / LGW route
Are they going to end up with domestic routes out of BHD and international routes out of BFS??

If yields are higher at BHD (I don’t know the answer) then surely that would be an acceptable rationale. The city and wider region still have a service and both airports are still served. There’s no point carting around fresh air. January is bleak. Even so, a quick look shows that BFS-LGW is at least three daily for the most part.

It's worth having a look at the CAA stats to gain an understanding.

BHD-LGW is some 6,000 higher in Oct compared to last year. Add to that nearly 4,000 pax that flew BHD-LTN with limited impact on BFS-LTN. Between FR + U2 there's an additional 20,000 on STN. There's also growth on BHD-LCY over 3,000.

All this can't be just pure growth, BHD-LHR has took a hit and, needless to say so has BFS-LGW. It comes to January and fighting to fill aircraft that you'll not likely to succeed at just isn't worth it. If you look across the airports U2 have a huge schedule to London and having flexibility on where you take off and land from is key to getting a good price.
I'd just kinda put to bed the notion of the shuttle service schedule of the 80's/90's. This is low cost carrier territory now, even BA have chopped away heavily on frequency.

And what use is a really good fare if you have to depart from one airport and fly back to the other to get it? The day I booked, the first flight ex Bfs to Lgw is at 2.30pm. Really? I have travelled Bfs- Lgw lots of times in January over the years on Ezy and rarely saw a light load. The current offering leaves a lot to be desired and their actions will ruin this route. If they believe that their service is Belfast(no regard from which airport) to Gatwick, they are fools. If I have departed Bhd, but have to return to Bfs, how am I to get to my car, as most people would have to do? It seems that they don't care about that point and have decided that services from 2 airports have no impact on the passenger. As far as they are concerned, they offer a number of flights over a range of times. But seeing the schedules offered on other routes, I am not surprised as I think on this area(schedules) they seem to have lost the plot. And in my daily life, I see little sign of this cost of living crisis as I visit well used coffee shops, restaurants etc. Most people seem to have accepted what has happened and are getting on with their lives. Maybe Ezy pays too much attention to the news.

EZY haven't lost the plot - they are following the money. Service to the customers isn't a priority, it's returns to shareholders etc.

To be fair True Blue I do take the point, I travelled overnight to Manchester for work recently out Tuesday back Wednesday. I couldn't actually use FR despite being cheaper and used EIR. The problem being FR only had 1 early morning flight both days. I could have used U2 from BFS but it's almost half the journey time at the time of day to BHD and with work paying, EIR won.


On the point of being flexible I guess it depends where you need to be in London and when but rail tickets are priced in singles a lot in England and it can be a case of arrival in LTN and return from STN for example, and not necessarily the same airline!

I’m not chalking it up to the cost of living crisis. January has always been dead. It’s just after the festive period. People have spent up, they’ve travelled for parties, shopping trips etc. Culturally, there tends not to be an awful lot going on and business travel is on its backside.

Whilst I agree, having the first flight on a Wednesday at 1430 on a domestic route is sub optimal from a flexibility point of view, I’m sure that the data led to that decision.

There’s no shortage of aircraft to operate the route in January so we must conclude that it’s simply not profitable. Incidentally, there’s no shortage of aircraft in January on a Wednesday (and certain other days) because there are many other routes where the same applies.

There does seem to be something that is appealing for easyJet at Belfast city.
I booked myself a holiday through them to Alicante and managed to get a far better deal flying from the city than the international for pretty much the same package and get the chance to use the new biz lounge which I'm sure will be a plus for a lot of travellers. I wouldn't be surprised if they increase frequency on sunshine routes

Same, I booked a holiday to Mallorca yesterday with First Choice, £240 pp cheaper departing from BHD than BFS, both options were for daytime flights with U2.

TUI seems to have removed the Thursday flights that was to be operated by Air Europa to Palma for Summer 2024.

Interesting article of NI airport provision. Maybe should be on separate thread

Ben Lowry: If Stormont took hard decisions Northern Ireland could have had better airport provision and road links (msn.com)

So CAA stats for November show rolling 12 months at 5.817m. Will Bfs break 6m for 2023?

Ryanair Bhx
 

Is there anything else mentioned about the Birmingham to Belfast with Ryanair or are the rumours no more now

I think that the recent announcement of LDY to BHX by Ryanair maybe rules out them operating both? - but you never know

3rd weekly Lanzarote flight being loaded into system for Ryanair for S24

Starts Saturday 3rd August 2024 and will be done by a ACE based aircraft

Arrives 18:15 and departs 18:40

-------------

Also 5th weekly flight being loaded to Malaga for S24

Starts Monday 1st July 2024 using Malaga based aircraft

Arrives 08:15 and departs 08:40

Hello & Couple of Things
 

Hi folks, thanks for having me on the forum.

Couple of things that may be of interest.

First, a group of us will shortly be launching an "Insiders' Guide" to Belfast's Airports. Don't want to post any links as that's against group etiquette, but I think it will be interesting to some of you in this group. It's aimed at the public and designed to help them get the most out of the airports and also shine some transparency into what are otherwise opaque private businesses. If you'd like to get involved or find out more, that would be great. I imagine this group is absolutely full of amazing insight (far more than I have) that travellers and others who are thinking of getting involved with airports, like potential employees, would benefit from.

Secondly, a lot of you will be aware of issues between Allster and BIA. I will soon be putting up some videos to share my story. I can honestly say I have never dealt with anything more unprofessional in my life than this. Almost 25 years in business and this is simply unbelievable.

Thank you for all of the support you have expressed to me in person or online since Pilot NI kindly posted some of his views on Tiktok last week.
If anyone is interested in that situation, I will happily provide full documentation in support of my comments upon request! We have absolutely nothing to hide :)

Eddie

x-post FB Airside NI

An interesting development that appears to have come about as a result of the DUP talks to get Stormont back together - UK & US Governments are to enter into exploratory talks on the options for introducing pre-clearance checks on customs and immigration at Belfast International Airport:

Source (SeanM1997 on X):

Frankly a complete nonsense. An airport that has no year road scheduled services to the USA requires pre-clearance facility? This is nothing but a sop to the DUP (lets call it part of the bribe) to get them back into the Stormont assembly.

Either or the major London airports, Manchester or Edinburgh could benefit from pre-clearance before BFS.

NI is a special case - especially for the Americans. Clearly a political move, don't think there is any read across to anywhere else with PC aspirations.

Doubt it has had a major impact on the DUP - it's item 35 in Annex B...

https://assets.publishing.service.go..._Paper__1_.pdf

Well there are going to be a lot of very idle officers standing around counting their legs waiting for the next batch of passengers.

Its really going to make any sense if they are brought up from Dublin to cover the odd flight.

The scheme might make sense to Sleepy Joe but I doubt Crooked Donald would have much truck with it.

Well, it's obviously not going to happen overnight, but there's FlyAtlantic who are looking to offer transatlantic flights from/to BFS: https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/na...travel-4277547; and if/when the facility has been built, perhaps AA, DL, UA or possibly even JetBlue may consider offering flights from/to there?

I think Trump will probably fully endorse the scheme as he's far more likely to do a UK-US post-Brexit trade agreement compared to Biden.

I wouldn't bet the farm on FlyAtlantic. That said their business plan is probably more realistic than Global's. Bar set pretty low though.

I just can't see how BFS is going to attract transatlantic business with DUB not far down the road.

Not quite the 6 million mark, probably due to EZY moving more domestic flights to BHD

Belfast International Airport Revealed it Served 5.96 Million Passengers in 2023 | Northern Ireland Travel News (nitravelnews.com)

Easyjet still offer the same number of seats from there base at Aldergrove no matter how many flights they do from Bhd.

Assume this idea about US Clearance has come from the U.K. political discussions.

I have ties and connections to Belfast and would love to see travel and tourism really flourish there. Alas I really don’t see any legs in this 😏

I’ve used Belfast Int a lot over the years, mainly because I favour easyJet and all their flts were there. But as ezy have started to serve City airport I’ve used it some more and I have to say it is a really simple and pleasant airport.

i’ve also been to and thru Dublin on a couple of trips in the last year and I hadn’t been there in years. It is frankly mind boggling how much investment and development there is in Dublin airport. There are so many airlines and flts if now compares well to any airport I can think of in the world.

I went through Belfast just last week and there does seem to be some work and construction taking place but overall it is a depressing experience. Ther place looked shabby and dirty and there were untended weeds growing out of the building and that was before you drive out along the road with all the cars jostling to park among the potholes. I’m afraid it does not offer a 21st century welcome to visitors and with Dublin so well served and not very far away down a good road if is really difficult to see how Belfast Int could ever really develop any major services unless it was rebuilt and a huge amount of investment put into it to make it appealing.

to be honest it might be a bigger benefit to Belfast if ezy continued to add more service at the City Airport.

Build it and they will come

Looks like TUI holidays/flights to Enfidha for Summer 2024 are cancelled. No longer on sale for the whole season.
Was due to use a Birmingham based aircraft.

They've the destination on sale with U2 flights twice weekly. In the end it's still a win for them I guess and avoids complicated crewing and associated costs. When I was looking to re-book my summer holiday this year TUI had Tunisia holidays way cheaper than anywhere else, like a £200 saving over Turkey for instance on equivalent hotels, perhaps an indication of demand.......