Eastern to launch ADN-BRS
 

I see Eastern announced the start of a new service between Aberdeen and Bristol. commencing November. The service will operate 2 times daily Mon-Fri and will be operated by a J41.

Is Bristol a new destination for Eastern?.

Also this is some distance for a J41, what are the chances of success with the route?.

I just hope you don't work on check-in .... that's a great way to lose a bag:

dxc/adn
ADN ANDES, COLOMBIA 0228/08JUL
>

exc/aberdeen
ABR ABERDEEN, SOUTH DAKOTA, USA 0229/08JUL
ABZ ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND UK 0829/08JUL
>

...... and a hell of a trip in a jetstream !!

Nit picking aside, that might be quite a good route - dreadful by surface transport.

;) TimS

Can't really see what market they are aiming towards. I'm not aware of any business limks between the 2 cities, Aberdeen oil and Bristol aerospace & port. Aberdeen needs good links into hub airports, I would have thought.

No, they already fly a daily BRS-IOM with a J41.

BRS/ABZ was once operated by BA as a transit flight through NCL on a DH8C-300. Their used to be about 20 pax on the flight flying on to ABZ on a regular basis.

When BA pulled the route and then not to long after pulled out of the NCL route because of EZY's desire to operate it on a B73A most of the pax travelled BRS/GLA then connected on to the GLA/ABZ. I think that introducing this direct service will be a big coupe for Eastern as well as ABZ and BRS.

Good Luck to them and hope they introduce more domestic routes in the near future.

T21

They operate BRS-IOM already.

As terrier21 has said the BRS-ABZ route was operated by Brymon, then by BACX. The route operated from at least the mid 1990s until summer 2002. The DH-300 flights were routed via NCL (as terrier pointed out), although they did try operating one rotation via MAN at one time but apparently it was not a success.

The frequency was at least three daily weekday rotations with a little less at weekends. For the route to have lasted so long, and it was really only dropped when BACX 'downsized', suggests there was and presumably is a market.

According to the BRS press release, "A survey of businesses in North-east Scotland late last year identified Bristol as the first new UK destination they wanted to see introduced at Aberdeen Airport."

There is actually a lot more to Bristol than aerospace and a port. It is a major financial and insurance centre and an important hi-tech centre of excellence. Add to this the fact that the Bristol area supplies 25% of the GDP of the whole southwest and there is the potential for business traffic. The Highlands also represent a very attractive tourist destination.

Given the right product at the right price Bristol has shown that it can support most services it has been given. Who would have thought for instance that 20,000 pax would fly each month between there and Newcastle? easyJet has shown that they will.

Eastern were reputedly going to start this service last October - there was a PPRuNe thread at the time. I have two slight reservations about the current initiative. One is the start-up in the winter when there will be few tourist pax and the second is the equipment. It is a long journey on a J 41. However, given the alternative modes of transport I guess most people would put up with a Jetstream.