Maybe you do not know but LBA has flights to Barbados regularly through the winter for cruises. What I can't understand is why don't they run these from DSA as the carrier is ThomsonFly ???

Answers on a postcard !

The AIRLINE is Thomsonlfy, the company CHARTERING the aircraft is Fred Olsen or P&O.

If someone is prepared to contract with Thomsonfly (the airline) and pay them a seat rate which Thomsonfly (the airline) find acceptable then they will fly from pretty much anywhere in the UK to pretty much anywhere overseas. If you offer them £100,000 and ask them to fly you and your mates down to Spain for the weekend, I'm sure they will oblige.

This however has almost no bearing on whether TUI (the tour operator) will commit to offering package holidays out of the same UK airport, be it with thomsonfly (the airline) or any other airline for that matter.

The point is, by definition, there are two parties involved in a charter flight and just because you see a Thomsonfly aircraft doesn't mean it is being chartered by TUI.

Hope that is clear

682ftAMSL has pretty much answered your question as the cruise company choose the airline, not the airline choosing the airport. But maybe you do not know that so far DSA has 3 flights to Barbados this winter and 1 to Fort Lauderdale, and next winter so far lined up are 2 flights to Barbados, 2 flights to Montego Bay and 1 to New Orleans with more to follow.

At the risk of being seen to "rise to the bait" there are some totally unfounded and plain wrong "facts" being bandied about. Some people are impressionable whilst others seem to have nothing but malice. It requires rational explanation and then let it die please.
1. The Obstacle treatment applicable to Cat I, CatII and Cat III ILS's is identical with respect to the Transitional Surface and the Inner Horizontal Surface. There is a slight difference between the Baulked Landing Surface (BLS) within the Obstacle Free Zone. This starts 900m beyond the landing threshold and splays at 10%. It will therefore be apparent that any obstacle (building) at any airport which permits Cat I operation will permit Cat II or III operation also. The building so freely attributed to be "an Obstruction" is also outside the BLS being, as it is, only 750m from the landing threshold.
But of course any air traffic controller or professional pilot would know this, or know where to find it (CAP 168 Chapter 4 paras 4,5,8,9):rolleyes:
2. Where this Cat II discussion started is anybodies guess, but Humberside is just one of 26 "Airports" within the UK with a Cat I ILS only. Of the others at least 11 could be argued to have more Commercial passenger carrying movements. These include Aberdeen, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Coventry, Doncaster, Durham, IOM, London City, Jersey, Norwich, Prestwick and Southampton. Not many of these would be actively contemplating the installation of Cat II ILS. It is driven by a very high number of diversions, it is not the presence (or absence) of ILS Cat II that attracts traffic.

The ILS came about because someone claimed the reason XL pulled from the airport next year was a lack of Cat III.

Looking at the airports listed this is obviously false.

On the subject of Cat 3 ILS, it's not particularly a matter of obstacle clearance but more to do with the extra ground facilities required, i.e runway lighting and additional holding points.
For example, at Leeds, the location and poor weather you encounter when you develop an airport at 628ft justifies the extra investment in facilities, whereas at HUY, NWI and others which are both just over 100ft above SL, the investment has not been worthwhile.

XL didn't pull from HUY because of a lack of Cat 3 ILS, it was because of lack of trade.

As for DSA, they have some way to go before they catch up with the progress that LBA have made, but at the rate they are going, they'll make 2million pax within the next 18 months, not through scheduled services, but via the long haul market which LBA cannot cater for.

NIKNAK, your last statement is slightly misleading. "LBA can not cater for long haul" both LBA and HUY can handle long haul and indeed both have albeit charters. 767s to Barbados is medium haul is it?
Whilst being pedantic I agree with your sentiments long haul is an exception due to runway length but LBA has in it's masterplan small starter extensions which would do the trick, but will they do it in time to stop DSA. Sadly for HUY I feel it is too late.

Remember Wardair
 

B747 To YYZ so LBA can handle l/h

Once again a lot of what niknak says is sensible, except that little nugget of misinformation in the middle.
Many of you (including him) have pointed out that Humberside's strength is in charters - it is what the populace seem to want. Any proposed charter is nearly booked solid before the season starts. Excel based aircraft (06) was on exclusively charter duties, with large numbers of seats booked before they even announced that they would no longer base one in 07. Most, if not all, have been picked up by the other operators on W rotations, so to say that Excel left because of lack of pax is fallacious (in the same way as saying it was down to lack of Cat II ILS). It is important to differentiate between lack of pax on daily repetitive schedules in large aircraft and weekly charter flights to popular holiday destinations.
If anything, re-organisation at Excel bringing about a last-in first-out "chop" is the most likely explanation. Note: they have also chopped the CWL based aircraft.

Has everyone seen the discussion on the East Midlands thread concerning the possible sale of MAG's 3 smaller airports?

This could either be great news or really bad news

First question though is will the airports be sold as a group or individually?

I can imagine Peel rubbing their hands right now, they will almost certainly be interested in NEMA and HUY and could see BOH as a gateway to the south.

The only reason Peel would be interested in HUY is to close it down and move the flights to DSA.........

Andy-S, i was not thinking of anything else.

Some good news to report. Goldtrail Holidays will have weekly Bodrum and Dalaman flights next summer between July and October. Airline is Onur Air. That gives 4 flights a week to DLM next year, the second most frequently served charter destination after Palma

Considering their reputation a pinch of salt may be needed, but Humberside has appeared in Air Scotland's booking engine

Goldtrail have also been advertising the exact same flights via nearlly all travel agents, to Bodrum and Dalaman from several other UK airports, same times, same aircraft.
I suspect that they are trawling for the most passengers from one particular area and will settle for the closest airport, the rest will be bused to that airport and given the usual lame excuses.......:ugh: :confused:

Humberside
 

Has anybody heard anything of significance (intentional oxymoron) about Humberside? We enquire of management and, no surprise, get shrugged shoulders and nothing more.

Something significant and Humberside doesn't seem to go together. Things this year will probably be about 2005 levels and there is no sign of anything new on the horizon - the Jet 2 rumour having gone very quiet

Not that significant, but good news anyway

Playing about with the Inghams booking engine - looks like HUY has got an INN flight next winter ski season. OS2382 departing at 0940 on Saturdays which should complement Plovdiv well :)

There is also an advert for INN in a travel agents window at HUY

I guess the flight will be operated with an Austrian Arrows (Tyrolean) CRJ or Fokker 70. And most Innsbruck ski routes with Inghams are also served in summer for lakes and mountains holidays - so could Innsbruck be the first new summer 2008 destination and HUY's first lakes and mountains destination?

Rather nice to be able to report a new route and some good to news to start 2007 with. Now just have to await the official announcement