The number they have on order I would think so but not this year maybe next year or year after.as they will operate the Canary Islands and longer haul heavy lift flights.
One of the older A321ceo has already moved to BHX as G-SUNB is due in MAN on Thursday from EMA where it is having stencils put on

More of a reason to keep them up North for the longer legs and the NEO engines are still less reliable than the CEO models.
Are their many first wave slots available for increasing the number if based frames to 20? Wouldn't make business sense if you can't get them earning money before 9AM.

I’m pretty sure EZY’s base consisted of around 6-8 based units, with a lot of inbounds from BFS, GLA & EDI similar to what happens now.

Fantastic news, and how wrong I was thnking they couldn't compete in Fortress Ryanair.

Last summer, Niceair chartered an A319 from Hi Fly Malta to fly STN to Akureyri in Iceland. They managed to operate a couple of flights before the CAA told them to sod off because the UK-Iceland bilateral doesn't allow EU carriers
Niceair said they would return. They won't - Icelandic news reports Niceair are shutting down
https://www.ruv.is/frettir/innlent/2...le-a-starfsemi

I’ve seen some niche routes in my time and that was certainly one of them. No real surprise.

It’s a shame, the area around Akureyi is pretty incredible and quite distant from Reykjavik. It’s got good potential but really needs someone like EZY dropping in a couple of times a week from their bigger bases, the cost of running a dedicated airline is always going to be an uphill battle. Transavia have served it for a few seasons, Egilsstadir to the east had German package flights in the past.

Looks like SunExpress may be moving their London ops from Luton to Stansted come October?

Thanks to SeanM1997 on Twitter.


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....abd900a99.jpeg

As they are owned jointly by Lufthansa & Turkish Airlines it was a little of an odd ball for Luton but I think TUI used to block book seats. Perhaps TUI have decided to use someone else so the need to use Luton has disappeared? Pure speculation.
My thought is Wizzair will be itching to connect more Turkish airports at Luton anyhow once Blue Air slots become available for bidding by the administrators.

Competing with Pegasus on that route. Not very convenient flight times either.

Sun Express
 

Looking at the Sun Express website, seems their Luton - Antalya service is also not available to book for the winter 23/24 period, so no LTN flights at all, possibly been moved to Gatwick or potentially also switching to STN ??

What would really work would be TK mainline coming back on the STN - IST route, filling the Atlasjet void and enabling their IST
hub to pick up so much potential for onward traffic to the likes of CIS and Asia / Far East, demand is def there, same can be said for KLM reintroducing their AMS route as an onward hub.

Sun Express only operate around Christmas and New Year at Luton due lack of slots apparently.

Sun Express have been constrained by lack of slots at Luton, hence the move.

I don't think Jet2 from Stansted (who I used this last week) are directly competitive with Ryanair, despite their northern background they are now a national brand whose only operation from London/South East is from Stansted. Their base load is from their package holiday side. I suspect their market would follow them whichever London airport they used. It was however a sensible choice for them, I suspect if they could get slots at Gatwick they would operate parallel flights from there.

MAG Group discounts will play a significant part in Jet2 and Harp decisions

That said Jet2 do operate block charters from Gatwick

Agreed they aren’t a direct head on competitor of either Ryanair or Easy being very much a hybrid tour company with airline attached business with limited back fill from sales largely targeted at the second home and Airbnb crowd.

I think there could be a reasonable chance of TK resuming its STN-IST service once AnadoluJet is spun off into an independent airline - as you rightly say, there is wealth of connection opportunities available from the main Istanbul airport with TK that currently aren't accessible via STN.

As far as KLM is concerned - this has been previously flagged up, and discussed earlier in the thread. With just 2 flights available to AMS with EZY, this is a far cry from when KLM, and later Buzz served the STN-AMS route, which I believe at its peak stood at 6 daily? KLM UK had a hub at STN back in the early 2000s and even had its own dedicated lounge in satellite 2 for business class passengers. Certainly they would be a welcome addition to STN for MAG I'm sure, especially given KLM's vast network from AMS. However, no doubt KLM would be mindful of how a return to Stansted might influence its passenger through flow from LHR and LCY. I'm doubtful we would ever see a return to a 6 daily service to AMS, but perhaps they could make a double-daily AMS flight work to begin with and adjust accordingly?

It would probably also cannibalise their Norwich route so all in all, fairly unlikely

Difficult to say RE. Norwich - as Norwich has been a well-established route for many years, and was being flown at the same time KLM UK flew STN-AMS at 5-6 daily in the early 2000s. So who knows? It would be nice to have them back, as I can't see EZY ever expanding beyond the current 2 daily flights to AMS, as they more-or-less gave up on STN in favour of LGW and LTN in 2020.

With AMS movements restrictions / reductions coming soon subject to EU courts I can't see any scope for anything new from STN, even for 2/day are any prized early morning / late tea time slots available other than the Loganair ones currently?