Air Southwest Expand fleet

[teapot]

Air Southwest has received their third DHC 8-300. G WOWC arrived in Plymouth this afternoon at 1430, earlier then expected, good tail winds allowing a trip from Reykjavik direct to Plymouth, without stopping in Prestwick.

From the website.

Air Southwest, the low fares regional airline, has announced the introduction of an additional aircraft to reinforce operational reliability and flexibility on its route network.
The airline, which operates routes from the South West to London, Bristol, Manchester and Jersey and has just celebrated its first birthday, has secured a third Dash 8 from aircraft manufacturer Bombardier in Canada.
The 311 series Dash 8 - which coincidently carries the serial number 311 – yesterday left West Virginia, USA, for its delivery flight to Plymouth.
Air Southwest’s chief pilot Nigel Humphries, accompanied by first officer Robert Crocker is flying the aircraft 4,000 miles back to Air Southwest’s home base.
Starting at Bombardier’s factory service centre in Clarksburg, West Virginia, they first flew to Maine on the North East coast of the USA where the aircraft cleared customs.
The team will then fly to Narssarssuaq on the south coast of Greenland to refuel, and then across the North Atlantic to Reykjavik in Iceland. The final leg of the journey will see them enter the UK via Prestwick before the short trip to Plymouth.
After arriving in Plymouth tomorrow evening (Friday 5th November), the new aircraft will undergo final preparations before going into service.
Malcolm Naylor, managing director at Air Southwest, said: “We’re delighted to be taking delivery of another Dash 8 and it demonstrates our commitment to providing customers with a fast, efficient, reliable and punctual service.”
Nigel Godefroy, managing director of parent company Sutton Harbour Holdings Plc said: “This additional aircraft underlines Sutton Harbour’s continued commitment to providing first class air services to and from the South West region.”
Air Southwest was launched on October 26 last year and recently celebrated its first birthday. In its first 12 months the airline carried 170,000 passengers

[a bristolian]

Well done to all at Air South West.

PLH-BRS-MAN is doing really well.

Look forward to the continued success and maybe some more
units and routes in the future!!

[MerchantVenturer]

Excellent news. Many congratulations to Air Southwest who seem to be a new Brymon in the making.

Any idea which routes the new aircraft will be used on?

[Ranger 1]

Well done to all at Air Southwest :)

[Tom the Tenor]

What about a BRS-ORK?

[we_never_change]

Does anybody know how well the EXT-BHX flight previously flown by Flybe (in a previous guise) with a SH360 did? I understand it did fairly well, possibly enough pax for a PLH-EXT-BHX flight. The trains are pretty useless & quite pricey (Virgin Trains).

WNC

[witchdoctor]

New aircraft is intended for use as a spare only (at present anyway), to ensure services can run as planned when the others are in for maintenance or tech. Believe they had some problems over the last year with tech a/c, and when that is half the fleet it must be a major headache. Hope it all goes smoothly for them this year.

[Oshkosh George]

Incredibly,this aircraft is ALSO ex Brymon,BACX,one time G-BRYO,which was returned to Bombardier in 2002. It hasn't been idle,however,and is ex N784BC.

Is it fully painted up?

[Mark Lewis]

Good news indeed, I flew with them back in April and one of the Dash 8s was in for maintenace, and the other had a problem with the engine on start-up, cancelling half a days flying programme. A very expensive 6 hour taxi journey followed, with the tab picked up by Air Southwest.

[Aksai Oiler]

Hmm....

"Many congratulations to Air Southwest who seem to be a new Brymon in the making"

Does this mean they will be bought up by BA in the future too ?
:E

[MerchantVenturer]

Does this mean they will be bought up by BA in the future too ?

I suppose if they become very successful there is always the chance that someone might buy them but that is business, in all areas.

At present the airline is owned by Plymouth-based Sutton Harbour Holdings plc and Malcolm Naylor, a former director of Brymon, is Air Southwest's MD.

With their flights from PLH to LGW, NQY, JER and BRS there is another parallel with Brymon. Of course Air Southwest also flies to MAN which Brymon (and later BACx) tried from the southwest but with far less success than Air Southwest appears to be achieving.


Believe they had some problems over the last year with tech a/c, and when that is half the fleet it must be a major headache.

They utilised Air Wales's ATR 42s on at least one day when one of their Dash 8s was out (I believe for scheduled maintenance on the day I saw the Dragon at Lulsgate).
What about a BRS-ORK?
Tom

We have discussed in another thread Aer Arann’s treatment of their Cork-Bristol route, reducing frequencies on what appeared to be a well-patronised service apparently to utilise the aircraft on PSO routes out of the likes of Galway and Waterford where a guaranteed income was/is on offer.

A senior route figure at BRS told me months ago that if Aer Arann did not restore the frequency they would be seeking another carrier.

As you know Brymon used to operate a BRS-PLH-ORK route until 2001. Aer Arann took on the BRS-ORK sector the following year.

The snag as I see it about a BRS-ORK route with Air Southwest is that the a/c are based at PLH. Therefore the logical move would be a PLH-BRS-ORK routing. However, Plymouth already has a Cork service with Air Wales and I doubt that there would be room for another airline on the route, especially one going via another airport en route. So, unless Air Southwest can somehow manoeuvre an a/c to BRS each day to run to ORK, I wonder about the logistics.

But then I am but an interested amateur. Perhaps those in the game will tell me different.

[mmeteesside]

Something along the lines of PLH-LGW-BRS-ORK-BRS-LGW-PLH might work? With Air Southwest taking commuters to London early morning, flying back to Bristol (with a few pax maybe?) then the flight to Cork.........then back to LGW again, and then bring businessmen home to PLH?

[Jamesair]

There is a rumour about mentioning a Newquay - Newcastle - Aberdeen service by South West. Anyone else heard this one?

[teapot]

The aircraft is all painted up in company colours, and looks very smart indeed. Rumour is that the cabin has been refurnished too, with brand new leather seats, and other trimmings.

You’ll see it in service pretty soon, as it will be covering for the other aircraft when they go into the hangar for maintenance. After that, as you say it will be a spare…..although I’m sure they wont be able to resist finding something for it to do to earn its keep.

[terrier21]

Well I must say congratulations to WOW Ive been tucked up in bed ill for the last week so I have only just seen this thread. Fantastic news lots of ex Bacx colleagues who used to do the plh-brs-ncl run work for them.

I know it used to be a standing joke about the dash 8's going tech on the final (BRS-PLH) sector of the day , with passengers saying it was canx because it was cheeper to taxi the 4 of them down than to fly!!! I think this extra aircraft will hopefully reduce some of the problems they have, having to canx/delay etc.

Logically they have to keep it as a spare aircraft because if you put on to many sectors with two few aircraft you only need a couple of problems for things to escalate; ie, hyperthetically aircraft A PLH-BRS-MAN-BRS-PLH-JER-PLH-BRS-MAN-BRS-PLH and aircraft B could, I don't know lets try mmeteesside' plan of PLH-LGW-BRS-ORK-BRS-LGW-PLH.
If both aircraft A+B went tech first thing in the morning and aircraft C was operating its normal EXT-LGW routes etc you could effectivley have a possible 550 pax (possible aircraft A load) 350 pax (possible aircraft B load) so that is a possible 900 disrupted pax who have probabbly paid an average of £30-£45 for there ticket who will need to be some taxied, coached, flown or sailed to there respective destinations. Where as with the spare aircraft they could cover 60%-70% of this.

The other option of course would be to put an aircraft on just operating a couple of routes late morning mid afternoon. This would be no good for buisness pax (wrong time of day as BACX found with there mid afternoon BRS-MAN) maybe PLH-BRS-ORK-BRS-PLH or PLH-BRS-NWI-BRS-PLH or maybe even PLH-BRS-LBA-BRS-PLH. This way if they had to pull it out to operate other services they would dtill have another aircraft backing up the movements it would be leaving behind ie; if it went tech in LBA the i/b BRS pax coached to MAN and flown down, if ti went tech in BRS en route to PLH there would be another plane along to take them down.

Sorry if that doesn't make any sense Im still a bit blocked up.
Just an aidea now off to get another lemsip although if I take to many more I think ill be able to fly pax.

T21