BACX at BHD

[jamesbrownontheroad]

After BE723 pushed back at BHD for Friday's trip to NWI, we were held for a couple of minutes to let a 146 in BA colours land ... can I presume that this was a BACX flight from MAN, rather than a BE flight using borrowed equipment?

And if that was the case, is this beginning of the end for the Dash-8s that usually work this route?

Interested to know what the long term plans / rumours are for BA's last toe-hold in Belfast...

Thanks,

*j*

[Tower Ranger]

......and there we were thinking it was a bit of forward planning by Bacx, increasing capacity to deal with the shortage of seats to Manch for the N.Ireland/England match at Old Trafford.
It seems they are happy just to make as little effort as possible and let this route limp on to an uncertain future.

[gps117]

we sent a load of RJ's over on saturday

[Dash-7 lover]

To all of the above..... yes the RJ100 operated the MAN-BHD routes over the weekend due to Easter/Football traffic and most of the sectors were booked full, so there was a bit of forward thinking. Also, just to clarify some of the negative comments above.......the Dash-8's make money so the route isn't 'limping on' to an uncertain future! Why single out MAN-BHD Could you say the same for the other Dash-8 routes ex MAN like MAN-EDI/GLA/SOU/SNN/IOM/ABZ?? Soon MAN will be 145's and DH8's only!!

[ALLMCC]

Reference to the route "limping on" perhaps indicates the perceived lack of effort shown by BACX to develop this route. I can recall a couple of years back when BACX announced with a big fanfare that they were upgrading from the dreaded ATP to all jet - then WW came along and started BFS - MAN and within a few months the BHD was downgraded to the Dash 8 with the odd E145 Sunday rotation.

If we discount the franchise operations from LDY, this is the last true BA route to NI and there does seem to be liittle interest in sustaining it. Wonder what will happen when the last of the Dash 8s go this year as predicted - will we see an upgrade again or will they simply take the easy way out and just walk away?

[MarkD]

Interesting to observe the difference in attitudes to competition:

Ryanair (example Go on Scottish routes) - up frequency, capacity, advertising and discounting until the competitor is gone or the market has ballooned and MOL has lost interest.

BA on BHD - down frequency and capacity and live off the few people who will fly BA until they die.

I wonder was Willie Walsh hired to make the mindset more MOLish. Perhaps the movement of 767 rumoured elsewhere to LH will create a more focused SH fleet of Airbuses (like EI SH) and be more aggressive vs. the LCCs.

[jamesbrownontheroad]

What's interesting about this route is that if BACX *were* (and this is purely hypothetical) to walk away, there are several possibilities of who would fill the gap between Belfast and MAN. Discuss...

- FlyBe (already operating something like 75% of the flights in and out of BHD)
- BMI does a little swapping - ditch WW to BFS and ramp up a mainline service from BHD to complement the LHR service and to feed long haul
- and/or Easyjet or Jet 2 piling on the pressure at BFS

Maybe?

BA do put a *bit* of effort into advertising their lowest fare (£59) on Metro buses and hoardings in Belfast, but those are only on off-peak flights, and it's not difficult to get a £40 return with WW, even at peak times. Don't even ask about one way fares - all the website returns are £200 +

*j*

[MarkD]

jamesbrown

bmi have shown MAN was a place to house a 332 until LHR routes came available. The arrival of the 757 means their commitment to MAN longhaul is pretty dubious.

I think MAN should be a mainline only port to feed Star traffic including bmi longhaul (especially if it gives me a connection to ORK - currently WW) but MB would need to buy a few more Airbuses I guess!

[Dash-7 lover]

ALLMCC

''A couple of years ago - BACX announced it the route was being upgraded to a jet'' . ..... The company was only formed a couple of years ago after the merger of BAR/Brymon/Manx and British Regional and times change - maybe it wasn't profitable on the 146 but at least it shows the company is flexible in trying to maintain links!! We dropped the ATP due to base closures and removal of the fleet. The combined route map of all the airlines was totally unmanageable and the company has to make money at the end of the day so stop bl**dy moaning!!

[eastern wiseguy]

so stop bl**dy moaning


Some chance of him doing that!!.As to the route it seems that any time I try to book to the US and the option of flying via the harbour and Manchester is offered the Dash is invariably full in Y and only C is left...so people must like it.

I would prefer that BA had more of a presence in the province...but they seemed to make a loss out of carrying over 400,000 punters to LHR from NI so thank goodness for the likes of Baby and Easy.

Ditch WW to BFS and ramp up a mainline service from BHD to complement the LHR service and to feed long haul

or RAMP it up from BFS.......better hours ...yadda yadda yadda ...you know the arguments...and surely the choice of Bmi for longhaul from Manchester is decidedly limited?