BRISTOL - 2

[MerchantVenturer]

BAConnect is to commence a three times a week service from BRS to TFS commencing on 3 October this year. It is also to begin a similar service from Nottingham East Midlands at the end of the same month.

Must be the first scheduled route from BRS to the Canary Islands. I believe the equipment may be A 320s but it seems they won't be BRS-based.

[WATABENCH]

Nice one BA :ok:

[Vasto1M]

03OCT - 28OCT -2--56- BRS-TFS 1750 2150 BA6834 320 GT
31OCT - -2--56- BRS-TFS 1735 2135 BA6834 320 GT
03OCT - 28OCT -2--56- TFS-BRS 1235 1635 BA6835 320 GT
31OCT - -2--56- TFS-BRS 1235 1635 BA6835 320 GT

[fyrefli]

<rant mode>

Every bl**dy time to practically every bl**dy passenger! :ugh:

Yes, you, the pre-screening wallahs at Bristol International!

It's in the passport! I'm holding it with my finger in the photo page where the boarding pass is sitting since I got it from check-in! I keep them together so I know where they are, just like almost every other Tom, Dick or Harriet you see every day! Have you not got used to it by now? We keep them together, get it? So when we come towards you at the pre-security check and give you our passports, clearly in many cases containing boarding cards, no more of the "Just yer boarding pass please", just take the bl**dy passport, check the boarding card and give it back.

</rant mode>

Ah, I feel better now :)

Cheers,

Rich.

[redfield]

Not every passenger is as efficient as you are.:E

[fyrefli]

Not every passenger is as efficient as you are.

Last visit I was just pleased they weren't laptop swabbing, as I had two of the buggers.

How's the extended coffee shop on the upper level going? Chaos last visit (Bank Hol) as I think it'd just opened and there was the usual too many chiefs, startled rabbit indians circus that happens on such occasions going on. Like the extended comfy seating area next to it, particualarly as there is another socket for use of aforementioned laptops! (There was previously only one accessible one on the whole upper floor.)

Cheers,

Rich.

[mrloop]

fyrefli

I have the misfortune to use the upstairs catering almost every week. It must be bad as it's forced me to break my PP virginity. The Echos(?) bar is appalling, even on a quiet Monday morning the service is abysmal. On the Sunday of the last Bank Holiday it was absolute chaos with the coffee shop closed, lots of pax getting compensation vouchers for a delayed flight and the usual busy Sunday afternoon crowd. I imagine that the staff are treated pretty poorly as they show no interest in customer service - on asking what had happened to my order the responses from them ranged from "I'm going home now" to "I just pick up the dirty plates".

On Tuesday this week, asking for a receipt produced the answer that "all the till printers are broken" and a shrug of the shoulders.

I like travelling from Bristol but they really need to sort out the airside catering (they've spent enough building new shops). I suppose that at the end of the day they have a captive eating audience.

[Kellycsi]

Did Bristol get any of the diversions from Birmingham yesterday after the problem with runway after the emergency landing of the TNT 737?

[WATABENCH]

Anybody had a look at the Gibralter thread? rumour of GIB-BRS, nice little route for pax if it turns out that way

[Harry the Hound]

Nowt much going on latley then people? Does this mean its all been running tickedy boo? surely not!
Anyway if anyones interested the new route to AGA being operated by TCX this winter instead of FCA, fraid thats all i got folks, must be something juicier out there surely:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[crackling jet]

Whats the latest on Menzies setting up at Brs, rumours are rife that it has been confirmed they will be here within the next couple of months,if so where the hell are they going to put them ?

[Vasto1M]

Air Scotland are to start a weekly GRO on 22nd July using an A320.

[Buster the Bear]

Watch out for an orange quiet culling of some routes from Nov 06 onwards!

[WOWBOY]

:eek:
Easyjet cutting routes?
If so wonder what ones?:\

[GrahamK]

Air Scotland are to start a weekly GRO on 22nd July using an A320.
Now called TopJetAir :}

[OltonPete]

WOWBOY

Had a quick trawl through the booking engine and ones not bookable
in November are: -

Budapest, La Rochelle, Hamburg, Marseille, Mahon, Pisa and Rijeka.
With Grenoble I got an error message rather than "the flight only operates
until 29th October.

As for the rest, there is work for eight aircraft with few gaps. I might have
made a mistake but I had nine evening flights plus the Belfast & Newcastle
originating aircraft.

Krakow ops Mo, Wed, Fri and PMI on Tue & Thur (did not check weekends).

I am not sure how this compares to now or last winter but I have always
been impressed with Easy's Bristol operation for destination choice.

OltonPete

[MerchantVenturer]

Pete

I have also done a trawl through the booking engine and discovered that thus far next winter there are 25 daily weekday rotations allocated to BRS-based aircraft (this includes PMI on Tu and Th mornings plus KRK on M, W and F mornings making one rotation for this purpose, and the second daily GVA which commences in December).

In addition NCE operates on M, W and F. So this gives one spare rotation each day and a second spare on Tu and Th, assuming the nine based Airbuses each does three rotations per day, and they will need nine because you are correct when you say there are nine evening arrivals between 2145 and 2225 - ALC, EDI, GLA, AGP, MJV, CIA, TLS, VCE and SXF.

Changes from last winter and indeed from this summer include a second daily AMS rotation and the SXF route being operated by a BRS-based aircraft for the first time instead of a German-based aircraft.

As to the routes apparently dropped, Mahon is a high summer venture only and the new routes (commencing next month) to La Rochelle, Marseille and Rijeka may well be considered summer routes too. BRS is the only easy route from La Rochelle and Rijeka flies only to BRS and LTN. LTN is not bookable after October either, and neither are the Marseille routes to LGW and LPL as well as BRS.

The other routes currently flown from BRS not bookable at present are Budapest, Hamburg, Valencia and Pisa. Apart from Pisa to Paris Orly, no easyJet routes from/to these cities are currently available to book.

Last winter (and this summer) Budapest was/is only flown on M, W and F during the week. Valencia, although daily in the summer, was also M, W and F last winter. Pisa is also daily in the summer but was Tu and Th only last winter. Hamburg was daily during the week last winter and this summer. Grenoble was Tu and Th only last winter.

It may be that some of the destinations not yet bookable from anywhere may well come into play eg Valencia M, W and F; two of Grenoble, Budapest and Pisa on Tu and Th.

In addition the BFS (operated by Belfast-based aircraft) remains at three per weekday whilst the NCL (operated by Newcastle-based aircraft) increases to four per weekday from the previous three with an additional mid-morning arrival and with the last arrival of the day put back to slightly later in the evening.

I have not mentioned weekend flights but the programme seems reasonably full already.

Although some routes are apparently ceasing this winter (some will doubtless return next summer) the net result seems to be that BRS will have more easyJet flights this coming winter than last winter because there will be nine based aircraft instead of the eight last winter and the schedules seem to need them all, albeit there are still one or two gaps as stated earlier.

In summary the winter weekday daily flights currently bookable in the web engine are AMS (x2), ALC (x2), BCN, EDI (x3), FAO, GLA (x3), GVA (x2), INV, MAD, AGP (x2), MJV, PRG, CIA, TLS, VCE, SXF, KRK (M,W, F), PMI (Tu and Th), NCE (M, W, F), plus BFS (x3) and NCL (x4), the last two being operated by non-BRS aircraft.

Hope you've got all this - there will be a test later. ;)

[WATABENCH]

Blimey MV, No offence but you must of been daaaaaaaamn bored last night mate :E

[OltonPete]

MV

Cheers for that, restored some faith in my own counting ability!

Assuming aircraft number 9 is fully occupied then this is quite a decent
spread of routes (still pretty good even if it was 8).

Off to do some revision :ok:

OltonPete

[WATABENCH]

Just reading in the GB Airways thread, someone has written that 'TFS will not be the only destination served, news of more routes will be along soon' Page 3 of the thread, could be intresting as GB do some nice little routes from LGW and MAN.

[MerchantVenturer]

Blimey MV, No offence but you must of been daaaaaaaamn bored last night mate :E
No, I was watching Argentina v Mexico at the same time. More entertaining than England v Ecaudor that I've just sweated through but at least we won and live to face another potential defeat.

It doesn't take long with high speed broadband and I always look at the easyJet schedules when they are published as I like to use the airline for cheapies (I shall give them another chance despite being let down by them recently), and the best fares are to be had at the beginning.

Interesting that all nine 'late' evening arivals are scheduled in between 2145 and 2225 because even in the winter the last Orange arrivals are usually just before midnight.

Doubtless this is to assist the £20 million (that's the figure given in the Consultative Committee minutes on the BRS website) runway resurfacing due to take place overnight this coming winter. The MD spoke of 'enormous logistics' with the runway being handed over to contractors each night from October until the job is done.

I suppose having a short runway must save a few quid when it comes to resurfacing. :)

[Ranger 1]

Got a funny feeling, I know which dept will be making sure its handed over each morning:}
Cheers :ok:

[ATCO1987]

<rant mode>

Every bl**dy time to practically every bl**dy passenger!

Yes, you, the pre-screening wallahs at Bristol International!

It's in the passport! I'm holding it with my finger in the photo page where the boarding pass is sitting since I got it from check-in! I keep them together so I know where they are, just like almost every other Tom, Dick or Harriet you see every day! Have you not got used to it by now? We keep them together, get it? So when we come towards you at the pre-security check and give you our passports, clearly in many cases containing boarding cards, no more of the "Just yer boarding pass please", just take the bl**dy passport, check the boarding card and give it back.

</rant mode>

Ah, I feel better now

Cheers,

Rich.

It is very annoying getting handed every other document apart from boarding cards!!! The signs clearly say "have your BOARDING CARDS ready for inspection" so just give us those! You say the boarding cards are in the passports, yes, with EZY that is very often the case, but we normally just get handed a passport and nowt more...Ive even been handed those little green cards you have to fill in when travelling to Tunisia before now, deary me. Shoot joe public is what I say.

Thats my rant over :).

[WATABENCH]

Just putting 2+2 together and probably getting 5 here, but as I mentioned earlier, it was said on another thread that there may be a possible GIB-BRS flight coming soon, also as I mentioned earlier from the GB Airways thread apparently TFS may not be the only destination served by GB from BRS soon, so do we think possibly GB BRS-GIB a couple of times a week in the near future?

[Turroncin]

WATABENCH

I think GB are more excited about the bucket-and-spade brigade than anyone else. At MAN they've cut it down to TFS and PFO and as you see TFS has been their first choice for EMA and BRS. So maybe you might get a PFO or HER coming your way before a GIB.

[MerchantVenturer]

Looks as though Flybe is continuing its rundown of services out of BRS, as some of us anticipated earlier in the year.

The winter timetable shows no Belfast City, Bergerac or Bordeaux departures although, perhaps surprisingly, the Jersey is to run six times a week through the winter (no Sats) and, even more surprisingly, the Toulouse is also to run six times a week through the winter (again no Sats) against easyJet's daily Airbus.

I wonder if someone like Air Southwest will look at BHD or will they be scared off the route as Flybe apparently were (used to be three daily departures) by easyJet's three Boeing 737s a day from BFS?

Bordeaux is a pity because it is one of Bristol's twin cities. None of the other European twin cities have air links to Bristol either. One might think Hanover was a candidate but Tbilisi (some say Georgia is in Asia not Europe anyway) is probably a bit remote for an airport like BRS.

At the moment it looks as though BRS will have nine less scheduled routes this winter compared to the summer, viz Pisa, Budapest, Valencia, La Rochelle, Marseille and Rijeka with easyJet, plus the three Flybe routes mentioned above. I haven't counted Mahon because that is a high summer scheduled route and Hamburg (also apparently dropped by easyJet) will presumably continue to be operated by OLT, albeit with somewhat more expensive fares than the Orange machine.

It's a bit of a surprise following recent years when new routes seemed to be appearing at BRS like weeds in my garden. Continuing with the gardening theme, it's always a good thing to prune the dead wood to make way for new, stronger growth so perhaps that's what's happening with these routes, although doubtless some will return next summer.

[Harry the Hound]

Maybe EZY just cannot provide enough crew, simple answer i know, but probably correct going on the chats I have with EZY crew, also as MV mentioned before, a lot of the routes axed for winter are really summer only La Rochelle, Mahon, Reijka, quite suprised with Pisa and Valencia though, as for Budapest I'm sure its a lovely city but cant imagine many people wanting to go there in the middle of January, its dull and cold enough here thank you, shame bout BE but who's really suprised after the brown nosing that has gone on 70 miles south, i mean even the new extention on the front is BE colours.
At least on the funny side, can you really see any other operator wanting to go in to EXT? Not even the South Wests own airline wants to operate from the South Wests 2nd busiest airport, what does that tell you?
So probably any potential routes/airlines looking at EXT are going to see that the place is so 1 sided that they wouldnt get a look-in.
I spoke to a FCA GOC who said even they in the winter have been either unable to let pax off as a BE was coming on stand and took priority to off load or the same situation boarding flights with BE taking priority, and this is with the only charter mad enough to operate down there, albeit just in winter, apparently some of the flight deck were Livid!
Sorry didnt mean to go EXT bashing then, it just popped out, i guess what i'm saying really is that the loss of BE in BRS is nowt to worry about in my opinion, as MV put it, makes way for new growth

[WATABENCH]

Turricon,

Thanks for the info bout GB, what routes do they operate from LGW? have they been cutting back there too?

[AEUENG]

I have heard that BRS is going to be undergoing runway repairs / upgrade this witer and hence will be reduced to CAT 1 capability only. BRS doesn't have the best weather record during the winter months so it looks like CWL and EXT could be a tad busier than normal?!:confused:

[johnrizzo2000]

I wonder how long the CO flight will last??? Does it go 4 weekly for the winter?

[MerchantVenturer]

Last winter EWR-BRS-EWR went down to five rotations per week in November, December, January and February (apparently only four per week were planned originally during this period).

It returned to daily in the first week in March. There were also some extra rotations in December giving six per week some weeks.

I don't know what is scheduled for the coming winter.

Why do you ask how long the CO service to EWR will last?

[OltonPete]

MV & all

There is a long long thread about CO on another well known International forum and if one "respected" user is correct then Bristol-EWR seems fine.

It started from a claim that one existing route will be pulled but not one of this years "new starters". The doom merchants predicted Bristol & Belfast
(one even BHX) but they were told "why look to the UK".

All speculation but as I say this guy seems to know what he is on
about - fingers crossed it is not UK service.

OltonPete

[MerchantVenturer]

Pete

I remember that last summer there was a long-running thread on another international forum (well-known for aviation pictures) that predicted an early end for EWR-BRS, on the basis that the loads didn't seem good.

The first year has now passed and the target figure publicly announced by CO at the outset for that first year (75,000 pax) was comfortably exceeded. However, we of course don't know whether fares were discounted to achieve this or what the ultimate yield is.

The CAA stats for March and April seemed all right with 7,930 and 8125 pax respectively (percentage load factors in the high 70s). The provisional May figure isn't so good (low 7000s but for some reason the BRS-EWR route is always increased by several hundred when the final figures are published - as far as I can see it is the only BRS route that is treated in this way on the CAA stats pages, don't know why).

In raw pax figures BFS has done better than BRS in the first full twelve months of the routes - BRS around 86,000 pax and BFS around 95,000, again all extracted from the CAA stats.

Of course we know that bare pax figures aren't the main consideration when it comes to route profitability.

In the latest BRS Consultative Committee minutes, published on the airport website, the airport MD said the route is still predominantly used by pax originating this side of the Pond. They have tried and are trying various ways of bringing it to the attention of US travellers.

My son has used the route several times this year and speaks highly of it. He is not remotely interested in aviation so speaks as a punter, although he is lucky in that his company pays the tab for him to sit in the front part of the 757, so the views of those at the back might be more revealing.

Hope the route does succeeed but I keep hearing of people who still use LHR and, in truth, for those living to the north and east of Bristol the trip to Heathrow is not much more difficult than getting through or around Bristol to Lulsgate.

BRS is a much more civilised experience though and the M4 is liable to chronic congestion and sometimes closure.

[OltonPete]

MV

Yes Belfast in terms of pax has done well even beating BHX in April.

A lot of what you have said is similar to what people say about BHX
(on a local BHX forum). CO did upgrade to two a day last year but
although the load factor was fine yield was not (per posts on
other threads).

I still listen to people at work going on about the lack of choice
from Birmingham then in the next breath tell you they went to
New York from Heathrow. Some citing the cramped narrow 757
(non aviation individuals) although it is usually price that is the
main reason.

Anyway straying off topic here but lets hope that CO expand
their current UK routes (Newcastle?) rather than contract.

Pete

[johnrizzo2000]

I flew Bristol last week, and the week before. There was 71 people onboard. I coudnt get a seat out of BFS. I'm flying from Bristol again next week, because there's so much space to spread out in!

[Harry the Hound]

Hands up who thinks the Air Malta looks daft? :p what silly bugger at their HQ ok'd for XL to plaster themselves all over the side?
It may sound a bit old fashioned but KM is one of the only regal looking airlines left in europe? why spoil it by putting a humongus XL.COM on the side? sorry but the Hound dont like it.
Why not something a little more subtle, like Skyservice/FCA have with their CWL aircraft, i saw it come in the other day with a little plaque by the doors saying 'Operated on behalf of First Choice Airways by Skyservice' whats wrong with that? Bloody marketing department!

[ATCO1987]

The reason for that is, that it also operates XLA flights, and I think there were complaints or something like that. Joe public will complain about anything <G>. So they just stuck the XL.COM on it to show it operates for them too!

[Gonzo]

I flew to KEWR from Bristol in last December.

The service was good, meal average (for airline food...so pretty nasty). The seats were average, as was the legroom. The ease of Bristol as an airport was by far and away the best feature.

The worst aspect of the return leg, which was very quiet, whole row to myself, the three seats were not wide enough for me to lay down without contorting my 5 foot 7 inch body pretty badly.

[johnrizzo2000]

Gonzo,

You should have flown BusinessFirst. Your 5'7 body would have been a lot more comfortable, and the food is good!

[fyrefli]

Changes from last winter and indeed from this summer include a second daily AMS rotation

Hurrah! An end to wasting two entire days' work per trip! Now I can actually take the occasional day off again :)

Cheers,

Rich.

[redfield]

Johnrizzo2000 - how would someone 6ft 6in cope in the business class on the CO flight???:hmm:

[johnrizzo2000]

I think they would cope very well. I'm 6'0 and i have plenty of room. I have seen many people who are taller than me, and they seemed comfortable! All i know is, if youre over 6'0, economy is hell! Plus the service in businessfirst is great!

[MerchantVenturer]

CAA June stats (provisional) show BRS now through the 5.5 million annual pax barrier for the twelve months ending June 2006 – 5,538,612 to be precise.

552,000 pax used the airport in June this year, 9.4% more than in June 2005.

Given the large number of easyJet cancellations, and the World Cup enticing people to stay at home (although undoubtedly there were some who did travel to get away from the football) this isn't a bad result, in football parlance.

[WOWBOY]

Flybe are have all but confirmed that Bristol -> Belfast City will enfact cease at the end of October. Air Southwest have been rumored to be taking up the route!

[airhumberside]

If Air Southwest could offer twice daily flights on weekdays Im sure they could do well on the route with the advantage of serving BHD and not BFS

[MerchantVenturer]

Flybe did operate 3 rotations a day (slightly fewer at weekends) on BHD-BRS until the end of summer 2005 including early morning and evening services that made day trips possible.

This was in competition with easyJet's 3 rotations a day (slightly fewer at weekends) on BFS-BRS.

Flybe typically carried 6-8,000 pax per month whilst easyJet typically carried and still carries 19-22,000 pax per month.

This shows there was and presumably still is a market between BHD and BRS even in competition with the Orange BFS service, but of course the vital thing is whether that undoubted market is big enough to make money for an airline. Flybe apparently thinks there are better opportunities elsewhere.

As for Air Southwest and Flybe in the southwest generally, there are some interesting CAA comparative figures for June, albeit provisional.

Air Southwest carried 1412 pax on BRS-NWI-BRS whilst BE carried 3141 pax on EXT-NWI-EXT. Both services are operated once a day with WOW using a DH-8-300 and, AFAIK, BE a DH-8-400.

On BRS-MAN-BRS Air Southwest carried 3789 pax on 3 rotations a day (slightly fewer at weekends) and on EXT-MAN-EXT Flybe carried 5062 pax on 2 daily rotations (slightly fewer at weekends). I believe the equipment is as on the NWI route for both airlines.

As a further comparison, on CWL-MAN-CWL Air Southwest on two rotations a day (fewer at weekends) carried 1379 pax.

On the face of it Flybe is doing better on these routes than Air Southwest but, as always, we are not privy to their costs and don't know what sort of yield is being generated by either carrier.

[Gonzo]

johnrizzo2000,

You should have flown BusinessFirst

Too expensive.

[MerchantVenturer]

It seems that not a day passes without further easyJet cancellations from BRS on one or more routes. It has been well documented on PPRuNe and elsewhere that easyJet has a serious shortage of available flight crew and this is causing major problems across much of the airline’s network.

I did a quick check last night and discovered that between now and 6 August at least thirty rotations (sixty flights) from/to BRS have been cancelled, viz, BUD 4, HAM 7, PRG 6, CIA 5, VLC2 and VCE 6.

Does anyone know when the situation is likely to get back to anything approaching normality?

I would like to spend a few days in Budapest with Mrs MV but cannot risk being stranded in Hungary if the return flight is cancelled after we get out there.

[Buster the Bear]

I understand the true figure of cancelled sectors for their network in August would shock everyone!

[WATABENCH]

Just arrived at work this morning to be confronted with a humongus FLYBE advertising hoarding on the main entrance roundabout, looks excellent, but seems somewhat strange for it to be BE, being that they seem to be dissapearing from BRS rather rapidly, seeming they could of advertised maybe BRS's biggest carrier Easyjet or maybe the CO route, or even FCA's long haul. Maybe sumets up the FLYBE sleeve that we dont know about :confused:

[Stone Cold II]

I see that EZY have cancelled the late Alicante, lack of crews again no doubt! Has someone in la la land pushed the self distruct button. Schools broke up for the summer today and I bet there was a large volume of kids booked on this flight looking forward to their summer holiday, I would hate to see the look of dissapointment on their faces when they were told their flight is cancelled.

Ezy's name is getting really dragged through the mud, must be loosing huge amounts of repeat customers.

[Vasto1M]

Actually it was a tech fault with the aircraft that couldn’t be easily rectified. All passengers dealt with very efficiently by the Servisair ground staff, some put on tomorrows Alicante and the remainder from Luton.

[Stone Cold II]

That's good to hear, at least it's was out of Ezy's control and the pax were dealt with swiftly to cause least amount of delay to get them on their holiday.

[WATABENCH]

Flygibralter plans to start GIB-BRS service next april using 737-300, also going to STN and MAN, more info on the Flygibralter thread

[routem]

Flew back from EWR with Continental on Friday night with only about 40 pax on the flight. Crew were adamant that Continental are now rethinking the viability of this route due to recent poor capacity figures. Seems like C believe they aircraft could be better used to enhance capacity on one of their more profitable routes. It would be a shame to lose this flight as its such an easy way into the States and beyond and, of course, avoids the chaos of LHR.

[flyerboy]

Actually there was 55,but 12+161 out and 16+159 yesterday so perhaps not every flight is as low you think

[Tom the Tenor]

Send the CO out via Cork on alternate days from EWR BRS ORK EWR and EWR ORK BRS EWR and make us all happy!

[MerchantVenturer]

It would be a great shame if this route is axed. I have spoken to several people who have used it, including my son who has flown it half a dozen times this year, and they all speak highly of it, especially the convenience and the avoidance of the LHR hassle.

The route did quite comfortably exceed the initial 12-month passenger target of the airline but compared to other CO routes from the UK to EWR, notably BFS that started at the same time, monthly load factors seem lower for much of the time, although not in every month (CAA stats).

According to the Belfast Telegraph, around 40% of those using the BFS-EWR link are US-based whereas it is well documented that the BRS-EWR link is predominantly used by UK-based residents – the airport MD mentions this in the minutes of the latest consultative committee minutes on the airport’s own website.

I suspect that if BRS could achieve a 40% American loading the route would be extremely profitable.

The airport and airline have tried many initiatives to try to get US residents to use the BRS gateway. Bristol is not well-known in the USA, despite historical links, and those Americans who might look at the route would see that Bristol is only around one hundred miles from London and, thinking in American distances, might well believe it to be a small airport on the edge of Greater London, so why use it if the much larger Heathrow and Gatwick are available?

Let’s hope the situation is not as dire as one or two on this MB might be suggesting.

Even if more Americans can’t be tempted there is a vast number of local people who, for various reasons, still use the London airports for their transatlantic travel. Perhaps some of these would be easier to persuade.

Tom,

It's a thought but the problem might then be reversed - too many pax!

We never did get that easyJet route from BRS to ORK, and now I believe the Orange Machine is deserting ORK altogether.

[WATABENCH]

FCA BRS-SFB definatly starts in febuary weekly now, and POP fortnightly starts in febuary also, for some reason not on FC website at the moment but apparently it is on sale in the shops. Varadero still starting in May.
If these routes are selling as well as I hear then it would be nice to see some more longhaul added for winter 07/08, I suspect a CUN is probably already on the cards but a nice BRS-MLE via LGW would suit me(can't really see that one though :} ), what do you all reckon?

[CentreFix25]

Just makes me think what the long haul program would be like with an extra couple hundred metres added on the end.

[30W]

WATABENCH,

Glad it's all selling well - it did from Brum as well rest assured!

Before you get too carried away, just let the operation run via the debacle that tends to be a tech stop at Manchester, and see how feedback effects future bookings. If they have a poor time on the outbound, rest assured they won't re-use the service, and word soon spreads!

I think you can forget any sign personally of any routes south. Bear in mind GOA, MLE etc all require a tech stop from BRS, I don't think you will see commercial being too keen to let you utilise a precious LGW slot for it!! Therefore, non-starter I think.

30W

[WATABENCH]

Yeah i know exactly what u mean with regard to LGW slots, no harm in dreaming though, well at the mo the tech stop in MAN is just for fuel and cargo, no pax offload etc, lets hope it all go's well, the one off BRS-CUN in oct should give us a clue as to how it'll go i suppose

[30W]

well at the mo the tech stop in MAN is just for fuel and cargo, no pax offload etc

That's all it was before....... but i do hope they do it better this time round. Problem is that it's not not down to FCA's will, it's all reliant on third parties (fuel, cargo.....)

30W

[stalling attitude]

Easyjet to start BRS-Paris CDG from 30th of October. been a long time coming but must surely be a winner

[MerchantVenturer]

Seems to be one rotation a day per easyJet web booking engine.

I hope this won't impact too adversely on BAConnect. They operate several other continental routes from BRS that easyJet probably wouldn't be interested in.

It would be a shame if BAConnect had to dump their Paris route which might then lead to abandoning the airport at BRS altogether.

KLM Cityhopper seems to be coping with the easyJet competition on BRS-AMS and of course BACx/BACon have gone head to head with easyJet on BRS-GLA and BRS-EDI for a number of years.

Fingers crossed that the CDG route is big enough for easyJet and BACon.

[Skipness One Echo]

Any of you helpful Bristol locals able to tie up flight numbers and routings for the following callsigns?

BRT46VK
BRT8JF
BRT54E
EZY6JZ
EZY4PF
EZE2LT
EZE26LT


Thanks guys, any help much appreciated.

[Standard Noise]

EZY4PF goes to Glasgow, BRT 8JF may well be another Scottish one.
Far as I can remember, EZE2LT doesn't exist, but the EZE26LT sounds like another Scottish trip number.

Good god, I should pay more attention at work.:hmm:

[Richard Taylor]

The EZE 26LT is the 4506 BRS-ABZ.

[Kellycsi]

Why are the MNG Fokker 50's and Titan 146 at Filton? They have been there for the past few days, does anybody know?

[crackling jet]

the Titan and MNG are at Filton for the winter period due to work being carried out on Bristols main runway and taxiway, when the airfield will be closed overnight for this work to proceed. They will be back in May when all runway/taxiway work is completed, in addition when they get back they will have brand new building and their own apron on South side of airfield.

[Standard Noise]

We're still figuring out why they've gone so early? S'not as if we'll have less work to do since Filt aren't bringing in enough staff to man radar. Miserable buggers.

[crackling jet]

the post office had to vacate the old Brymon/BA hangar that they were using for the mail operation so that it could be taken down ready for the next phase of the ramp extension this winter, so work can start at the end of this season and completed for the summer 07 season

[Charlie Roy]

So Easyjet have officially axed their daily evening flight from Bristol - Hamburg...

Do we know already how that aircraft will be used from November then?

[Theplanemanuk]

**official** Continental are to keep there summer 07 routes reduced to 5 weekly flights. what do you guys think of that.

[MerchantVenturer]

Charlie Roy

The easyJet BRS-HAM certainly seems to have disappeared from the winter schedules but I haven't seen an official announcement.

In fact, the easyJet web booking engine still shows the BRS-HAM operating this coming winter, with the winter period being described as 29 October 2006 to 24 March 2007.

However, test bookings on the web site for the winter bring up a notice saying the route is for sale only to 30 October this year.

Similarly, BUD, PSA and VLC are all still shown in the web booking engine as operating this coming winter, but again test bookings bring up the 'on sale only to 30 October' notice - there may be other routes that have been axed for the winter still being shown as operating on the web timetable. I gave up looking when it became apparent that the web timetable is a complete farce.

It's swings and roundabouts because there still seems to be work to keep the nine A 319s occupied throughout the winter.

For example, compared to last winter, the axed routes are 'replaced' with the likes of a second daily AMS, and new routes to CDG, TLS and KRK, with SXF being operated by a BRS-based aircraft for the first time.

[Kellycsi]

I have been reading the Cardiff thread and they are banging on about Continental starting a service to New York from there in summer 07 , also that CO are reducing the Bristol service to 5 weekly from then.
I find this hard to believe and sounds like wishful thinking, does anybody know anything about this? :eek:

[Theplanemanuk]

I have also heard off other sites ie airliners search 'co at cwl' they all say there that co are reducing brs service and from what ive been told by a pilot freind this is true and he says thatthey are also going into cwl 5xweekly next year (posted details aon cwl page)

[flower]

kellycsi,

See my post on that thread, purely a rumour with no hard facts to back it up, there is however far more of a chance of Zoom airlines or someone else starting up more North American routes from over the Bristol Channel. There is nothing on the Continental website about Bristol services being reduced, until there is any official announcement I would take it with a large pinch of salt.

[Theplanemanuk]

If you go onto continentals website and try and book a flight in summer 07 youll see only mon-fri flight also chech their news section

[GrahamK]

1)BRS-EWR is down as daily for next summer using a 757-200W
2)CO are not starting flights to CWL in the forseeable future
3)STN or NCL will be their next UK destination
:8

[Confirmed Must Ride]

CO flight goes to x5 a week from Nov 2006. Then goes back to daily Mar 07. Same as last year.

All 757 will be converted to winglets by year end 06.

[MerchantVenturer]

I think it was a phenomenal achievement to get the CO away only around thirty minutes late yesterday, bearing in mind the destination and the airline.

Everyone concerned deserved credit in my view.

Incidentally, the arrival at EWR caused a scare, with part of the airport being evacuated because of a suspicious package brought over from Bristol that was detonated by the authorities and found to be harmless.

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1155273188316680.xml&coll=1

[TwinAisle]

I have been reading the Cardiff thread and they are banging on about Continental starting a service to New York from there in summer 07 , also that CO are reducing the Bristol service to 5 weekly from then.


In the interests of fairness, only one person has been banging on about this, and he has seemingly been banished for talking nonsense.... us Cardiff supporters know that there is room for both CWL and BRS to succeed, and we wish our near neighbours every success. (We just hope CWL does better!! :} )

**official** Continental are to keep there summer 07 routes reduced to 5 weekly flights. what do you guys think of that.

Someone's definition of "official" clearly doesn't co-incide with the generally accepted one. I just checked the timetable on continental's website and it is daily next summer.

[MerchantVenturer]

There is a piece in today's Bristol Evening Post saying that, Bristol International Airport could face turmoil over the bank holiday weekend as baggage handlers plan to strike over a pay dispute.

The report states that members of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) employed by Servisair voted to reject a three per cent pay rise.

They have now voted to strike throughout Saturday, Sunday and Monday of the August Bank Holiday weekend.

A Servisair spokesman said the company had made its final offer to its staff.

The airport and Servisair said that contingency plans are ready and that they are pretty confident that disruptions will be minimal.

Will this TGWU initiative affect all airports where Servisair employees are based, or is it confined to BRS?

Apologies if this is being discussed elsewhere in PPRuNe but I did a search under 'Servisair Strike' and found no matches. If it is, perhaps someone would kindly point me in the right direction and I will then delete this post.

[mrloop]

BBC news were reporting a similar strike threat (or is the same one?) at Stansted on their news bulletins this morning:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/5266354.stm

[anoraknophobia]

Read in the Evening Post that Bristol Airport is reaping the benefit of the security turmoil with the London Airports. Passenger loads have increased and the much debated EWR route has enjoyed a boost.

As they say,it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

[Standard Noise]

Well, it's obviously blowing us a bit of good.

RA! RA! RA! For the ill wind!

[redfield]

mrloop - there wan't a Servisair strike at Stansted, this was Swissport. As I understand it the strike at BRS has been called off.

[Morrihell]

The Bristol Evening Post managed a front page story on the "15 Flights of Fear" that have passed over the city since 2003..................
"The Evening Post obtained the information from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) under the Freedom of Information Act"
(They're that short of NEWS!)
Link here...........
http://www.thisisbristol.com/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=144913&command=displayContent&sourceNode=200267&home=yes&more_nodeId1=144916&contentPK=15240658
:yuk:

[Kellycsi]

As it appears that Easyjet is dropping the route to Budapest from 29th October, is there any chance of Wizz starting a service as they do seem to be expanding at the moment with flights to Belfast, Liverpool et al. Can any of you in the know ;) enlighten us? I have used the Budapest flight several times and it was always nearly full and with reports in the Evening Post that the Polish community are pushing for a route to Northern Poland maybe there is an opening for Wizz?

[MerchantVenturer]

kelly

easyJet is also dropping its NCL-BUD for the winter - we shall have to wait and see whether BRS and NCL to BUD return next summer.

A couple of years ago easy's BRS-CPH was dropped as was the airline's NCL-CPH. Neither returned despite apparently decent loads, although in the CPH case there was the question of the Danish government's £7 per pax tax.

One assumes that easy believes there are better opportunties elsewhere from BRS because the nine Airbuses seem fully occupied this winter.

I read the bit about the Bristol Polish community wanting more flights. There are apparently 15,000 Poles living in Bristol with 50,000 in the wider region, many of whom are men trying to make a start in this country.

It is thought that once they have 'bedded in' many will then bring over their families and there will be a big demand in the future for flights from/to Greater Bristol from/to Poland as families come over and extended families and friends visit.

There is a significant number of Poles driving buses (the land-based variety) in Bristol and Bath.

[Kellycsi]

MerchantVenturer

Yes I used to use the Copenhagen route as well and it was the same with Bilbao which was great for getting to San Sabastian. Why I mentioned Budapest is that it was an excellent alternative to Prague in the run up to Christmas. That is why I would like to see an airline like Wizz or SkyEurope step in.
I would also like to see a bit of competition for Easy, perhaps if the TFS route goes well for BA Connect (GB Airways) they may consider a route to Malaga as I would use them in preference to Easy anyday. :ok:

[MerchantVenturer]

Kellycsi

The provisional CAA stats for July show 2030 pax used the BRS-Krakow link that month.

As the route did not commence until 21 July and it only operates on Mon, Wed, Fri and Sun I make that an average load of 145 (7 rotations - 14 flights), or around 93% load factor on the 156-seat A319.

Seems to me to be a phenomenal start and evidence that there is scope for further Polish routes out of BRS.

There were strong and persistent rumours about Wizz and BRS a year or so ago but they seem to have fizzled out this year.

[WATABENCH]

Chrikey! Has BRS really been trouble/rumour free since 28th August, there must be something interesting going on?:}

[MerchantVenturer]

Hello WATABENCH

A new weekly ski destination to Kittila in Lapland has been announced to run from early December to early March 2007 - not sure of the carrier. Last year's ski programme was impressive with 16-17 weeky departures so there must be some enthusiastic winter sports enthusiasts in the south west. I used to toboggan on the Mendips when I were a lad.

easyJet is still cancelling flights - as I know to my cost. My NCL on 25 Sept is the latest Orange journey that I won't make.

I believe the ORK will return to 6 weekly rotations from this winter.

The final Master Plan has still not been published, despite the airport's web site still saying it would be in early 2006. However, the latest consultative committe minutes (July meeting), also on the web site, say publication has been delayed but the Plan should now be published towards the end of August.

Seems strange because at the time of the draft plan last year the airport said time was of the essence because the terminal building and other infrastructure were in urgent need of expansion, but detailed planning applications would only be made after the final Plan was published.

Finally, I used the airport last week to travel to Salzburg and I must compliment the security people at BRS. They were polite, friendly, discreet yet very thorough.

[bycrewlgw]

The Lapland flights will be operated by TCX

[MerchantVenturer]

Thanks bycrewlgw.

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=145365&command=displayContent&sourceNode=145191&contentPK=15434133&folderPk=83726&pNodeId=144922

The above Bristol Evening Post link refers to an unusual little episode involving an Onur A321 returning to BRS from Antalya on Wednesday.

According to the report, the captain appeared at the front of the passenger cabin prior to departure, announced the aircraft was unsafe to fly, said he was getting off and advised the pax to do the same.

Not unnaturally some of the pax were a little disturbed by this and the paper, in the usual journalistic way, talks about panic and a mini riot.

Eventually another aircraft, and presumably another captain, took the pax back to BRS, although some apparently refused to fly and are possibly even now hithchiking back from Turkey.

The airline says the captain was serving his notice and decided to make a bit of a performance.

The fault in the original aircraft was described as a minor one.

Probably a story blown up a bit in proportion but nevertheless it must have been an uneasy time for the pax, especially those who are nervous flyers anyway.

[fyrefli]

Thanks bycrewlgw.
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=145365&command=displayContent&sourceNode=145191&contentPK=15434133&folderPk=83726&pNodeId=144922
The above Bristol Evening Post link refers to an unusual little episode involving an Onur A321 returning to BRS from Antalya on Wednesday.
According to the report, the captain appeared at the front of the passenger cabin prior to departure, announced the aircraft was unsafe to fly, said he was getting off and advised the pax to do the same.
Not unnaturally some of the pax were a little disturbed by this and the paper, in the usual journalistic way, talks about panic and a mini riot.


Ah, the good old Evening Fascist, how I miss it when I'm away ;)

"The paper all of Bristol asked for..." - well, maybe all of those in Bristol with a two-digit IQ and political instincts somewhat to the right of Ghengis Khan but I'll personally give it a miss, thanks :ugh:

Cheers,

Rich.

[WATABENCH]

Was talking to a FC crew member who's parents were on that Onur air flight, and hate to be a party pooper for all the Evening post bashers but the report is actually pretty much correct, Apparently they were sat on the ground with no air con or lights for quite a bit as well he he poor buggers!

[johnrizzo2000]

CO's loads on their BRS-EWR route seem to have really picked up! People must not want the hastle of flying ex London! CO's LGW loads remain strong, so maybe some BA, VS, AA etc customers who normally fly ex Heathrow and drive/train from Bristol are flying CO!

[MerchantVenturer]

jr2000

There was some talk in the Bristol media in the days after the alleged terrorist plot details were put into the public domain that this was the case.

CAA stats suggest that last year August, September and October were the best months for loads on BRS-EWR, even beating the BFS-EWR figures in each of those months, despite the Northern Irish airport carrying nearly ten thousand more pax in the first full twelve calendar months of the respective operations (95,700 - 85,800).

From the West of England's point of view it is to be hoped that these increased loads can be sustained year-round.

There is an item elsewhere on PPRuNe reporting that LH is looking to the possibility of using one or more of BRS, CWL and SOU for some of its German routes in view of security congestion at the major London airports, so perhaps this is a trend that will develop amongst both pax and airlines.

[Golf Charlie Charlie]

Merchant, re: Continental. I know you have written in the past about the challenge to attract Americans to travel from their side of the water to Bristol. Small thing only, but last week's New York Times travel section had a whole page on the delights of visiting Bath, and the prime suggestion to New Yorkers for getting there was the Continental to Bristol, then the train to Bath.............

[Bristol_Traveller]

I'll be over the moon if LH decide that BRS would be a good base (and some of the letter writing over the past couple of years might have paid off).
BACon are trying to serve Germany (DUS, MUC, FRA), but it's all one flight a day stuff, tucked in whilst the Embys aren't pounding up to EDI and GLA. If you want to "nip out" to Germany for a meeting, you have to block three days out, or go with KL via AMS or go to BHX or LHR. And they're all dead-end flights, with no onward connection possibilities.
If LH picked up a BRS-FRA/MUC route with decent frequency, it would fit in really well with onward connections to the rest of Germany/Switzerland/Austria (currently badly serviced from the West), and it would finally be a decent alternative to hubbing with KL or (shudder) SN. Just imagine doing BRS-FRA-SIN-SYD or BRS-FRA-ICN. Perfect.
(And it would make maintaining Star Alliance Gold status more compatible with supporting BRS....)

[Kellycsi]

Does anybody know if Easyjet are going to be flying to Budapest after the end of October? I know you cannot book it on their website at the moment but they are advertising it as a Christmas destination on their latest news under 'December Highlights' and it says that you can fly there from Bristol during this time?? :ugh:

[WATABENCH]

Apparently some muppet did a typo on the CO website a few weeks ago which ment you could travel to EWR from BRS for the weekend for £60 inc taxes, no wonder the figures shot up :}

[cym]

Wonder if the Root Development Fund could tip LH in favour of CWL as it's near the top of their list of desired routes. Also BA have a habit of portecting their network - looked what happed when AF tried to muscle in on BRS CDG a few years ago

[MerchantVenturer]

Kellycsi

It seems pretty certain the BUD has gone for the winter. Loads always seemed high as they do on almost every easyJet route out of BRS, so presumably it must be back to the yield.

I guess easyJet is being slightly economical, or perhaps clever would be a better word, with the true situation. They are not telling lies because it is still possible to fly from BRS to BUD – until the end of next month. The same applies to NCL which is also included in the December blurb.

WATABENCH

I really don’t know what is happening with the EWR loads. Despite all the talk of increased loads after the terrorism announcement on 10 August, the CAA provisional stats for August show BRS-EWR carrying far fewer pax than in August 2005 – 7432 as against 8777.

This is a load factor of around 70%. Whilst the final monthly figure can be expected to increase by a few hundred (for some reason this route’s figures are always increased when the final numbers are published) it still compares poorly with BFS-EWR (started at the same time) which carried just under 10,000 in August.

However, overall BRS had an excellent August with over 600,000 pax passing through for the first time in a calendar month, up 7.6% on August 2005. The rolling 12-month total is now 5,615,000, up 13.2% on the figure a year ago.

Ireland seems to be especially popular with 37,000 on the DUB route in August (up 30% on August 05) and 10,400 on Ryanair’s daily SNN – a load factor of just shy of 90% on the 189-seat B 738.

Having never been in the business, unlike you, I am still surprised how markets work.

For instance, for the past couple of years Flybe has averaged 3-4,000 pax per month on its BRS-TLS route (daily or 6 x per week year-round). Then easyJet joined Flybe on the route and a combined total of 11,300 used the two carriers in August. This suggests easyJet probably carried between 7 and 8,000.

Why didn’t some of these people use Flybe in the period before easyJet came onto the route? The Flybe load factors point to availability on their aircraft most of the time and both airlines market themselves as ‘low cost’.

It looks as though Flybe have already bowed to easyJet's dominance and stopped their own service to TLS - at least for the coming winter.

[Red Snake]

It looks like the next few week's taxiway resurfacing is going to be fun - total lack of activity to be seen on the building site at 8:00 this morning when we finally got going after an hour of slot delays & back-taxiing. When we returned at 11:00 there were 3 people hanging around.

Is there any sense of urgency to get this done quickly? A cynic might think Bristol airport are doing the resurfacing on the cheap while the airlines pick up the additional costs in further delays.

[DesignerChappie]

Kellycsi
It looks as though Flybe have already bowed to easyJet's dominance and stopped their own service to TLS - at least for the coming winter.
I think you will find that the business travellers to TLS (i.e. AIRBUS) are under instructions to use AIRBUS (EZY A319's) or UK types (flybe 146's). Unfortunately the Q400 and E195 fall outside this criteria.
It certainly was the case when flybe operated the 'airbridge' to Filton and Chester, thats why flybe got the contract.
The E195 will be operating the BHX-TLS-BRS-TLS-BHX run for the next few weekends.;)
DC

[WATABENCH]

Been told there will be a Monarch 767 visiting this winter to do cruise flights to the caribbean, not sure how often or where its operating too, not just a once off though apparently.:confused:

[crackling jet]

Monarch 767:- to BGI 6th Dec, 22nd Dec, 15th Mar

[bycrewlgw]

Yeah they will be TOM lost the Fred Olsen cruise contract to MON so they will be taking over the BGI flights from regional airports for Fred Olsen.

BYCREWLGW

[Dash-7 lover]

Any rumour that Menzies are looking at handling BA @ BRS????

[redfield]

Dash-7 lover - I haven't heard this. Mind you it wouldn't surprise me if it did happen, but then on the other hand there's also a rumour that BA won't last all that long once the EZY CDG route starts (so why would Menzies be looking at them) and another rumour that Ryanair will have 7 aircraft based here in three years time! What would the aviation world be without rumours? EZY Budapest is gone for the winter, probably got something to do with the CDG route start-up and the fact that the program has had to be squashed into less hours because of the winter runway closure; no more 0130 scheduled arrival times!

[Taff_flyer]

Will BA be affected that much by EZY coming on Paris?
It's one a day and in the middle of the day:
Won't be of too much use to business travellers!
Might be good for leisure customers if the price is right.
Might also just grow the market?

[WATABENCH]

Comedy 7 FR's ha ha, and just where the heck to they expect to park them? let alone where are they going to check them in?(like that rumour:} :} ) BRS needs to start shaking a leg on the terminal expansion very very soon judgeing by this year, and what an earth is going to happen on sat mornings when FCA will have 2 757s and 767 checking in, in the 2nd hall? in theory that should be (AT LEAST) 10 check-in desks! leaving 6 left for the other charters who check-in down there MYT/KM/XLA plus normal sat morning visitors! Gulp i smell a debacle in the making, I can only imagine that a snake system would be easiest option,some mornings you will have an EZY queue comeing past the FCA check-ins with the FCA queues going the opposite way! but all this brings us back to the same old BRS story, the terminal is shockingly if not dangerously(fire reasons) to small for the amount who use it, lets not forget BRS is set to handle over 6 million this year in a terminal originally built for 3 million i believe, time to get busy with the building me thinks! Surely its going to get to a point where new carriers will be put off as theres no where for them to check-in, take example AA, if they turned round and said hey lets try BRS-BOS, they're going to want a similar set up to CO, so where the hell is it going to go? Also how long till pax really start getting wound up with haveing no where to sit? what happens if a few large jets take bad tech delays at same time, or even worse if ATC went down and no aircraft could depart for hours? Its a nightmare waiting to happen. Rant over!

[redfield]

W: So you don't think they could expand the terminal in two years then? I like your rants by the way!:rolleyes:

[MerchantVenturer]

BRS’s tight timescale for terminal and other infrastructure expansion seems to have already slipped by at least six months.

The draft Master Plan was published around a year ago and the timetable set out within the draft was for the final Plan to be published and submitted to government in early 2006, followed by detailed planning applications in spring 2006.

This has not happened and in the July Consultative Committee minutes it was stated that there had been a delay in submitting the final Plan because revisions to the text had taken longer than anticipated following the public consultation. However, the final Plan would now be published ‘towards the end of August 2006’. We are still waiting!

In the draft Plan the airport management conceded that ‘the terminal building is increasingly experiencing congestion and is already operating at or near its capacity at peak periods’. Yet they then allowed vital departure lounge space to be taken up by new retail outlets.

The draft goes on to admit that this crowding has ‘an adverse effect on passenger experience’ and ‘more fundamentally’ operational processing capacity constraints and safety limits on occupancy. This all strikes a chord with WATABENCH’s comments.

The intention is to almost double the terminal building by 2015. This will require full planning consent. The draft Plan is unequivocal when it states that the ‘key milestone in the delivery of the Master Plan is the delivery of the extension to the Terminal Building’.

The idea is to increase the terminal building size in stages. The airport calculates the existing terminal can continue to function until 2009 when passenger numbers ‘are forecast to exceed 6mppa’.

This carries the unarguable implication that without a terminal extension the airport will be in major difficulties when pax numbers break the 6 million barrier and that the first part of the terminal extension must be in place by then. Well, 5.6 million was passed in August this year (it was just under 5.2 million at the end of last year) which suggests 6 million will arrive sooner than 2009.

This makes the delay in publishing the final Plan and then cracking on with planning applications even more puzzling.

The anti-expansion lobby is well organised and contains experienced environmental groups. The delay in publishing the final Plan might really be due to the airport having informal talks with planners to try to establish what might reasonably be allowed and what might not.

There is no doubt that the anti lobby will pull every legal trick in the book to retard expansion (I hope some of the more militant ones don’t go beyond that), so a target of 2009 for the first part of the terminal building expansion to be in place (and as I said it might be needed before that) might be a tall order.

I do have a lot of time for the competence and expertise of the BRS management (certainly in strategic matters) and am prepared to accept that they know what they are doing, despite an apparent tighter timescale.

My standpoint is that of a customer and an interested member of the public.

[WindSheer]

Watabench I think you have hit a very valid point on the hairy end!

BRI management really do need to wake up and realise the current facilities wont cope over the next year or so! Neither will half the staff that are lacking the attitude required to make it work!
Putting 'customer service' staff in to 'un snake' an over capacitated greenhouse will never solve the issue, and on the other end of the spectrum, not being a***D to repair a u/s ambi lift is also the other kind of issue to be flushed out!

The place is going to reach saturation soon!
Saying that the terminal can cope with X amount a year, is irrelevant when most of them X's are crammed through between 0700 0900!! Madness!! :eek: The place is a joke!

[Charlie Roy]

New Ryanair route to Girona :ok:

[redfield]

Wonder how that will affect Easy's BCN route.....

[MerchantVenturer]

1. Ryanair to Girona commences 25 March next year and operates 4 x weekly (M, W, F and Su) - mid-evening arrival/departure.

2. WindSheer's and WATABENCH's comments re saturation at terminal are interesting and relevant because I believe they both have work connections with the airport.

I speak from the point of view of a customer and when I last travelled in early September it was at lunchtime on a Wednesday when the airport, although fairly busy, was a comfortable experience.

I take the point about the early mornings when thirty or more departures are scheduled in those first three hours.

I should have had two early starts in the past couple of months or so but these failed to materialise thanks to easyJet's habit of cancelling flights.

From what has been said they may have done me a favour.:eek:

Incidentally, a look at the Newcastle thread reveals almost identical comments about overcrowding and lack of check-in facilities as Bristol.

I suppose this is one of the penalties of success.

[WATABENCH]

Good news with FR route if you ask me, the competition can only be good for pax in the long run(price wars), lets face it FR are the only company really that can both afford and make a good job of challengeing EZY's dominance at BRS, if only we can find space for more of them :uhoh: . I am getting the impression first with the SNN route then extra DUB and now GRO that CWL may of wished they didnt have that fall out with MOL and Co, I remember on their website a year ago they showed CWL as a growth area, this must bode well for BRS now i guess!

[BAforever]

:} CWL may of wished they didnt have that fall out with MOL and Co.

Not! Who would want to fly on such a crap airline is beyond me:}

[ManchesterMan]

BAforever

Idiot !

MM

[babymax]

can any one tell me how excel are doing out of brs they obviously didnt do as expected at cwl?

[Confirmed Must Ride]

Rumour has it BE pulling out completely??

[MerchantVenturer]

CMR

Well, they almost have already.

Their only route this winter will be the JER which is down for daily except Sat.

This summer they reduced the BHD, BOD and EGC rotations from previous summers. The TLS is also to go this winter.

It seems that the easyJet competition to BFS and the new daily Orange route to TLS has had its effect.

If they don't return next summer it will be a particular shame about the BHD (maybe Air Southwest will look at it, although the easyJet at BFS would come into the equation with them too)) and the BOD, as the latter is one of Bristol's earliest twin cities and the former very convenient for the centre of Belfast.

Flybe seem well set down the M5 at EXT so it probably makes sense to concentrate their southwest efforts from there rather than try to give easyJet a run for its money at its biggest UK base outside London and, of course, Flybe never based aircraft at BRS.

babymax

Unless an Excel insider is prepared to divulge yield etc figures on here (unlikely) one can only assume that Excel is satisfied with its BRS base.

It has had one of its own B 737s and an Air Malta A 320 based at BRS since summer 05 and they continued through last winter and this summer and, as far as I am aware, will continue through this winter and presumably next summer.

Finally, I note from Mayfly that the first-ever scheduled service from BRS to the Canary Islands will commence this coming Tuesday on behalf of BAConnect using an A 320 to TFS.

[rampboy767]

BA connect starts its 3xweek flights to TFS from BRS tuesdays,fridays & Saturdays, Also i found out the First Choice long haul routes starts in Feburay apart from Cuba which is starts in May. The day and flight times for the 767 is Dominican Republic Tuesdays and departs BRS 0800 and Florida departs BRS at 1020 on Sunday morinings. Flybe is operating just the JER route til April next year and then the plan after that is they will pull out all together, the JER route i think some days will be operated by the new E195.

[WATABENCH]

Not sure if its been in BRS before but just seen the new BE E195 taking off on 09, very nice! :8

[WindSheer]

can any one tell me how excel are doing out of brs they obviously didnt do as expected at cwl?

I fancy the pulling out of Cardiff could be down to a company issue rather than lack of sales. Their a/c this summer was/is operated by Canadians, suggesting a lack of initial commitment!

Anyone from the inside of excel care to add...

Or, could an existing airline at Cardiff be poised to replace Excel...

[BAforever]

Quote:
can any one tell me how excel are doing out of brs they obviously didnt do as expected at cwl?
I fancy the pulling out of Cardiff could be down to a company issue rather than lack of sales. Their a/c this summer was/is operated by Canadians, suggesting a lack of initial commitment!

Anyone from the inside of excel care to add...

Or, could an existing airline at Cardiff be poised to replace Excel...Yesterday 16:51

I to agree with this as loads on most routes were generaly good (although I dont know about yeild). Airlines to are increasing their own routes too-

FCA to CFU instead of using XL as in this year
The supposed TOM 'MAJOR MAJOR' expansion
Various othersAs for the lack of commitment theyve just not enough planes in the fleet.:ok:

[caaardiff]

Main Speculation was that the Canadian A/c was going to replace the Air Malta at BRS. It seems now the KM A/c will be running between BRS, CWL (x2 flights) and i think EMA & HUY (correct me if im wrong on this)
Also as already said XL may be struggling with their fleet, but there is the new Ireland base to consider on this, so maybe the a/c are to go over there instead.
MYT had quite a few allocations on XL flights from CWL, does anyone know if this is the case at BRS? Would this also result in yield being less for XL? obviously depending on the demand for their own product.

As for the lack of commitment theyve just not enough planes in the fleet
Too true! KM at BRS, VIK at EMA, Canadian at CWL and GLA, and i believe some Finnair a/c, all operating on behalf of XL, surely they should sort out the UK fleet before expanding elsewhere!

[WATABENCH]

I imagine that XL will utilise their BHX based KM 320 for some of the CWL/EMA/HUY flights, and heard yesterday that MYT will be back year round from next summer, can anyone confirm?, also TCX are fully based this winter with the rumour that they too will be back year round based from next winter 07/08 :confused: .
Dont get me wrong because i think XL at BRS is great, but the company as a whole XL/Air Atlanta or whoever they flipping are seems a complete mess, way to many airlines operating under different names it ridiculous, take the BRS-SSH, this is operated by the Air Malta, under XL tickets and check-in screens with an Air Atlanta flight number on the tickets and on the screens??? not so bad for us in the industry but for pax it must be a nightmare, especially checking in down route :ugh:

[airvanman]

Canadian Flights. Toronto etc. Any Gossip?
A weekly service must be viable, even with EXT & CWL doing them?

[MerchantVenturer]

I've not heard any rumours.

It is a strange anomaly given the number of pax that fly from BRS on other routes that it can't get a Toronto service.

It has been unlucky of course. Some of the past carriers that did fly the route went out of business: for example Odyssey Air around sixteen years ago and the most recent, Canada 3000, that had absorbed Royal Air, the previous operator.

Perhaps the loads from BRS were poor and caused these airlines to fail. Only joking because I seem to recall load factors were actually very good. Before anyone mentions it, I know about the importance of yields but I have no access to them of course.

These flights had to operate the outbounds via another airport (GLA in the case of Canada 3000) because of the runway at Lulsgate.

However, the weekly Toronto from EXT operates via another airport (BHX from memory but could be wrong) so that presumably is not a bar.

Incidentally, the last time I looked there were two Toronto flights scheduled from EXT next summer, both at Wednesday lunchtime - one flight to Pearson Airport and one to Hamilton Airport.

[airvanman]

MerchantVenturer

I remember all that you mentioned. Odyssey was a nice airline-with a bone china service. Very posh for the time. Yes the loads were good.

Canadian flights I am sure would do very well

Lumberjacks of the west unite! Was that the Smiths or the Wurzels?:}

[Morrihell]

Not sure if it's been mentioned on this thread yet, but Aer Arann's winter timetable is showing an increase to 6 flights per week.

RE431/432 Mon/Wed/Thu/Fri/Sun afternoons
RE431/432 Sunday morning.

BA/GB Airways started the TFS flight today with G-TTOB.
MH.

[MerchantVenturer]

airvanman

I have some cine film of the first Odyssey International landing at BRS from Toronto on 9 May 1989. It was a Boeing 757. I also filmed it taking off to return to Canada via NCL.

My note with the film says the aircraft was 'booked solid' until the middle of June (it was to be a weekly flight) and, although it routed outbound via NCL because of the runway at BRS, my note continues that most of the bookings were from BRS.

On the apron at the same time as the Odyssey were a Capital Air Short 360, a Hispania B 737/300 and a Dan Air HS 748. As I panned the apron to get this shot a Paramount MD 83 can be seen taking off in the background.

The sad thing is that all these airlines had ceased to operate within the next two years.

Morrihell

Yes, these things have been mentioned on here. Good news to get the Arann back to 6 x weekly to ORK.

A report in the Evening Post today quotes an airport spokesman saying the A 320 operating the first BA scheduled flight to TFS yesterday was full and forward bookings are very strong.

[GBALU53]

With the Winter schedule starting at the end of this month and this winter the only route showing is the Jersey-Bristol-Jersey and the company has released there 2007 schedule and the Jersey flight does not show at all is this because they do not have all the summer routes planned yet or does this mean the route will be droped as well??
This would mean no Flybe connection with Bristol.
If this is the case i can understand in view of Exeter down the road and more flight being generated form there it would seem a good idea if this could be correct.
If flybe pull the Jersey service i would think there are a number of carriers in the wings with similar type aircraft to offer to take the route a the drop of a hat in view of no Cardiff service showing at the moment.:ok: :ok:

[WindSheer]

Canada out of BRS? I think the runway will get in the way again!

Zoom are doing fairly well at Cardiff with their 767, but they operate as low cost i.e high number of seats and high payloads. Too much weight for Brs.
An airline would have to be willing to put in an a/c with a lower no' of seats/lower payload but higher price per seat, and try to compete with Zoom's low cost market.

It sounds do'able when said quickly, but sit down and look at the technicalities that make it a tad un-justifiable. Would be nice though!!! :)

[rampboy767]

Flybe are pulling at out BRS by spring 2007, the winter JER route will be the last!

[airvanman]

Canada out of BRS? I think the runway will get in the way again!


It is not stopping Conti and FCA doing long-hauls soon. I am sure a 757 or 767 could do a Toronto now with little or no restrictions?

[ATCO1987]

FCA Long haul from Bristol, or at least Orlando, will be via Manchester most of the time. It will go direct a couple of times apparently but mostly via Manchester. So, false advertising! Since FCA are advertising direct.

[jetstream7]

FCA Long haul from Bristol, or at least Orlando, will be via Manchester most of the time. It will go direct a couple of times apparently but mostly via Manchester. So, false advertising! Since FCA are advertising direct.

Not false - a tad misleading maybe though.

If they were advertising 'non stop' then that would be a different issue....

Direct does not equal Non Stop.

[airvanman]

Not false - a tad misleading maybe though.

If they were advertising 'non stop' then that would be a different issue....

Direct does not equal Non Stop.

Well I did not know that! Misleading yes!

[WATABENCH]

When you book FCA longhaul ex BRS, it advises you on both travel agent and internet systems that the flights operate via MAN for fuel stop outbound only, also if pax read their details in the backs of the brochures (which is your contract with your tour operator) it also says there. A flight under aviation regulations(as far as i know) is direct as long as pax don't disembark (pax do not disembark in MAN), however all the advertising I've seen has not mentioned direct or in-direct, if it says direct then yes slightly misleading as airvanman says, but I know what i prefer, 1hr stop in MAN flying from BRS 20mins from my home address or 3 hour drive to LGW, plus fuel costs plus parking/hotel costs, hassle of getting around the crap hole that is LGW and the mile walk to FCA's long haul gates at LGW, then 3 hour drive home after an overnight trans-atlantic flight with a nice bout of Jet Lag and a restless night behind you and indegestion from the sorry excuse that airlines like to call a breakfast, you got to be nuts to want to go from LGW if you live in this area, especially as the IB to BRS sectors are non stop. For the sake of an hour spent in MAN going out!!! C'mon you dont have to be a genious to work out the better option.
Also do you think a company like FCA would get caught up in the 'False advertising' trap, hmmm me thinks not, they're not Ryanair!
Also think you'll find that most Thomsonfly long haul from CWL routes via MAN too(spoke to a crew member yesterday who said the POP flights usually do), so does that mean they're false advertising, what bout flights such as YYZ from EXT, these are not direct either yet the advertising doesn't state direct or in-direct, it just says 'fly to TORONTO from Exeter International'.
Also just adding something re Flybe pulling out, i dont think anyone has mentioned on here about how busy BHX is for them, everyone has said about EXT, but lets not forget BHX really is not that much further, nor is SOU really, so perhaps its good business sense really, why fight a losing battle against EZY when you have 3 airports all about the same distance from BRS where they don't have to fight for custom, will be a shame to see the BOD go though, i know loads of people that use that route, ah well.
My weekly rant over :}

[MerchantVenturer]

I love your rants W. They are becoming a must-read in this thread.:ok:

I think that once Flybe realised that EXT was a viable base for a host of routes the BRS flights were always on borrowed time, mainly for the reasons you have outlined.

The only lost destinations will be Bergerac and Bordeaux (and Belfast City but easy have the Northern Irish capital sewn up with their BFS operation).

I agree that BOD will be a pity, especially with Bordeaux's historical Bristol connections.

La Rochelle (assuming easy bring it back next summer) and TLS are probably a bit too far to attract that many would-be BOD travellers so I wonder if easy will look at BOD themselves; conversely they might think that La Rochelle is too close to Bordeaux for two routes from that area of France to BRS.

Or they might simply switch the La Rochelle to Bordeaux next summer. They know there is a market and when easy came alongside on Flybe's relatively well-established TLS route they immediately upped the monthly pax figures from the 3-4,000 that Flybe carried to a joint total of over 11,000.

Some people say the aerospace connection is a particular ingredient of BRS-TLS but were the extra 7,000 pax mostly aerospace people? If so, how had they been getting to TLS before? Furthermore, there is a daily Mon-Fri service from Filton to Toulouse for those associated with Bae.

[crackling jet]

It is not stopping Conti and FCA doing long-hauls soon. I am sure a 757 or 767 could do a Toronto now with little or no restrictions?


i remember in mid nineties we flew to Orlando-SFB from BRS and we made a tech stop at Bangor-Maine, this was on a Britannia 767-200 when thomsons ran a summer series,so surely toronto would not be that much further out of the way,especially if the a/c was configured for less seating and more leg room as FCA have initiated and other airlines seem to be looking down that avenue

[airvanman]

What is the latest gossip/news on Emirates, or any other Middle Eastern operator going from BRS?
This would open up a lot of destinations.

Or... Who’s up for starting Lulsgate Bottom Airways? An old 767 should do it.
Based on no market research just the ‘for gods sake punters will flock for ‘em’ theory! The destinations for starters are:
Toronto
Sydney (via some rich sandpit)
Bangkok (via another rich sandpit)

Must be a winner. Flywho nah! Flyarse yes! :ok:

[WATABENCH]

Thanks MV! Thats what you get when your company makes you get up for work at stupid o'clock in the morning ha ha, i tired rant at what ever just to make me feel better about getting up for work at 2am!!! Ba:mad: s! LOL, love em really huh hum!
Airvanman - Going back a year or so my prune partner in crime 'Windsheer' came up with the idea of starting 'Chav Express' that was a comedy thread, you'd of loved that one :}
No haven't heard a squeek from anyone bout a DXB route, it could probably be done on a 757 as it's approx same distance as EWR, however EK don't operate 757's infact most operators to DXB from UK apart from poss BA don't. And 777/767/330/340 would be to heavy to do direct and theres no point operating an A/C half full, Hopefully it wont be long until DXB opens it's doors to the charter market, may give BRS a few more options for DXB, I fancy FCA B787 in 2010 myself. I can't see BA doing it, however stranger things have happened in BRS, you never know!

[Standard Noise]

FCA Long haul from Bristol, or at least Orlando, will be via Manchester most of the time. It will go direct a couple of times apparently but mostly via Manchester. So, false advertising! Since FCA are advertising direct.

Who gives a monkeys if it stops at Manch? Two weeks ago, the tw*ts at Thomson couldn't even get us on a 767 from Taffy International (with it's big gigantic runway) to Sanford on the same flight as our luggage (and by 'our', I mean any luggage belonging to the 280 paying pax). Oh yes, Cardiff is such a wonderful airport, so much better than Briss cos it's got a big long runway. What utter sh!te!!! I'll go from Briss next time and I couldn't give a monkeys if we have to stop at Manch, as long as our bags get there as well.

Mutter, mutter........longer runway my arse! Thomson, bah, useless tw*ts!

[Wellington Bomber]

Standard Noise

I guess your bags did not show then!:ugh:

[caaardiff]

Err in CWL's defence, That was down to the particular replacement a/c used on the day due to the other being tech.

[ATCO1987]

Haha poor old Noisy!

Yeah, Bristol will beat Cardiff anytime; runway length aside. Notice the difference in movements? Wonder where the airlines prefer to fly from...cough.

[Standard Noise]

Err in CWL's defence, That was down to the particular replacement a/c used on the day due to the other being tech.

That's as may be, but they used one which was incapable of doing the job required of it, namely transporting 280 people AND their luggage to Florida. Mind you, I was told they'd replaced a 300 series with another 300 series, but there you go, proves you shouldn't listen to what they tell you.
So in the grand scheme of things, a longer runway means b*gger all if the airlines cock it up. Still, does beg the question how the same company can get a 767-200 off Bristol to the Carribean with such a puny runway?:confused:

Wellington we arrived in Orlando Thurs evening and got the bags on Sat morning (Thank You Monarch for rescuing us from Thomson's cock up!)
Two days in the same undercrackers, I had to soak them before they peeled off!! Still, when they land on the desk of Thomsons MD (actually, he'll prolly smell them before they arrive), he'll know not to fanny around with my hard earned leave time again! SN is not accustomed to going overseas for the very reason that no matter how well a trip is planned, you have to put yourself in the hands of lackwit bumpkins at some point, and that is when your planning tends to unravel. Mrs N has been told not to expect foreign travel until I have calmed down, 2009 is my current target although that depends on Thomson's response to my forthcoming letter. Cornwall looks good for the next few years!

1987 - never mind the movements, Cardiff's terminal (and isn't that just the right word for the dump) reminds me of Luton back in the 80's. To be avoided at all costs!

[loveJet]

its not about what the terminal looks like, its what the inbound market wants, what the businesspeople need and where the critical mass market is. Cardiff will beat BRS hands-down when it comes to the long-haul inbound market. Americans don't know Bristol, but they know Cardiff and Wales. Business people will be sent where business contracts send them.

[Standard Noise]

loveJet - as most of this lot would have you believe, it's about runway size. And Cardiff's terminal is still a sh!thole, even worse for an arriving pax (plywood floors, ceiling tiles caving in cos the roof leaks, or is that leeks?) It looked like a hurricane had hit it, still, we live in hope.

It's such a 'critical mass market' in Taffy land that they're managing to push 2M pax per annum, whoa, steady on, big market there.:eek:

[MerchantVenturer]

I use BRS a lot. It's my local airport and I am very fond of it, but it ain't perfect.

There was an article in the Bristol Evening Post a week or two ago about an Excel flight from BRS to one of the Greek destinations that had to leave numerous bags behind.

I like CWL as well as it provides some routes that BRS doesn't. I know the terminal needs a bit of attention but I've seen a lot worse and there was a time when it was better than BRS's.

I hope this doesn't go down the path of BRS v CWL. We've seen all that before and it invariably deteriorates into a Bristol City v Cardiff City football-type slagging match, but without the 'fan' violence, thankfully.

As a customer I regard the airports as very useful complements and I increasingly regard EXT in this bracket too as a Bristol resident.

I am surprised at loveJet's comments about the relative merits of Bristol and Cardiff for inbound American travellers.

I concede that many Americans are extremely insular and probably most have only heard of London and the likes of Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge, Stratford and Bath.

Indeed, at the time of the Manchester bomb in the1990s I was in the USA and one of the major news networks headlined their story as 'London Bombing' before explaining in the report that the bomb had actually detonated in the northern city of Manchester, about two hundred miles from London.

I would be surprised if CWL were to beat BRS 'hands down'. Bristol is a larger business centre; it has the highest GDP per capita of the eight English core cities with a lot of foreign business links; it is always in the top ten UK (not just English) destinations for overseas visitors (the last figures made it number seven as far as I recall); it attracts over 9 million visitors annually; Bristol is an ancient city with a lot of American connections; Bath (an American tourist Mecca) is almost as close to BRS as Bristol and BRS is at present the only airport serving the huge tourist region of South West England from the USA.

Now Cardiff and Wales certainly have a lot going for them of course, but whether CWL would really attract more Americans than BRS seems able to do is a moot point. Perhaps we shall soon know if the much-rumoured US scheduled CWL service commences.

[crackling jet]

its not about what the terminal looks like, its what the inbound market wants, what the businesspeople need and where the critical mass market is. Cardiff will beat BRS hands-down when it comes to the long-haul inbound market. Americans don't know Bristol, but they know Cardiff and Wales. Business people will be sent where business contracts send them.

Yes, there is such a demand for routes out of Cwl, that every time we read a press release about new schedules and see photos in the press the airline concerned has announced they are pulling out before the photos are even dry !!!! Yep Brs management should be shaking in ther boots, Cwl only have triple their passengers then they,re level with us. !!!!

[caaardiff]

BRS has gone through the many changes that CWL hasnt seen yet. The Terminal is in a bit of a mess at the moment, and yes the management dont seem to do things in the most simple or convenient of ways, but things are being done.
You wont see a new terminal arrive one morning on the runway and park up!

I think BRS has attracted the American market, and CWL has v strong Canadian links. BRS has a better domestic market (Easyjet were always going to perform better than Baby at CWL), CWL has a better holiday market.
I've read reports recently that state as much as 65% of Welsh travellers use eastern airport, bearing in mind that also includes North Wales (LPL, MAN etc)
If the airlines, and to an extent the airport itself, were committed enough then any airport can make realistic routes work.

Yes, there is such a demand for routes out of Cwl, that every time we read a press release about new schedules and see photos in the press the airline concerned has announced they are pulling out before the photos are even dry
So one airline pulls out and its a crap airport??
Eastern - BRU -this route has worked, and will work for other airlines. NCL is doing great.
Air Wales - MANAGEMENT
Excel - there's more to the 'low loads' excuse that they've given
MyTravel - Are looking into expanding again at CWL
Zoom - going from strength to strength
Aer Arann - As above

Again BRS and CWL attract different markets, CWL may not have a sparkling new terminal, BRS may not have a suitably long runway. Who Cares!

[MerchantVenturer]

Caaardiff

I agree with much of what you say but am surprised that you think CWL has the bigger holiday market.

In 2005 BRS had over 1.3 million terminal charter pax whilst CWL had 819,000.
In July this year (latest figures available) BRS carried 177,000 charter pax and CWL 136,000.

Furthermore, at the height of summer 2006 BRS had around 120 weekly charter flights and 38 charter destinations. The CWL figures were around 100 and 35 (I have included the Zoom flights/destinations here as well as the Thomsonfly which seems a mixed charter/schedule operation).

In winter the difference is more marked. Last winter at the busiest time BRS had 51 weekly charter flights (including 16 weekly ski flights to 12 separate ski destinations) whilst CWL had 12, including 3 ski destinations.

Having said this, there is evidence that CWL is closing the gap on BRS in the summer charter market (in 2005 CWL had around 75 weekly charter flights at the busiest time compared to 100 this year), and Thomsonfly’s initiative will mean more charter flights this winter than last.

It may be that you are including the leakage figures from CWL’s catchment in your calculation (put at ‘close to 50%’ in the airport’s draft master plan, but of course this is all travellers, not just holiday travellers).

I sense we both agree that both airports are first class facilities for their immediate catchments but that some cross-mixing of travellers from both sides of the Severn is inevitable and, to some extent desirable, in that it encourages commercial competition.

[WATABENCH]

oooh ooooh me me I care :} Crikey people and I thought I was king of the ranters, looks as if i'll have to share my throne with 'Standard Noise'.
If you ask me the only thing that shows which airport is operating better must surely be pax figs,these in turn lead back to management.
If CWL had the same management as BRS then we might be looking at it all being the other way round, fact is BRS has superior management and marketing teams not just over CWL but other airports, both in infrastructure, advertising and attracting airlines/routes etc.... This leads on to more airlines signing deals with the airport who puts the best pitch to them, for example CO nearly went to CWL from what i've been told, but BRS put a better business case across, FCA long haul nearly went to STN but ended up in BRS, theres a definate reason why folks and I believe it down to the guys who sit up stairs in the old terminal making deals, well done Tony Halwood/Shaun Brown and Co I say.
Heres a little sum that shows what i mean,
More airlines + more routes = more pax + more return pax = more money = more facilities = more success = higher pax figs than CWL :} :} :}

[flower]

It would be a shame to have yet another slanging match between the two airports. Bristol are currently winning hands down on destinations and prices and it would quite frankly take such a radical change at Cardiff to catch up. ( but just for ATCO1987s sake it wasn't that long ago that Cardiff was ahead in the airport stakes so things can and do change)
I do though hope we can improve our destinations and service.
The Terminal should be knocked down and rebuilt but with all the companies money being invested in Luton thats as likely to happen as Air Wales starting back up.
Standard Noise why oh why should you be caught up in the debacle that hit the front pages in the local news, that is just so flipping typical :8 , sorry you had problems we didn't see you though pop up and see us for a coffee, in our brand new kitchen, rest room, briefing room, updated VCR and Radar room :E I could have made you a lovely Café Latte and it wouldn't have cost you a thing.

[bycrewlgw]

Guys its not a competition! So what if BRS gets more PAX every year. In all honesty how much does it matter to anyone of us? Being Welsh I would love to see CWL grow faster than what it does but i'm certainly not going to lose sleep over it! Or shall I start a LGW v BRS thread, we have more pax than BRS oh wait.... I HAVE A LIFE! :p

[WATABENCH]

Ha ha, damn i love this forum when it gets to the BRS v CWL thing, quick over to the CWL thread to do it on there too (not), I love it how it's gone from Standards problem journey with TOM, to which airport is better - HA HA HA HA BRILLIANT! Were all legends! BRS is better though :}

[crackling jet]

Well that stirred up a hornets nest, just it was getting a bit quiet on this thread and there was nothing on the tele !!! :ok:

[rampboy767]

Any rumuors on the easyjet contract yet? Does anyone know weather servisair have got it? or has it gone to another handling agent. We still dont know and it expires end of this month, on another note its funny how soon as routes and rumuors die down on this forum it turns to BRS vs CWL. But you never here a word about EXT.....hehe....Any news on any new routes in the pipeline?

[Standard Noise]

Well flower, I would have come up for a wee natter, but I was waiting for some free nosh since we were being delayed by about four and a half hours. Still, shouldn't expect too much from the Krauts, eh? Had to make do with several Nigerian lagers and a pot of Ladyboy nuts at that thing CWL management call a 'bar'. Anyhoo, if I'd have come upstairs, you wouldn't have got any peace. And I was waiting for a Thommo/Servisair type rep to show their ugly mugs in the deps lounge (yes, I called switchboard twice to request one be sent up), but they didn't appear, just like my luggage! Well, at least it was consistent.

[WindSheer]

Cardiff or Bristol, hmmm would rather see Brs get all the glory now that I live here!! ;)

As for my Toronto remark.....read it again guys! You can reach Canada easily from BRS, certainly in a 75', and probably a 76'.
BUT, my point was to get the range you would have to reduce the seating to a typical scheduled/higher cost seating config', which isnt going to compete with Zoom's low cost/ high capacity config'.

Now, where's my pot noodle........:) !!

All the best.

[WATABENCH]

Getting off the CWL bashing now, does anybody know how the BA - TFS loads are looking? Brave step by BA to launch that route from BRS when sooo many charters do it (uk and spanish) so hope it holds it's own, can't see it massively affecting the likes of MYT/TOM/FCA though, great to see a larger BA jet in BRS instead of the same old Embrarers. :ok:

[WATABENCH]

Just been haveing a play on the FC website, seems now the SFB/POP in winter ops via MAN for refuel only, in summer the site is now saying SFB/POP double drop with MAN, VRA now double drop with EMA, As far as i'm told by travel agent friends the BRS-SFB/POP are selling well, apparently 20-25% sold for next summer with mass booking period still to come in Jan/Feb, wonder if this is more to do with extra capacity needed from MAN in the summer, Not sure what the split between the airports is, however I imagine that BRS will have the Lions share as they've been on sale longer, we'll see i guess, VRA makes good business sense though, not selling as well as the SFB/POP, shame the EMA-CUN can't be shared with BRS too.
However does bring back the question of Direct or not? back in to the equation, It's really dependent on where the aircraft is to be cleaned BRS or MAN :confused: Hopefully it will be cleaned in BRS therefore meaning minimum distruption to BRS pax :confused:

[WindSheer]

They should sell seats out of Bangor as well..............:E

[WATABENCH]

Still better than the mind numbing trip to LGW :ugh:

[tornadohotas]

Caaardiff............ Having worked for Servisair at CWL many moons ago I would be very interested to see any pictures or information on the developments going on at CWL. I don't get down there very often and miss the place a lot. Are there any pictures on the web or could you PM me with any??Tornadohotas

[WindSheer]

The work is huge......

Last time I was there, someone was on a ladder removing the cobwebs...:p

[anoraknophobia]

Flew back to Bristol yesterday on board a First Choice A321 from Crete, fog at the airport,the wind blowing from the East and no cat3 on runway 09 meant we coudn't land.The pilots decided to hold for half an hour in the hope that things would improve,they didn't so we diverted to Cardiff.After refuelling and an hour or so on the ground we took off again for Bristol.When we got back to Bristol it was still really foggy but thanks to the skill of the crew we landed,about three hours after we first had approached Bristol. I know that dosen't seem much of a delay but we were picked up from our hotel at 12.30am gmt,took off from crete at 3.30am gmt so to put it mildly we were already cream crackered when we first arrived at Bristol.
I know that fog has always been a problem at Bristol,that the wind mostly blows from the West and that the terain at that end of the airport is difficult, but bearing in mind how busy the airport is these days Im surprised that the airport management haven't been more active in finding a solution to this problem. I can't imagine Easy jet are happy bunnies when their tight schedules are disrupted.

[WATABENCH]

In fairness the fog has a tendency (not always of course) of rolling in in the early hours 2-6am, the EZY's are all in by then, however the charters FCA/TOM/MYT operate night flights which means that usually their schedule gets more affected by adverse weather at night than the other operators.
I imagine your situation seemed worse because you had been up all day and half the night for your flight, if it was a cheeky little day flight it prob wouldnt of seemed too bad, ahh well be thankful you weren't taken off, made to wait and then coached back, good decision making by FCA

[MerchantVenturer]

anoraknophobia

Maybe they should try the WW II Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation (FIDO). :eek:

A typical FIDO installation comprised of piplines running either side and each end of the runway into which petrol was injected under pressure. The petrol was ejected through small holes in the pipe and then ignited by burners fitted at certain intervals along its length. The resultant fire produced heat so intense that it literally burned the fog away from the vicinity of the runway.Fifteen airfields in England were equipped with FIDO in WW II.

As you point out, the topography on the approach to 09 seems to rule out a Cat III system for that runway which the airport says is the operational runway for around one third of each year.

It is ironic because foggy/misty conditions often seem to appear when the wind is out of the eastern quadrant. The last few days with easterlies have been murky and misty, particularly in the mornings, and this morning is especially so where I live (around eight miles as-the-crow-flies to the east of airport), although I believe not bad enough to prevent aircraft landing at BRS, thank goodness. The westerlies are often stronger winds that seem to disperse any murk.

I'm not saying this is always the case of course. I'm not a meteorologist and my observations are merely based on living in the area for the last sixty years.

I fear this problem will be with us for many years and is one of the disadvantages of the site with which BRS will have to continue to contend.

[anoraknophobia]

Watabech,yes fair point could have been alot worse,in fact the 220 passengers on board all clapped when the plane finally touched down at Bristol.Merchant venturer,I was aware of the fido system but don't suppose Health and Saftey would go a bundle on such a system.Now Iv'e done a bit of research on Cat3 systems, I realise the problems involved ,bearing in mind the topography.Didn't know the outer marker for such systems was five miles away from the threshold.Even if planning permission was granted for the towers needed to support the transmitter equipment the cost would probably outway the number of times it would be needed. Anyway now Iv'e had a few good nights sleep I don't feel so narky.
On the subject of the new First Choice route to the Dominican Republic,flew with First Choice to DR from Gatwick earlier in the year from Gatwick.Even if there is refuelling stop given the choice I would have flown locally,anthing to avoid the curse of the M4/M25.

[RVR27/09]

Should keep the hares out of the way Merchant Venturer:}

Meanwhile.....

BRISTOL INTERNATIONAL ANNOUNCES DIRECT FLIGHTS TO GIBRALTAR


Bristol International has today announced that direct flights to Gibraltar will commence from April 2007 with low fares airline Fly Gibraltar. Bristol becomes one of just four key regional airports to gain the new direct route, opening up links between the Rock, Southern Spain and the South West.

The news follows an historic three-way accord made between Spain, Gibraltar and Britain in September which opens access from the end of the year to the Rock. The opening of the border allows travellers to cross with ease and provides a key gateway to Southern Spain and the popular Costa Del Sol and Costa De La Luz.

Furthermore, the new route will be the only regional link which provides a direct and convenient service for friends and family wishing to visit relatives serving in the British Forces, posted in Gibraltar. This will further enhance commercial maritime links between Devon, Cornwall and the Rock.

Commenting on the news, Tony Hallwood, Aviation Development Director for Bristol International Airport said: “The new route provides an important link for second home owners, businesses with interests in the area, holiday makers and leisure customers looking for a more direct route to this vibrant and popular region. It also provides a convenient link for Spanish and Gibraltar businesses looking to expand their regional interests in the UK.”

Nigel Hutchings, regional affairs director at Business West added: "There are already strong business links between the South West and Gibraltar and this new direct route presents additional opportunities for businesses to participate in dialogue.”

The new service will depart at 09.55am four times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Passengers flying on Fly Gibraltar’s Boeing 737-300 aircraftwill also be offered a pre-flight concierge service allowing passengers to pre-arrange meals, buy duty free, hire cars and purchase travel insurance among other services.

Details of the one-way fares will be announced in December when the tickets go on sale.

Cheers RVR27/09 :ok:

[MerchantVenturer]

Interesting that BRS has now put out a press release about the Gibraltar route. The intention was mentioned some time ago in PPRuNe and elsewhere but the whole idea of Fly Gibraltar, and indeed the future of Gibraltar Airport, has met some scepticism in the Gibraltar thread in this forum.

Let's hope this announcement means the enterprise is to go ahead.

On another matter, I passed through the airport at morning ‘rush hour time’ for the first time since the new security measures following the alleged terrorist plot announced on 10 August.

I was somewhat concerned to discover the queue from security stretched from the security area along the landing, down the stairs and half across the check-in area floor space. I had passed through at lunch time a few weeks ago when the security queue was minimal.

This time we arrived at 6.30am. Our fight was not due to depart for another two hours so we had a cuppa landside before returning to the security queue at 7am.

By then the tail ‘only’ reached the top of the stairs. We joined it and were pleasantly surprised that we were through security within twenty minutes. We had feared well over half an hour even from the top of the stairs, so well done to those workers involved.

The other thing of note was that the parallel taxiway was closed for work in progress, and departing aircraft had to taxi along about half the length of the runway before turning to take off (we were using 09).

Our captain mentioned the closed taxiway as the reason for a slight departure delay. I wondered if someone like Standard Noise might like to give an idea how much this sort of thing slows down the arrivals and departures procedures.

[ATCOJ30]

MV: the work on the parallel taxiway was very much routine for ATC ops. Taxiways and runways need to be resurfaced periodically 'cos they wear out. It's all in a days work...

We applied increased approach spacing of anything from 8-12 miles between successive arrivals to allow for the back-track, rather than the usual 4-6 miles minimum spacing. That said, it varied considerably because some aircraft could vacate via the intermediate D/F intersections (Dash 8s, Jetstreams, E-145s) whilst others needed longer on the runway to complete the turn/ backtrack. B757s and A321s could only use A and B so there was an even longer delay then, plus some interesting decision-making about when to push them back onto Taxiway Z, without totally blocking up the Aprons, especially when 09 was used.

We also played it tactically and tried to accomodate a series of arrivals/departures at times, rather than doing alternate arrivals/departures, in the runway "gaps". Nothing is perfect but we seem to have had relatively few go-rounds due to the back-tracking. Hopefully it'll all be back to normal by the 31st. If any aircrew are reading this, thanks for your patience. I certainly caused delays of up to 5-10 minutes for some of the last flights in a particular sequence of arrivals at peak times but what can you do when someone is #5, say, you need to achieve the approach spacing AND give the Tower a chance to get some of the departures away? Backtracking has been a fact of life at certain UK airports for years, I guess (Luton, Southampton come to mind...)

[MerchantVenturer]

Many thanks ATCOJ30 for that informative and interesting explanation. This is one of the great pleasures and privileges of PPRuNe membership for non-aviation people like me who are interested in the subject.

Looking ahead to the winter generally at BRS, I have had a look at Mayfly for the first week of winter schedules, or to be precise from 1st November to the end of that week.

I note that FCA is operating two aircraft most days – a 757 and a 321. I know that some sun flights are taken off for December/January (and sometimes put back in for Christmas/New Year) but is FCA going to retain two based aircraft at BRS for the entire winter? The Santa flights and ski programme also have to be operated.

Sharm el Sheik seems extraordinarily popular next week. The web version of Mayfly shows four flights – TOM and FCA on Thursday, XLA on Saturday and XLA again (but with an A 320 this time, presumably the Air Malta machine) on Sunday.

I know Mayfly is not always completely accurate, especially days in advance, and may be showing one SSH flight too many.

XLA is also operating the Hurghada on Fridays, and elsewhere in PPRuNe there is a report that TOM will start a weekly BRS-Luxor in winter 07/08 which suggests that Egypt is seen as increasingly popular from this part of the world. Strange then that the Taba that operated in the autumn/early winter of 2005 and was supposed to operate Aug to Nov this year didn’t appear, or if it did, it didn’t last long.

TCX, which is operating the new Agadir flight, seems to have work with a 320 next week every day from Wed to Sun (Mon and Tue in next week’s Mayfly still in ‘summer mode’) so is this now a based aircraft at BRS?

Given the huge ski programme, the regular winter sun programme and the FCA transatlantics starting in February, this promises to be another busy charter winter at BRS.

Harping back to ski flights (16 or 17 weekly charters again?), easyJet seems to be operating double daily for much of the winter to GVA, three times a day on Saturdays and some Sundays, rising to four a day on Saturdays from February.

Are winter sports a particular passion for West Country people. Either that or there is something going on in the snow that might be interesting to know more about, and it's passed me by. :{

[Standard Noise]

Having done the old backtracking trick at Belfast City for years, I can't say I've found this to be a problem. Most of the pilots got used to it fairly quickly and they have helped by making sure they make their landing roll as short as poss to help us out. It's all going swimmingly and with any luck, the pax shouldn't notice any difference. But when it gets foggy, well..........:ooh: :ugh:

[anoraknophobia]

I should think ATC at BRS will be relieved at the iminent reinstatement of taxiway Golf. Witnessed a Thomas cook A320 backtrack after landing then take taxiway Foxtrot to vacate the runway instead of Delta. Tower advised him to keep moving in case he sank.The other week saw an Easy jet A319 miss taxiway Delta and brought to a halt before it could use Foxtrot,tower had to get a ASU vehicle to turn him on to the western apron and back on to Delta.In the mean time a log jam developed behind. Don't know if the boys and girls in the tower do juggling in their spare time,but certainly had their work cut out at the busy times doing pushbacks,clearances,landings,take offs and the constant questions about slot times.If 2007 turns out to be busier then 2006 I would have thought a ground controller will be a must at peak times.

[ATCO1987]

Easy A320? Hope not! A319 mefinks!

Aye from what Ive heard its been fun and games, especially when LVP's are in force.

Can ATCOJ30 or Noisy advise; will new hold G4 and repositioned G2/3 be operational straight away? Or not until the next airac is effective?

[Standard Noise]

Who needs an Xbox when you have that kind of thing at work! We're used to it though, it happens even when Golf is open (a certain lo cost airline from the Emerald Isle like to think Foxtrot is the saviour of their turnaround times).
Foxtrot is only rated up to Fk100, owt heavier runs the risk suffering a little mishap.

ATCO - Can't remember offhand, only seen the plans once, and even then I wasn't much interested. Still, we shall discover all in the fullness of time.
As for me, I'm looking forward to the next 5 months (on nights anyway). I am relishing my forthcoming research into eyelids, more particularly, should they have holes in them or has evolution provided adequately functioning units already?:zzz: :ok:

[dublinamg]

Any word on Aer Lingus pulling out of Bristol (again) after the winter season. Flights aren't bookable on the website and they just announced several increases in frequencies on other routes yesterday.

[WOWBOY]

Air Southwest have axed there Norwich service accroding to the booking system. It is unbookable after Winter. I am suprised at this!!

[Standard Noise]

The workload lessens, hurrah!

[Vasto1M]

The first First Choice long haul flight departed on Monday. Didn’t get off to a great start though. It was about 1 hour 30 late leaving Bristol and was declared tech on arrival in Manchester, so the passengers had to get off and wait while a fault was fixed, they sorted a replacement crew and left Manchester four hours later.

Also can confirm Aer Lingus are gone after March.

[ATCO1987]

Wasnt quite the first FCA long haul; technically, yes, but it was a one off. The FCA Long haul schedule starts in Feb I believe. Yes, Im a pedant...

Thanks for that info, though. I knew it was quite late arriving at Bristol as I was waiting for it at work! Nice landing though I must say :-).

[Kellycsi]

With the news that Flybe is hoping to acquire BA Connect what will this mean for Bristol? As noted on this forum FlyBe appear to be curtailing their ops at Bristol in favour of Exeter.
Also would this have any effect on the Tenerife service flown by BA Connect (GB Airways) as they will not be included in the sale.
Has anybody in the know heard anything on the grapevine?

[Red Snake]

Noticable lack of commitment from FlyBe over Bristol

All the other regional statements have some wording committing to the airport, although the expanded route map still shows BRS routes.

It'll all come out in the wash, no doubt. But I'm concerned, being based here. Please, not the 'Orrible Orange.

BRS is twice the size by passenger numbers of SOU & EXT put together. Will they really drop it?

[Bristol_Traveller]

I would also be a bit uncomfortable about Easyjet dominating all the routes around BRS. One of the benefits of the BACon route to CDG was it flew at useful times to do a day's business in Paris; the same is not true of Easyjet's "once a day" policy, which sees me continue to bash down the M4 to LHR to pick up flights to mainland Europe. (Next stop ROM - three days out of the office if I fly with EZY, 1 day if I fly with BA from LHR).

The ray of sunshine behind BACon departing might be the arrival of LH to take over the German routes. This would be a real bonus for using FRA/MUC/DUS/HAM as hubbing points into Germany, Austria, Switzerland and onto the Star Alliance long-haul network.

We wait and watch with interest.

[MerchantVenturer]

The Embraers typically averaged 30-40 pax per day most months on the European routes, sometimes a bit less in the winter.

Would LH be happy with this sort of loading?

As B_T has said, the European routes (except CDG) are once daily which precludes doing a day's business and then coming home that day.

Would any airline be able to sustain a twice daily service from a regional airport like BRS to these European destinations, and more importantly, could they get slots at the times business travellers would want? Probably not in most cases.

BACX did try FRA double daily last year but it did not last long.

It would be a shame to lose these key business routes but such is life.

My main thoughts are for the staff of BAConnect in these uncertain times for them.

[Bristol_Traveller]

MV is absolutely right about the poor loadings on the BACon services, and the failure of the twice daily to FRA.

Sometimes poor loadings are due to poorly timed services. LH run fairly full A319's out of BHX to FRA and MUC, which I would guess are probably 30% full of people going to FRA and MUC and the remainder people hubbing through onto other LH or StarAlliance destinations.

The KL AMS service is very popular, and I would guess most of the people on those flights (4 a day) are actually connecting on through AMS to somewhere else on the KLM/SkyTeam network.

BACon's big handicap was that Bristol wasn't connected to the rest of the BA (or even OneWorld) network anywhere, so passenger numbers were limited to the "point to point" traffic.

Looking at (and using) LH's attractve European and Long-Haul fares, I think they'd get good traffic out of BRS. They'd certainly get more of my business (which, admittedly would come out of BACon and KLM as well as cutting down trips to LHR).

Bristol deserves better hubbing than KL/AMS and SN/BRU (God help us). Having access to FRA/MUC as *hubs* would be a superb improvement.

[Skipness One Echo]

So guess BA will hardly be keen for Loganair to remain operating as British Airways. Or Sun Air or GB, the only other surviving franchisees.

[Red Snake]

The BA routes not served by anyone else are ZRH, FRA, MXP, MUC. The flights are usually fairly full with mainly business travellers, so I assume the yields are reasonable. But we suffer from them being at silly times of the day - mid-morning to mid-afternoon is hopeless for business travellers as it wipes out the entire day.

I'm sure early morning flights of the above would attract more people. But I suspect KLM has most of the BRS business travel & could well pick up more now.

EDI & GLA have taken a real beating since EasyJet started & CDG could go the same way with a couple more rotations.

Flybe may try out the FRA/MUC/MXP routes, but, from a quick poll of my BRS colleagues this morning, none believe we'll be working for Flybe at BRS 6 months from now.

[OltonPete]

What about BE/BA out FR in?

Hahn, Bergamo, if not a base at Bristol operate from others like the Girona, which is coming soon - it might not be all bad news.

LH must be a possibility (their press release mentions more regional flights)
but they do like at least 3 daily flights to connect with the hubs but at least the RJ/146 is at Frankfurt (BHX's midday flight is one) but I can't
see the 737 or 319 as a preferred choice, not to start with anyway.

Could FR compete with Easy EDI or GLA (well PIK) or is that overkill?

The press release from flybe was interesting to say the least and
if they are not 100% behind Bristol, then best shot of them and let
others have a go. I don't particularly like FR but at least they bring in
the pax, as long as the airport can stomach the deal.

Pete

[Vasto1M]

heard from the BA Connect ground staff today that half have been given one month’s notice and the remainder will be out of a job at the end of December. All seems abit swift and I hope it doesn’t turn out to be the case but it would suggest that flybe don’t intend to keep the routes from Bristol.

[rampboy767]

We heard today from the BA groundstaff that they were not told officially that FlyBe brought BA Connect out until this afternoon, even tho it was released over the news and radio this morining. They also told us that FlyBe would be reducing staff, aircraft and routes as early as december and BA will be out of BRS by march 2007. But may be replaced with FlyBe's EMB 195s and Dash 400's!
Airlines like Wow's, eastern airways & SN brussels will be dispatched by servisair as of 1st of Demeber, so servisair will be come the sole handling agent out of BRS.

[Bristol_Traveller]

It sounds like the end is going to be mercifully swift, and the intentions made clear soon on. Whilst it's painful for the staff, it's probably much better than months of uncertainty. Better to have Xmas planning for the future rather than worrying about it. Well done to FlyBe for having the guts to deal with the situation promptly.

I rather hope that we don't see FR land with a greater presence at BRS. A combination of FR and EZ would somewhat condemn BRS to a low-fares future, and that in turn would drive existing and potential business fliers back down the M4. Arguably we aren't good business for the airport, as we rarely do anything other than duck into the lounge - we certainly don't scour the shops for bargains.

Having done so well to get the CO route to EWR, I'd like to think that we could see some more of the middle ranking airlines coming to BRS. (Cue debate about what that means).

An ideal scenario (for me - apologies for the selfish point of view) would be LH (or Cityline) doing 3/4 rotations a day to FRA/MUC with an Avro, which would provide some decent competition to KL/AMS, without it being fatal to either route.

To end on a crazy thought; would any airline move over from CWL? Would BMI/baby want to defect to BRS?

[OltonPete]

Bristol Traveller

As a BHX local, I use and follow BMI Baby and although many on various forums ridicule the BMI Group, Baby at BHX (not getting into the DTV debate) have followed a steady but conservative path. Bristol I fear
would be far too radical and as much as I like them you can do better.

Baby's objective seems to be consolidating the remaining bases but
as a non aviation worker, Baby always give the impression they
are been fattened up, not for Christmas but for sale :confused:

LH must definitely be a target but with FR adding Shannon, was it last year and Girona to come it does seem that they are testing the water.
Although some would say Bournemouth have had FR for years and is
still not a base (despite rumours) but Bristol and its surrounding areas surely must make it tempting.

Of course Easy might charge straight in with more flights, although with
their crewing problems some might groan at this ;)

Pete

[WATABENCH]

I think its a real shame to see the countries national flag carrier disapear from BRS, hopefully the TFS route will stay as officially its GB Airways isn't it not BAcon, I think that the BRS management would of been aware of the BE/BA situation and probably have something in lined up to fill the void, MV the FCA situation is that the 321 will leave in a few weeks and just leave the 757 until feb when you will see the visiting 767 every week, then may will be 2 x 757, 767 at weekends and probacbly visiting 320 once a week :ok:

[MerchantVenturer]

Many thanks, WATABENCH, for information re FCA based aircraft.

As for the BAConnect and Flybe matter, it seems to me that the reason Flybe appears to be vacillating over what it intends for the South West is that it is still in dialogue with the preferred bidders for EXT (who clearly were not Flybe’s preferred bidders) to try to get a deal that will satisfy the airline.

It probably will get the deal, especially in view of Friday’s announcement, but sensibly (from its point of view) Flybe wants to keep all options open at this stage, which conceivably could include a reversal of its falling out of love with BRS.

If Flybe ultimately decides to pull all the current BRS BACon routes there are, as others have said, some intriguing possibilities with regard to who might fill some of the gaps.

Given that Greater Bristol provides around 25% of the GDP of the entire Government South West Region (it extends from Gloucestershire in the north, to Cornwall in the west and to Swindon and Bournemouth/Poole in the east) and is the largest conurbation by some measure in that region, and that Bristol itself has the highest GDP per capita of the eight English core cities, it would be a surprising move for any airline to move primarily business routes to an airport elsewhere in the region.

Of course, that is not to say it would not do so or even cease to operate all or some altogether.

I hope this is sorted quickly because I am aware that an increasing number of local business people are using the BACon routes to the likes of Milan, Zurich and Frankfurt (albeit the lack of a day return option can sometimes be a pain and better timings would increase their popularity further still), and it would be pity if they reverted to using LHR now they are being weaned from that habit.

[MerchantVenturer]

easyJet announced today that it is to restore the BRS-Pisa route "due to popular demand."

The route will re-commence on 18 January 2007 with 3 rotations per week until the end of March when it will go daily.

easyJet say that the route (it commenced in July 2005) was intended as a summer-only route.

Strange that because it operated 3 x weekly last winter and was only taken off from the beginning of this month.

Were they not aware of the "popular demand" before they took it off?

[MerchantVenturer]

BRS’s Master Plan was finally published today, around nine months behind the original timescale. There is not a lot in it that differs from the draft and it provides detailed planning for the period up to 2015 when BRS thinks it will need to cater for up to 9 million pax per annum.

Summary of main points are:

£100 million to be spent on infrastructure improvements.

Terminal to be almost doubled in size by additions to east and west of current building.

Provision of onsite hotel.

New admin block, new fire station, multi-storey car park, double-deck car park covered in green and plants to present rural effect.

Old terminal building to be demolished to provide more aircraft stands and better access/egress to/from east end of runway.

More bus/Flyer services to other destinations to be introduced gradually as demand requires.

More stands to be built to a total of around thirty.

The Master Plan will be considered by North Somerset Council to decide whether they can use the plan as a basis when airport planning applications are put forward, the first of which will be early next year.

No runway extension thought necessary, even in the period up to 2030 when an outline indication has to be given of future intentions beyond 2015. The airport is putting its faith in the B 787 which Boeing has told it could operate from the existing runway to the west coast of the USA and to Cape Town, although turning circles would be necessary as the 787 would be too wide for the parallel taxiway. The Master Plan also mentions the B 737-700ER has having a wide capability without the need for runway lengthening.

Long haul sched routes are said to be limited from the BRS catchment although the following list of scheduled destinations (short, medium and long haul) is set out as possibilities.

Atlanta, Bilbao, Bologna, Boston, Cologne, Connaught, Copenhagen, Doncaster/Sheffield, Dubai, Dubrovnik, Hanover, Istanbul, Kerry, Larnaca, Limoges, Lisbon, Liverpool, Lyon, Nantes, Naples, Orlando, Oslo, Perpignan, Riga, Salzburg, Sardinia, Seville, Stuttgart, Stockholm, Tallinn, Toronto, Vienna/Bratislava, Warsaw, Washington.

Some of these are already flown as charter routes.

They might now have to add Bordeaux, Bergerac, Belfast City and Norwich, now they have been or will be dropped, plus possibly Frankfurt, Munich, Dusseldorf, Zurich and Milan if Flybe won’t play with BACon’s ball.

ITV West did a big item on the plans in their evening news bulletin and properly gave time to the views of those opposed to expansion, as well as an interview with MD Andrew Skipp who was quite blunt in his comment that if the West Country wants a decent airport some inconvenience is inevitable (my paraphrasing – not his exact words), although he did go on to say the airport is doing everything it can to minimise inconvenience to local residents.

Despite the organised and vocal anti-expansion lobby a viewers’ poll taken all day by the TV company showed 67% of respondents in favour of the expansion plans.

[redfield]

Rampboy: If, as you say, Servisair are dispatching SN, T3 and WOW from December 1st, where are they getting the extra staff from? Surely new dispatchers can't be recruited and trained in less than three weeks? I think you might have been a bit over-optimistic with your timescale!:hmm:

[crackling jet]

How will the Flybe takeover effect the thrice weekly A320 scheduled TFS flight that is operated by BA mainline a/c, will that be the end of it or will some else step in, as it seems to be going well. Surely Flybe cant pull all of the routes and expect pax to travel to EXT to fly, i would have thought the BRS population and sorrounding area would once again be hitting the M4 and heading east for london. also what happened to Flybe,s plan they announced a couple of years ago, about being big at BRS and hoping to have 12-14 routes within 4 years. or could this be their way in ?

[marlowe]

It doesnt affect the TFS flights they are operated by GB airways a franchise of BA ,the aircraft you see ARE not mainline BA aircraft just painted as such.

[Red Snake]

The TFS route is operated by GB Airways so is not affected by the Flybe takeover. Whether GB will continue to use the BA Connect brand is another matter.

I have to assume that Flybe & BRS fell out over something a while ago. I too remember the big plans they announced for BRS, but now nothing.

I sincerely hope Flybe do keep the BA routes. Most of our flights are pretty full so it's an opportunity for someone if Flybe do pull out. LHR and EXT are about the same distance from Bristol, so I doubt any passengers will be driving down the M5 if the flights are switched.

[redfield]

It would be nice if they kept the routes, but I don't think they will. Not sure they want to / can compete with Easy on EDI, GLA, CDG etc...??

[MerchantVenturer]

Flybe made extravagant promises about big route development at other regional airports at the times they began modest expansions at those fields, as they did at BRS, but little transpired.

For example, NCL was one and there has been a lot of comment from time to time in that airport's thread concerning the lack of action, although it does now seem that the demise of BACon might kickstart things there with Flybe.

As for BRS, I can only assume that Flybe don't want two bases so close together and with overlapping catchments, so have plumped for EXT where there is no easyJet to outgun them.

There is a post in the Flybe thread saying the airline has applied for EXT-DUS daily slots for summer 2007 which would almost certainly mean curtains for the BRS-DUS route. Of course, slot applications don't necessarily mean a route will be flown.

It is a fact that the Bristol region has a much bigger business base than the Devon area and one might wonder how routes like DUS could be sustained from EXT.

Well, some people living in the south of Bristol might regard EXT as a better alternative than LHR, and it is said by some that EXT is better-placed for inbound tourism from the continent as so many continentals visit Devon and Cornwall, but this would not be the case in winter, so perhaps any such routes would be summer-only.

If that were the case then the business community would become a tad irked and the M4 would doubtless see their presence again.

If Flybe pulls all or most of the BRS BACon routes I wonder how likely it is that easyJet will add extra EDI and GLA rotations, and even extra CDG if slots can be obtained.

I note the big Flybe banner on the BRS entrance roundabout has gone and has been replaced by easyJet banners. Is that an omen? :oh:

How long before Bristol-based ITV West finds another sponsor for its local weather forecast? ;)

[Baron buzz]

I'm pretty sure that WOW will not be changing to Servisair unless they absolutely have to. What I mean by that is, they will be staying with BA as long as there is people there working. As far as I understand it, WOW will still be handled by BA on 1st December.....

[Red Snake]

I don't think EXT is a realistic alternative for most BRS business travellers (the bulk of BA's passengers), LHR is just too close if there isn't a service from BRS. EXT-DUS may work, but probably not as a replacement for BRS-DUS.

Competition from EZY is strong on GLA/EDI, but less so on CDG. I think it's the same as KLM/EZY to AMS where KLM pick up all the connecting traffic as they have several flights a day including the all important first and last. EZY pick up less of the business travellers.

Alas though, I think most of the BA BRS routes are doomed in the New Year, and my job with it. I don't fancy the M5 to EXT each day either. Ah well, it was good while it lasted - at least the job market is fairly buoyant.

[johnrizzo2000]

When do the subsidies to CO for operating the EWR route run out???

[GW76]

When do the subsidies to CO for operating the EWR route run out???
When CO axe the service -you'll know the subsidies have run out

[MerchantVenturer]

What subsidies are these?

BRS has no access to a RDF and the route certainly isn't a PSO.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Just following the Flybe thread elsewhere, and it appears that they are busy applying for slots into DUS and FRA from EXT.

Interestingly, they've asked for (but yet to receive) 4 daily slots for an EXT - FRA service. By all means call me machiavellian, but could this be a spoiling move?

It seems unlikely that Flybe want to operate a 4x daily from EXT-FRA, and it seems unlikely that they'll get the slots at FRA to operate such a service meaningfully. However, it would allow them to cry foul if another operator did look at running (say) an EXT or even, BRS, to FRA 4x daily service and did get the slots, maybe because they were already a big slot holder at FRA.

On a less conniving issue; I guess it's the end of The Terraces lounge. I wonder what will appear in it's place, or whether Servisair will expand out to cover both areas?

[aeulad]

I think it is more likely to be an application for 4 slots, but two each way, as in a twice daily service.

Regards

Mike

[MerchantVenturer]

B_T

The Flybe thread talks about the airline applying for four daily slots for SOU-FRA and two daily slots for SOU-MUC.

The only mention of EXT there is the EXT-DUS slot application for one daily rotation that I spoke of earlier.

The SOU-FRA application is definitely for four return flights and the SOU-MUC for two return flights, both on Embraer 195 equipment.

The EXT-DUS application cites a DH-8-400 route.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the BRS route development office right now.

They have invariably come up trumps in recent years. Can they do something again?

[crossfiller]

There seems to be a general opinion on this thread that Fly Be will pulling out of Bristol, and given that they now have a large operation up the M5 in BHX, and their head office is a similar distance the other way in EXT, that may be right. However this contention appears to be based on the idea that Fly Be merely have to decide between operating the West Country routes out of either BRS or EXT, and I’m not sure it’s that simple. The problem is that if Fly Be pulled off the Bristol routes I'm fairly sure they’d be taken on by another operator who would be a far more formidable and committed competitor than BACON (admittedly not difficult as the only people less committed to flight operations than BACON were the Bristol Airport anti-noise lobby and Greenpeace), so the question for the Fly Be management becomes; will an EXT - FRA/DUS/MXP/ZRH be viable when somebody else (say a large orange airbus) is operating to the same destinations out of BRS? - and I would suggest the answer to this question is no, because if these routes were viable out of EXT, Fly Be would have already had a go when the only competition from BRS was a BACON 145. The logical extension of this argument is that if Fly Be want to continue operating these routes out of the West Country then it is going to have to be BRS.

One other thing; BACON wanted to operate twice daily BRS to FRA, with a morning and evening rotation to allow business people to get there and back in a day. Unfortunately the only slots available were too close together and so BACON reverted back to a single daily round trip. The point is that unless something has changed the way slots are allocated at FRA then the application for four a day out of SOU, mentioned in an earlier post, is just a case of blowing smoke into the wind.

[MonkeyB]

Lufthansa have already been looking at BRS and CWL, this might help them to make up their mind. They certainly won't have any problems over slots!

MB

[anoraknophobia]

Looking at the Easy Jet thread,it is speculated that another airbus will be based at Bristol. If this is the case is it likely that some of the ex BA routes will be taken up.

[MerchantVenturer]

It's more than speculation.

The easyJet company report lists the based aircraft for next year, base by base, and BRS is listed to get its tenth A319 - there is a link to the easyJet report in the easyJet3 thread.

BRS and LGW are the only UK bases to get extra based aircraft next year - the others will go to mainland Europe bases at MAD, MXP and GVA, although three new aircraft will be distributed 'tactically' so presumably could go to any base.

In one of the BRS consultative committee meeting minutes MD Andrew Skipp said easyJet was committed to an extra based aircraft a year, but clearly there will come a time in the future when this won't go on, or will it. ;)

I just hope they've got enough people to fly all the aircraft. :ouch:

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

There are a number of 'tactical' spare aircraft on the network which could be used at BRS if there were significant commercial opportunities arising from BACONS demise. The 10th aircraft was planned some time ago and is therefore nothing to do with the Flybe thing.

I operated one of the first Go aircraft into BRS and have always been suprised that so few people flying the BA livery ever jumped ship into Go/easy. It will be sad to see them go, diversity is a good thing. But the writing was on the wall in 6ft high lettering after the first year sensational success of 737 operations at BRS in 2001/2.

Cheers,

WWW

[terrier23]

sorry if this has been covered but why are all of BA's routes still bookable from Brs.

Also very sorry to see BA leaving Bristol after working for them for a year and a half it is a big shame.

Also considering wow withdrawing their Norwich service I would like to see someone take this route on as I am looking at moving their early next year and it would be easier to come back and see my family, flying rather than the 5 hour drive.

[WATABENCH]

Having worked both here in BRS and down in EXT, It is blatently obvious that EXT neither has the capacity or infrastructure to handle a busy network of aircraft and departures such as the BACON BRS routes, also there are virtually no facilities for business people, no seperate lounge, no internet facilities, no 'STARBUCKS', there is no way BE could move all those routes to EXT, it would be commercial suicide. It'll be interesting to see what happens, I can see them doing an about turn with BRS and suprising everyone, but who knows, at the moment it seems that the futures orange, bring on FR I say lets get some real competition going on down here, it'll be all good for the airport and pax, If EMA who handle less pax than BRS can operate with the 3 big LOCO's based there EZY, FR and BABY and BHX closer to them than CWL is to us then why not BRS? :}

[Devonair]

sorry if this has been covered but why are all of BA's routes still bookable from Brs.
Also very sorry to see BA leaving Bristol after working for them for a year and a half it is a big shame.
Also considering wow withdrawing their Norwich service I would like to see someone take this route on as I am looking at moving their early next year and it would be easier to come back and see my family, flying rather than the 5 hour drive.

Not sure who else would take it on if WOW can't make it work, can't see any other carrier being able to make a go of it. BE will continue NWI from EXT.

[jetstream7]

Are the BACon BRS routes profitable?

If they are, then why hand this business over to someone else?

[terrier23]

But there has been flights from exeter to norwich anyway. When I choose to fly I choose to fly becasuse of the services from where I want to go from and where I want to get to. I can get a lift or taxi to Brs if i don't want to drive but going to exeter is that little bit too far.

We were told at BACX, as it was then that the brs base was profitable, but saying that so was the ezy cph and was very often full as I am sure MV will confirm as I believe his son used it regularly. I would love to be able to do what wow did at Plh when Ba pulled out of there and lease a couple of the erjs and fly to those routes which were full and wanted, but hey, what do I know

all the best

T21/T23:ok:

[MerchantVenturer]

Hello terrier, me old mate.

Nice to see you back on here, albeit with an updated monical, as Bristolians are apt to say.

The publicly-available stats for the easyJet BRS-CPH show it built from a decent beginning into a very good route from a load point of view, often around the 85% per month mark.

Of course, high loads don't always mean good yields and easy's explanation for stopping the route (and the one from NCL to CPH) was the £7 per head pax tax the Danish government imposed at CPH. I believe this has since been reduced to half that.

Someone at BRS 'who should know' told me at the time that he thought another carrier would quickly step in. No-one did and that was a year or two ago.

As for BA at BRS, I have been told more than once by someone within BACx (as it was then) admin staff that BRS was a profitable base. The last contact I had with this person was early this year so I am talking about the BACx days - whether things changed when it became BACon, I don't know.

However, even if BRS remained profitable, that would be of little significance I suppose if the organisation as a whole was losing money.

Finally, I am a bit surprised that BRS-NWI didn't do better. The land trip from Bristol to Norwich is almost as bad as that from Exeter to Norwich, and the former has a lot more people living in its area.

Perhaps the greater pax take-up from EXT is down to Flybe's better marketing and/or brand awareness, or simply that for some reason there are more people wanting to travel between Norfolk and Devon/Cornwall than from/to the Bristol area. I don't think it was down to ticket price because WOW usually seemed pretty competitive when I looked.

[rampboy767]

Hey,
Does anyone know what Flybe's plans are at BRS yet? Weather they will continue any routes? Or will other airlines like easyjet, ryanair or even Lufthansa will operate the routes flybe drop or choose EXT over BRS? Does anyone know the TOM 762 from BGI is back to BRS, from the one off charter that went out a week or so ago? Whats the date in February when First Choice start operating the long haul routes?

[MerchantVenturer]

Hello rampboy.

First the easy (no pun ;)) bit: according to their website FCA will commence weekly ops to Florida from 4 Feb 07 and fortnightly to Dominican Republic from 13 Feb 07. The fortnightly flights to Cuba are due to start in May 07.

As for the TOM 762 to BGI, brochures show it is a 15-night holiday so, if the last night is the overnight flight back, I suppose it will be in this coming Saturday morning. The web Mayfly, for some reason, is missing out this weekend altogether at the moment.

I don't know if you have read the lengthy thread on the Rumours and News message board concerning Flybe and BACon, but there are numerous posts from people employed by those airlines who don't seem to have been told yet what the plans are across the network. For example, there seems to be a divergence of opinion as to how long the ERJ 145s will be kept.

It may be that until the takeover deal is actually signed and sealed specifics will not be announced.

Have heard no rumours about EZY, FR or LH, other than LH was supposedly looking at BRS and other regionals because it was getting fed up with security-led delays at the London airports.

FR's Girona route starts in mid Feb 07 and easy will have to decide how its tenth 319 will be employed later next year.

[rampboy767]

All i know from what i have been told, is Flybe will be phasing out BA aircraft and routes from BRS from Dec 31st and including the their handling agent too i think like dispatcher's and check in etc. By the end of March BA should be out of BRS but even us dont know whats really going on.

[MerchantVenturer]

There has been a bit of national publicity about the First Choice Banjul flight on Tuesday.

Reports say the B 757 had to call in at Dakar Airport in Senegal on its return flight because fuel was unavailable at its destination airport in the Gambia.

The press of course go to town on the story because the captain had to find the money himself, including 'raiding' the bar takings, to pay for fuel and airport facilities at Dakar.

What intrigues me more is that First Choice say this should not have happened because they had made arrangements several days earlier with the Dakar airport authorities.

Why would they need to have done this? Is there a problem at Banjul with fuel supplies or was it a one-off?

As far as I am aware, the First Choice flight had no problems the previous week, neither did the Astraeus Friday flight to Banjul.

The return schedule for the Tuesday flight is already quite tight to meet BRS's winter night time curfew for runway resurfacing, and last Tuesday's flight had to land at CWL in the early hours of Wednesday.

On a plus point I note the following morning's flight to FUE took off more or less on time at 0825, presumably with the same aircraft

If so, it seems they must have got the 757 back to BRS pretty sharpish as soon as the runway was open on Wednesday morning.

[WATABENCH]

A lot of airports in western africa are run by some very dodgy people, and this can sometimes mean fuel and ground handling can be awkward to say the least, FCA did there best in the circumstances, the DKR refuel stop was set up in advance by at least 24 hours, and they have put a/c in there before so just goes to prove my point about these dodgy characters.
I can't imagine it would of been too nice for the pax but what else could they of done? I imagine that should it happen again then an alternative to DKR will probably be used, TFS being the obvious to come to mind, still FCA from what i see tried there best to minimise distruption to pax but just got buggered about by DKR. The coaches met the a/c in CWL and drove pax strait back also providing them with a drink for the journey, and the a/c was positioned back at 0645, well in time for the FUE.
I cant see why the papers and radio 2 are haveing such orgasms over it bloody idiots :} :}

[MerchantVenturer]

The easyJet summer 07 flights for BRS have been released this afternoon.

The only new route is Bordeaux which will initially be 3 x weekly, then daily from the end of May. We mused about this a few weeks ago when Flybe pulled out and with it being one of Bristol’s twin cities and a very popular route.

It seems La Rochelle will not be sacrificed though because that returns 4 x weekly from the end of May (frequency as last summer).

Changes from last summer are that AMS will be double daily (as this winter), CDG will carry on once a day having started this winter, NCE will go double daily from the end of May (daily before then with the odd day double daily), and NCL will remain the 4 x daily started this winter.

KRK will be 5 x weekly until the end of May then 4 x weekly as last summer and this winter. I thought this one might go daily as the loads have been pretty impressive – 90% or a bit above in each of the first full three months of the route (Aug, Sept and Oct).

MRS and RJK will not commence until the end of May (both 3 x weekly as last summer).

MAH will return for its usual short midsummer season in mid July (again 3 x weekly).

It’s good to see the return of VLC and PSA (both dropped for the winter) and they will go daily, although PSA will be 6 x weekly until the end of May.

No return for HAM (probably not a surprise) nor BUD (which is a surprise to me).

All other routes and frequencies are the same as last summer as far as I can see.

It looks as though the fact that several routes/increased frequencies don’t commence until the end of May means that’s when the tenth A319 will arrive.

[Bristol_Traveller]

I find it quite interesting that Easyjet haven't covered any of the BACon routes; CDG twice daily would seem understandable if AMS can also justify a twice daily. And virtually no excursions into Germany - what of DUS, MUC, FRA? I would have expected a loco like Easyjet to go in for the kill if they thought the competition was weakened?

Maybe they're expecting Flybe to take up all the existing BACon routes? Maybe they're expecting them to get split up between other operators? Maybe they looked at BACon's loadings, and decided it wasn't good business? (Although I remain shocked that Bordeaux can justify a daily visit by an Airbus, but BACon can't fill an Emby to Munich).

[Standard Noise]

Or maybe they're just biding their time and waiting for the right moment to swoop.;)

[MerchantVenturer]

A further press release was issued by Flybe today in which they outlined the UK bases that will see expansion next year.

BRS was again conspicuous by its absence (I realise it is not currently a Flybe base but is if BACon is taken into account).

A number of new routes were announced alongside the press release including three new ones from EXT (Rennes, Avignon and Nice, although none will operate more than 3 x weekly) so, as expected, Flybe appears to have overcome its lack of enthusiasm for the preferred bidder of that airport.

Presumably Flybe thinks it can mop up BRS catchment customers through its routes from EXT, SOU and BHX, and there is even a suggestion on one board that CWL might be included.

This seems like a high risk strategy as the BRS catchment is significant (with a high ratio of business pax) and Flybe may find itself losing customers to other airlines that will almost certainly fill some of the gaps.

We should know whether BRS is to feature anywhere apart from Jersey when the final routes for summer 07 are announced early next year, but at this stage it looks highly unlikely that it will.

[fyrefli]

The easyJet summer 07 flights for BRS have been released this afternoon.
Changes from last summer are that AMS will be double daily (as this winter)

Hurrah! That's worth about 12 working days a year to me - not to be sniffed at.

Cheers,

Rich.

[OltonPete]

Hi MV

High Risk or self preservation?

It can't be a co-incidence that Easy & Ryanair have bases at BRS, EMA, Liverpool, Stansted & Luton and Flybe don't!

They may feel confident to take on the likes of Baby, Jet2 etc but in
the main they don't go too close to Ryanair or Easy.

Having said that they would have Milan, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf
(Zurich excluded) to themselves and should be able to make them work.

Perhaps not so Glasgow, EDI and to a lesser extent Paris.

I can't see Bristol going too long without some of these routes and as
mentioned on other threads Easy have about 6 craft unallocated.

I still reckon FR will be looking closely at Bristol (for Hahn, Bergamo etc)

Not even BHX is free from the flybe axe with AGP, ALC, MJV, FAO
and PGF chopped from last summer unless they are released later.

Interesting days ahead for most airports.

Pete

[MerchantVenturer]

Pete

I know we speculate from the point of view of passengers and enthusiasts, but I keep coming back to the people whose jobs are on the line and all the uncertainty must be soul destroying for them.

easyJet have certainly built up an impressive base at BRS but there are those who muse that this might be because there is no other competition there from one of the bigger players such as FR or Jet2 (wouldn't expect baby because they are just across the river).

In other words, easy may not be too keen to share its nest with a rival it might be wary of. There is some evidence to support this theory in such places as NCL and LPL where easy expansion has been fairly limited once the likes of FR and LS set up home at those airports alongside the Orange company.

Flybe is of course a different sort of low cost airline in that it uses smaller aircraft than the traditional model.

BRS will have three FR routes come February (Dublin, Gerona and Shannon) and it may be that any additions from Ryanair will operate in this way, ie by aircraft from other bases.

I think a lot of people's preferred choice to replace some of the German routes (assuming Flybe walk away from BACon's routes) would be LH (some would prefer this to BE fullstop), but that might be hoping for too much. Who knows?

These are interesting days but perhaps only those of us not involved at the coal face are able to view them with equanimity.

[en2r]

Aer Arann have announced a Bristol-Nantes service from 19th May, operating on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The flights will be operated by a Cork based aircraft on a W pattern.

[OltonPete]

MV

Agreed, I have a distant family member who was until recently employed at BA mainline (office) at BHX (still mainline but elsewhere) and I am sure that she and those who remain would not not use the word "interesting" to describe the current situation and it was certainly not my intention to trivialise the matter.

It does seem that the situation at BHX is bleak for some as flybe is
handled by Swissport, which could leave a lot on the BA BHX ground
handling out in the cold. As for Bristol I understand the situation
is not much (if at all) better and like most I hope if flybe does not take on the flights somebody else does and quickly.

Pete

[WATABENCH]

On the EXT thread it is mentioned someone believes that EZY have been measuring up check-in space down there!
Is it me or does everyone else thing this bloke has completely lost the plot? :}

[crackling jet]

I to agree with this as loads on most routes were generaly good (although I dont know about yeild). Airlines to are increasing their own routes too-

FCA to CFU instead of using XL as in this year
The supposed TOM 'MAJOR MAJOR' expansion
Various othersAs for the lack of commitment theyve just not enough planes in the fleet.:ok:

I missed this one, so what is the major major THom expansion, i see the possible Luxor route next winter, any one got any new info this or other rumuored Thom expansion