BRISTOL - 4

[bravoromeosierra]

It's good to hear BRS is doing so well. They seem to be making the most of what the airport is capable of.

On the subject of BMI, my flight back from ABZ the other night was almost completely full. Overheard someone say they paid over £250 for a one way! Perhaps they're picking up the Eastern Airways slack; although I don't think there was too much when they left the route anyway.

Any news on the hotel? I know it hasn't really progressed but any news on the brand/chain?

[MerchantVenturer]

There was no news of the hotel in the minutes of the consultative committee meeting held on 1 May this year.

As far back as 2009 it was reported in the local press that Pedersons Hotels had been chosen to select an internationally recognised brand to run the hotel which at that time was expected to be completed by last winter.

June seems to have been a productive month for a number of airports around the country. In Bristol's case the record June was achieved despite 22 rotations (12 easyJet, eight Ryanair and two Air France) being cancelled on 11 and 12 June because of French ATC industrial action.

[MerchantVenturer]

A report today in a Gibraltar newspaper - see below link - suggests that Gibraltar's Minister for Tourism, Commercial Affairs, Public Transport and The Port (now that is a title) is in discussions about possible flights from Bristol and a Scottish airport (not named) to the Rock.

Life is sweeter without jams | The Times (http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/gibraltar/article3814965.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2013_07_12)

[Bristol_Traveller]

We can compare runway lengths with them... :O

[Bristol_Traveller]

bmi regional have just opened up bookings for 01JAN-29MAR.

Just looking at departures ex-BRS in w/c 13JAN:

ABZ - on Monday (day 1) only the morning rotation operates, on Friday and Sunday (57) only the afternoon rotation operates. Tue-Thu (234) operates with both rotations as usual.
FRA - as ABZ
HAM - as ABZ
HAJ - not operating on Tuesdays or Saturdays (day x26)
MXP - as HAJ
MUC - as HAJ

So, at first look, and without having checked any other dates, it looks like the routes are being thinned slightly, with all three aircraft only doing two rotations on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays. Saturday remains without any flights.

Hopefully that's just a winter thing.

[MerchantVenturer]

bmi regional

The Hannover appears to have been reduced from 6 to 5 x weekly (no Tuesday as well as the original no Saturday) from today through August but seems to be back to 6 x weekly in September. For some reason the Milan didn't operate today either (wasn't shown on the BRS boards anyway) but the booking engine shows it remaining at 6 x weekly (no Sats still).

CAA stats show an improving situation over May with bmi regional's loads from/to BRS in June, viz:

Aberdeen average load 31.3 load factor 63.9% (ER4)
Frankfurt 23.9 48.8% (ER4)
Hamburg 20.4 55.1% (ER3)
Munich 24.8 50.6% (ER4)
Hannover 17.2 46.5% (ER3)
Milan Malpensa 25.6 52.2% (ER4)

I've taken it that all timetabled rotations operated except in the case of FRA, HAM and HAJ when I know that at least one rotation to each was cancelled in the month - believed for operational reasons.

Addendum

I've noticed that I mis-read the CAA stats on which I based the MXP figures.

In June 1281 people travelled between BRS and MXP but 144 were charter passengers meaning the bmi regional figures for the MXP route should have been:

Average load 22.7, load factor 46.4%.

BRS June 2013

CAA stats show that 632,704 passengers passed through the BRS terminal in the month, up 3.8 % on June 2012 (an increase of over 23,000 passengers). The rolling 12-month figure was 5,990,723, up 2.7% on a year ago.

June's figure is an increase of over 17,000 on the previous best June which was in 2008.

[Pandy]

Noticed ZUR is also significantly increased at 1394, what does that do to the load factor?

[MerchantVenturer]

The average load on BRS-ZRH in June was 41. I don't know whether the Helvetic F100s are 100-seaters or 85-seaters to allow for the Viva! business class option.

The average loads have been noticeably higher each month this year (compared with the corresponding months last year) although still seem in need of improvement. Connectivity at ZRH would be an obvious boost as it would with some of the bmi regional routes to Germany.

I don't think that Helvetic has released any winter timetable details yet. Hopefully, the BRS has done enough to be retained but I would never bet on anything aviation-related.

Some of the Flyers have carried/are carrying Helvetic adverts and I noticed at least one First bus in the city carrying one too.

[OltonPete]

Hi MV

Incident: Helvetic F100 near Zurich on Jul 15th 2013, smoking oven (http://avherald.com/h?article=46565203&opt=0)

I know it is July and you would expect loads to be quite good but this would have been decent if of course the pax had made it direct to Bristol.

As for business seats , I must admit when I post the BHX loads I always use 100 seats for the F100 although I know that is probably not 100% accurate.

Pete

[Morrihell]

The pax did make it to Bristol, on a different aircraft, with a different callsign, saw it landing, saw it leaving!

MH.

[Pandy]

Saw this article on the Flight Global link below - is it something to do with Customs / Immigration now being available on the 'other side' of the field?


Bristol airport sets sights on becoming major UK business aviation hub (http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/bristol-airport-sets-sights-on-becoming-major-uk-business-aviation-hub-388684/)

[MerchantVenturer]

The BFC complex on the south side of the airfield is effectively a second terminal that's used by air taxis, bizjets and the like as well as aviation industry shuttles for Airbus (Toulouse and Hawarden which alone sees around 2,500-3,000 passengers per month) and BAE (Walney Island), with a stated intention of building their business to cater for a much larger number of business flights.

It seems that passengers for larger aircraft will no longer have to use the BRS main terminal now that the BFC complex with its two passenger lounges has been given the clearance described in Pandy's linked report.

I note that BRS has featured prominently in recent discussion in the BHX thread, with particular reference to long haul and airport profitability. Perhaps this post in the BHX thread might find a more appropriate home in the BRS thread.

I will reopen that old chestnut about Lusgate (BRS) being built out of an old farm with little hope of runway expansion and suggest CWL has a better chance of longhaul operations in the future.

If Filton were to remain an option then I'm sure it would have been a good second London airport with all the motorway and rail connections. However the council have chosen otherwise so poor passengers have to navigate in and out of the city centre on the A38 with very little in way of transportation apart from an odd bus connection.

The Filton issue is certainly arguable and it's been discussed at length in this thread in the past. Briefly, the city council opted to move to Lulsgate in 1957 when they closed Whitchurch Arport because it was too small to develop (a familiar theme?) and bought the former wartime RAF Lulsgate Bottom site next to the A38 which was then the main artery from the North and Midlands to the South West.

Rumour (myth?) has it that they could have relocated to Filton at that time as tenants of the then Bristol Aeroplane Company but chose Lulsgate as they would be the owner/occupiers. In the 1990s BAE, by then the Filton owners, tried to turn Filton into a city airport but, following a public enquiry, the application was rejected by the secretary of state.

The Filton runway was closed at the end of last year by BAE as not being viable (although the various aviation-related industries in and around the site that employ many thousands remain) and isn't going to be reopened despite it turning a profit £1.6 million in 2012.

"Unviable" Filton Airfield made £1.6m before closure | Bristol Post (http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Unviable-Filton-Airfield-1-6m-closure/story-19590982-detail/story.html)

I think the suggestion that BRS has 'the odd bus connection' slightly underplays the reality.

The Flyer bus (operated for the airport by First Bristol) runs throughout each 24-hour period with 10-minute frequency in both directions from early morning to mid evening, thereafter slightly less frequently and roughly hourly through the night. It carries about 10% of BRS's near 6 mppa and has through ticketing with rail, National Express and local buses. In additon there is a coach from Swansea, Cardiff and Newport that runs hourly at times (two-hourly at other times) for about 20 hours a day with an hourly double-decker bus from Bath again for about 20 hours each day.

It's true there is 'an odd bus' that runs at two-hourly intervals during the day between Weston-super-Mare and Bristol via numerous villages and the airport but it sees relatively little airport traffic.

Moves are afoot to improve road access around south-west Bristol to/from the airport.

Transport scheme will improve Airport journey ? Bristol Airport (http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/media-centre/news-releases/2013/07/south-bristol-link.aspx)

As to how the airport reports its profits (also discussed in the BHX thread) I'll leave that to those who have the details. I haven't.

[fa2fi]

Just out of interest. Do airline staff get to use the Flyer bus at a reduced fare?

[Fairdealfrank]

Quote: "If Filton were to remain an option then I'm sure it would have been a good second London airport with all the motorway and rail connections."


Only in "FR world".

[Pandy]

Quote: "If Filton were to remain an option then I'm sure it would have been a good second London airport with all the motorway and rail connections."


Only in "FR world".


If I ruled the world I'd put a new London airport (FR or no FR) at Lyneham, plenty of space, M4 about a bit over a mile away and GWR even closer. Don't know about the WX though.

Suppose it'd severely dent BRS traffic

[mustrum_ridcully]

Hullavington is another option - it's right next to M4 J17 (Lyneham would need major road improvements) and right next to the main railway line.

[Fairdealfrank]

Quote: "If I ruled the world I'd put a new London airport (FR or no FR) at Lyneham, plenty of space, M4 about a bit over a mile away and GWR even closer. Don't know about the WX though."


Quote: "Hullavington is another option - it's right next to M4 J17 (Lyneham would need major road improvements) and right next to the main railway line."

Although on the right side of London, both are way too far out!

[bravoromeosierra]

Just out of interest. Do airline staff get to use the Flyer bus at a reduced fare?

Yes. £1.00 each way with a BRS security pass.

[yeo valley]

my son worked at airport a few years back. we lived in weston then. he used airport taxis and staff were charged 50 pence per journey then. no dout it is gone up a bit since then.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Crikey. Was that 50 new pence, or 50d? :eek:

[yeo valley]

hi bt. it was 50 new pence then. it was about 11 or 12 years ago.

[bravoromeosierra]

Looks like CityJet will operate the once daily CDG from the end of October.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Bets on when AF to CDG will end.

Once a day to CDG is no use for connecting, and it looks like KL/AF have chosen Schiphol over Charles de Gaulle as their hub (thank heavens). EZY will knock socks off AF on flights to CDG, particularly as KL/AF cling to their ridiculous 'two nights stay' rule on short-haul discount economy fares.

[marko1]

Easyjet unfortunately doesnt appear to be flying daily itself during parts of this winter. Maybe its time for another operator such as bmi regional to have a go

[Bristol_Traveller]

I'm not sure CDG is a good destination for bmi. They need to tie into delivering passengers to hubs, and I doubt that KL/AF would agree to them codesharing into CDG when they're trying to route traffic through AMS.

That said, it seems LH aren't exactly being constructive in enabling transit on the existing BM routes to FRA/MUC. Given that they pulled the rug out from under us at very short notice in March 2009, I would have hoped they could have moved a bit quicker. Maybe their turmoil over SCORE and the 4U integration isn't helping.

[Nakata77]

What is BRS catchment area for 30mins, 60 mins, 90mins?

[MerchantVenturer]

The airport (in its master plan) puts 1.2 million people within a one-hour drive of BRS. This is effectively the population of the former county of Avon, sometimes known as Greater Bristol or the West Country, albeit the latter term is generally accepted to stretch a bit beyond the old Avon area.

I know of no 30-minute drive-time stats although a substantial proportion of the 1.2 million will fall into this category, even taking into account the city of Bristol's usually congested traffic conditions and the less than ideal road links to the airport.

Over the past decade a consistent pattern has emerged that around 45-50% of BRS's annual passenger numbers begin or terminate their journey in the former Avon area.

The two-hour drive time is reckoned to be within the range of over 7 million people as it extends into much of South and West Wales as well as the entire South West England, although two hours to West Cornwall might be considered theoretical rather than practical - perhaps at 2 am if a generous interpretation of speed limits is factored in.

[Nakata77]

MV, thank you.

Considering their annual pax throughput (not to mention forecasts to 10mppa), I feel that their catchment area must be firmly in the two hour range.

[MerchantVenturer]

CAA stats for July show that 678,831 passengers passed through the terminal, up 3.6% on July 2012. This is the best ever July beating last year (the previous best July) by 23,000 passengers.

The rolling 12-month total stands at 6,013,520 which is up 2.6% on a year ago and is the first time the 6 million barrier has been breached since 2009 when annual passenger figures fell by around 10% to 5.615 million, the first annual drop since 1996 and only the fourth since 1974, such has been the consistency of growth.

The calendar year to date is up 2.94% to 3.48 million on the same period in 2012 suggesting that 2013 will be the fourth successive year of growth since the fall in 2009.

The bmi regional routes with one exception (Hamburg) have continued to grow, viz:

Aberdeen (E145) 3192 passengers, load factor 65.1%
Frankfurt (E145) 2662, 54.3%
Hamburg (E135) 1845, 49.7%
Hannover (E135) 986, 55.4%
Munich (E145) 1560, 59%
Milan Malp (E145) 1463, 55.3%
(Based on all advertised rotations operating)

Infrastructure Expansion

The design engineering company that was appointed 18 months ago to prepare for the first part of the terminal building extension (the western end) has recently taken space on a large advertising hoarding along the approach road to the airport with a striking picture of the expanded airport apparently taken from the digital images prepared for the airport some time ago. The banner to the advertisement talks about being proud to be involved with the airport's 'prestigious' development.

With passenger figures continuing to rise and the airport's past statements that the expansion would go ahead incrementally as traffic built up, it might be that the time is approaching when some announcements will be made. The same applies with the proposed central walkway plans which the airport CEO said were 'progressing' when he spoke at the recent airport consultative committee meeting.

[Bristol_Traveller]

On the BM load factors, there's the ever present asterisk of "good load factors can disguise awful yields".

I think that might partly explain HAM's apparent plateau. I rather suspect that route's demand is somewhat more intrinsically inelastic than the others, so yield is easy to obtain despite lower load factors. It certainly appears to be the case looking at lowest available fares on that route across a selection of dates.

FRA and MUC are the ones that need volume, IMHO. They either need to be cost-effective feed-throughs into the broader LH/*A network, or protect themselves against EZY (or even worse, FR) jumping in where they sniff an opportunity.

I met someone recently who had a choice between FR and BM from MIL. They took the time to compare cost and benefits, and plumped for BM from MXP, and were very impressed. Let's hope more people are getting similarly cannier about their flight purchasing.

[MerchantVenturer]

There are nine trip reports for bmi regional across its network this year on a well-known trip report website with eight of them giving marks of 10 out of 10 and the ninth 9 out of 10, which is quite an accolade. A recurrent theme is the excellence of the onboard service.

You are right of course to mention the absolute importance of the yield. Nevertheless, the fact that passenger numbers continue to build is an encouraging sign.

Helvetic too had its best BRS month in July on the ZRH service with 1944 passengers giving an average load of 54. This was up 97% on July 2012 although this summer there are four weekly rotations compared with three last summer.

I've noticed a lot of advertising recently for Helvetic on some Airport Flyer buses, some airport car park buses and on some First city buses around Bristol. bmi regional has enjoyed similar publicity with some Bristol taxis bearing prominent bmi regional adverts too, not to mention a big banner on the second roundabout along the airport approach road.

The Flybe-operated Brussels Airlines BRS-BRU is also having a better year than in 2012 with passenger numbers up around 18% in the first seven months of 2013 compared with the same period last year. I wonder how many of these transfer to the SN network at BRU.

[Pandy]

Looking at these stats they show CWL & LPL as 'scheduled' services with small loads (202 & 136 respectively) which is presumably a mistake?

Whilst Harwarden (which might be described as a scheduled service) is described as a charter?

[MerchantVenturer]

Since the Airbus Corporate Shuttle operated by bmi regional to Hawarden and Toulouse was transferred from Filton to BRS at the beginning of this year the passengers have been shown under the charter column in the monthly CAA stats tables. Thus in July BRS-Hawarden saw 763 passengers and BRS-Toulouse 2304. In addition 8962 Toulouse passengers were shown in the scheduled column, being easyJet passengers.

I have no idea what the explanation is for the CWL and LPL 'scheduled' passengers into or out of BRS in July. I thought of diversions but that would seem to make little sense in the way the figures are presented.

Maybe it's an error as you suggest. They are provisional so might be corrected later.

The CAA stats are not infallible and in fact carry a 'warning notice' broadly to this effect on the CAA website.

For example, in 2012 no passengers were shown on the BRS-Guernsey route under Domestic Routes Analysis in the majority of months even though Aurigny operated throughout the year, and the annual total is still shown as 6833 which is manifestly incorrect. There were 27,000 in 2009, 24,000 in both 2010 and 2011, and 2013 is on course for around 24,000.

The mistake is perpetuated in this year's stats where, for example, the July 2012 total for BRS-GCI is still shown as blank in the comparison (with 2013) column.

In the grand scheme of things I suppose there are more important matters for airports to concern themselves with.

Incidentally, last week the July passenger figures for BHX were published by the CAA showing a double digit percentage monthly drop in passenger numbers which apparently is substantially incorrect. The figures have now been removed from the CAA website presumably to be corrected before republication.

[MerchantVenturer]

From 1 September the Flyer will operate at an eight-minute frequency in both directions at peak periods. Currently it operates at a 10-minute frequency at peak periods (roughly 0600-1900) and at lesser frequency during the later evening and through the night.

The route is also to be altered.

There will no longer be two routes (A1 and A2) but the new single route will call at Temple Meads from the airport and travel along the existing A1 route (Temple Way and Bond Street) to the country bus and coach station before continuing back to Temple Meads (and then back to the airport) via The Centre and Victoria Street.

This means that the Harbourside and the edge of Clifton around the Triangle will no longer be served.

Whilst at the airport recently I was impressed with the relatively new real-time digital bus departure display outside the terminal that includes the Flyer, the A4 service to Bath, the Greyhound 100 service to South Wales and the 121 local bus to Bristol bus station and Weston-super-Mare.

[bobsyerunlce]

If there are any KLM flyers from BRS here could you answer me a couple of questions please?
I will be flying to Stuttgart via AMS on a Friday soon leaving BRS at 6:15. I have 30 mins to connect to the Stuttgart flight.
1. Do all KLM flights arrive and depart from the same terminal?
2. Are connections fairly easy at AMS
3. And what is the punctuality like on the 6:15 from BRS. I often see it departing late giving me even less time to catch my connection!

Thanks

[bravoromeosierra]

Doesn't seem very achievable! You need to arrive, take the bus transfer from the aircraft.. pass through security and pass through immigration into the schengen area. Then it's potentially another bus ride to the aircraft.

[GAXLN]

30 minutes will be under the minimum connecting time so I fear you have a problem. Anything less than 45 minutes is probably not achievable.

[virginblue]

The nasty thing is that the BRS plane and the STR plane could be parked next to each other on the commuter ramp - but before you get on the STR plane,you will have to master a mini-odyssey: You will first be bussed to the non-Schengen terminal, have to pass customs and security and walk all the way back you have just been bussed to get to the gate adjacent to the commuter ramp. From there, it will be most likely a bus transfer again to the plane, give the limited number of gate positions.

The good news is that there is a special queue for passengers on a short connection, so you should be able to clear customs and security fairly quickly.

[cornishsimon]

bobsyerunlce

Are you booked on one ticket or two seperate tickets ?


cs

[tpm]

I've done the same trip before, and it wasn't a problem. Punctuality of the KLM early morning flight is generally quite good in my experience (unless there's severe weather or fog in the Amsterdam area, but then everything else tends to be delayed as well).

I believe that the flight time is considerably shorter than the 90 minutes scheduled, so there's some extra time baked into the schedule for late departure, taxiing from one of the remote runways to the terminal, or bussing people to the terminal. There's only one terminal complex, but you'll probably have to get from the non-Schengen part to the Schengen part, so go through passport control and security. This is usually quite fast, and there are extra lanes for short connections. 15 minutes from bus drop off to departure gate is quite doable I think.

I don't think they'd offer you the connection if it wasn't possible to make it. But there's not a lot of slack of course. But then what's the alternative? You could take the early morning flight to Frankfurt and drive down to Stuttgart, which might get you there not that much later, depending on traffic.

[bobsyerunlce]

I don't know CS. I just booked it on the KLM website. What's the difference?

There seems to be some difference of opinion which worries and heartens me at the same time. It seems I may be in a spot if bother if the plane leaves BRS late. I know there is a flight later in the afternoon to Stuttgart and there are worse places to kill 7 hours but I'd rather not miss the connection!

[virginblue]

If you are travelling on a friday, there should also be a 1225 departure to Stuttgart. So if you are missng the flight because of a delay, it will be 3 hours max.

You should not worry too much. If the flight arrives at 0925 sharp, it might be a problem (but still doable if you really hurry up and do some really fast walking once off the bus). But flight time usually is, IIRC, less than an hour, so there is a buffer built into the schedule. I would not count on arriving with your bags, though, if you check them in. KLM has lost my bags quite a few times at AMS on short connections (they all showed up a day or two later, though).

[bobsyerunlce]

I will be on my own and will only have carry on luggage. I can run fast if I need to.
Are KLM good at booking you on the next flight with no fuss?

[cornishsimon]

If booked on one ticket you will be fine, if you miss the connection they will rebook you on the next available.

Of booked as two different tickets they would not be obligated to rebook you.

Equally if on one ticket and its been sold to you it must be a legal connection.


cs

[Bristol_Traveller]

Last time I flew BRS-AMS-STR, it was the same aircraft and crew on both sectors. We had to be bussed into D, do passport control, do security, hammer over to B (or A?), and get bussed back out again. I remember commenting breathlessly to my equally breathless colleague that it had taken us 40 minutes to get back to the exact same seats.

I think the MCTs at AMS are very optimistic, particularly as they land (sterile) UK arrivals into the (non-sterile) Non-Schengen zone, which forces a wholly unnecessary security check when transferring to Schengen zone countries. ZRH and MUC are examples of airports where this doesn't happen, so 30 minute MCTs are more realistic.

[Bristol_Traveller]

I finally got the chance to use bmi for a long haul trip.

I managed to get a single LH ticket that will get me from Bristol to Brisbane, using bmi to get me to and from Frankfurt, Lufthansa between Frankfurt and Bangkok, and Thai from Bangkok to Brisbane. It wasn't the cheapest flight to Oz I've ever booked, but I'm so glad not to be starting or ending in London.

I'm planning to check-in a little bit earlier than usual, just in case the cleverness of using an LH ticket on BM doesn't work as planned. If it does, then I lines I'll just spend a bit longer in the lounge. :O

[MerchantVenturer]

Let us know how you get on B_T. I'm intrigued as to how you managed to get such a ticket.

When I saw the heading to your post I had a vision of you flying all the way to Oz in an ERJ.

Coming a bit closer to home than the Antipodes, the airport management has been targeting Devon and Cornwall this week in a drive to increase passenger numbers from those counties still further, having seen substantial growth in recent years with nearly one million journeys through BRS in 2012 commencing or terminating in these two far south-western counties.

It's very similar to the number of journeys through the airport commencing or terminating in South Wales last year - all CAA stats.

Bristol Airport aims high in Devon and Cornwall ? Bristol Airport (http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/media-centre/news-releases/2013/09/outer-catchment.aspx)

[MerchantVenturer]

August was the best ever month for passenger numbers at BRS with over 700,000 passing through the terminal in a calendar month for the first time.*

June, July and August together also represent the best ever main summer period.

Robert Sinclair, the airport CEO, sees consumer confidence returning and hopes the airport will achieve 7 mppa within the next two to three years. He's normally quite conservative with these sort of public pronouncements so he presumably believes there is a realistic chance of another million passengers a year within this timescale.

No doubt he's factored in the likely loss of some 'Welsh' passengers if CWL (as seems likely) begins to get its act together, and there's always a chance of some further unpleasant shocks within the economy going forward.

Rolling 12-month total at the end of July was 6,013,520 which is 2.6% up on the same period a year ago (CAA stats). 2013 would be the second ever calendar year when 6 mppa was surpassed (2008 being the other).

This suggests the need for terminal expansion is becoming ever more pressing.

* BRS collects its passenger data differently from the CAA, the main difference being that BRS does not include under 2s according to an email I received from the airport recently. Consequently the BRS monthly and annual figures are invariably slightly lower than the CAA's and in CAA terms 700,000 was also exceeded in August 2008.

Bristol Airport enjoys best ever month ? Bristol Airport (http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/media-centre/news-releases/2013/09/busiest-month.aspx)

[Pandy]

MV - the CAA Aug Stats are now on the CAA website! are you going to perform you're usual magic with them on the BM routes?

[MerchantVenturer]

The below are August's figures, Pandy, assuming all advertised flights operated. Incidentally, this post has been copied from another website but I was responsible for the original, although not as MV. All stats courtesy of the CAA.

August 2013

Aberdeen (E145) 2907 passengers, average load 30.6, load factor 62.4%
Frankfurt (E145) 2232, 23.5, 48%
Hamburg (E135) 1677, 17.6, 47.5%
Hannover (E135) 1004, 22.8, 61.6%
Munich (E145) 1471, 28.3, 57.7%
Milan Malpensa (E145), 1319, 25.4, 51.8%

Apart from Hannover, which was reduced from 6 x weekly to 5 x weekly for August, all load factors are slightly down on July.

The full bmi regional programme from BRS has now reported the first four month's passenger figures, albeit May was only a part month for some of the routes.

These are the load factors (%) for the six routes beginning with May and ending with August in each case.

Aberdeen 62.2, 63.9, 65.1, 62.4
Frankfurt 39.2, 48.8, 54.3, 48
Hamburg 39.7, 55.1, 49.7, 47.5
Hannover 36.4, 46.5, 55.4, 61.6
Munich 45.9, 50.6, 59, 57.7
Milan Malpensa 40.4, 52.2, 55.3, 51.8

So after May they all seem to be settling down in the 45%-65% range. Not brilliant by any means but as always the yields will be the deciding factor.

Thomson long haul

There are some posts in the Cardiff thread that touch on BRS Thomson long haul where both routes (Sanford and Cancun) are to be discontinued from next summer.

The hard landing of a TOM B 767 in the autumn of 2010 and the subsequent AAIB report (published last year) that drew attention to the number of 767 hard landings on runway 09 at BRS have been highlighted again in the CWL thread.

TOM continued to operate the 767 into BRS for three summers after the 2010 incident so it might be thought the subsequent cessation of long haul is more commercially motivated than operational.

In the summer of 2010 the Thomson MD Chris Browne said that BRS would be amongst the first airports to see the B 787 in service when the type made its first appearance in the UK at Farnborough. That didn't happen and any hopes that the 787 would be taking on the Florida and Mexico routes from the 767 next summer have been dashed, with the 767 no longer 'keeping the routes warm' for the Dreamliner in the future.

Whether the company now has concerns about the 787 and the BRS runway or whether they have decided simply that a market does not exist for long haul charter from the West Country is something that Thomson may not say publicly.

It's probably fair to suggest that the airport and those who use the airport will be hoping that the decision was a commercial one in respect of these particular routes rather than a question mark over the 787 using BRS at all in the future - by any airline.

[Pandy]

Thanks MV, assume its fair to say that these routes are more business orientated and August aint a great month for business!

[Bristol_Traveller]

FRA needs interlining traffic.

As when BACon operated the routes, FRA as a point destination doesn't generate enough traffic. I'm told BM are working on codeshares with LH, which hopefully would bring the volume up.

The prevailing assumption that interlined/codeshared traffic isn't good yield isn't necessarily true. I just booked BRS-FRA-BKK-BNE, and from the way the fare is constructed, it looks like BM is getting the BRS-FRA fare as if I'd bought it from them directly. (aka, on my travel dates, about £250).

I hope Helvetic will sort out codeshares with LX for the ZRH route.

[MerchantVenturer]

The bmi regional marketing director gave a press interview recently where the proposed rebranding to bmi next year was given prominence. Of perhaps greater interest to airports such as Bristol was this quote: We're also looking to work closer with some of the big European carriers and may look to feed some of the European carrier networks.

Doesn't specify exactly what is in mind though.

TravelMole - News (http://www.travelmole.com/news_preview.php?news_id=2008214&adm=y&mpnlog=1&live=N)

As for Helvetic, a look at the airline's website shows no booking availability on any of its routes after the end of October (ie the routes it operates itself not those its aircraft operate on behalf of Swiss).

The BRS website carries prominent advertisements for Helvetic to Zurich this winter but there are no days or times of operation shown - the BRS website seems to be displaying last winter's Helvetic schedule.

A poster on another aviation website emailed Helvetic about three weeks ago asking about BRS winter flights and received the reply that the airline was still working on its winter schedule that should be ready within two weeks. A week beyond those two weeks and there is still nothing shown on the Helvetic website.

[BleadonHell]

I asked the question to Helvetic about the winter timetable as I need to book a couple of trips. If they are going to interline with anyone apart from the SBB to the city centre, they certainly need to get to Zurich a lot earlier than 22.15 on Wednesday and Friday per their current summer schedule.

BH

>>Thanks a lot for your email and your interest in Helvetic Airways.
We are still working on our Winter Schedule, which should be ready by the end of September. Once the new schedule is ready, it will be published on our website. >>

Thanks a lot for your patience and understanding.

Kind Regards,

Guest Relations

Helvetic Airways AG
P.O. Box 250
CH-8058 Zurich Airport
p: +41 (0) 44 270 85 00
f: +41 (0) 44 270 85 01
e: [email protected]

Helvetic Airways (http://www.helvetic.com)

[MerchantVenturer]

Now on sale from 13 December (meaning no flights in November or the first part of December) but just 2 x weekly (last winter 3 x weekly) on Fridays and Sundays until the end of March when the winter timetable finishes.

[Hank Birofski]

Bristol – Marrakech &
Bristol – Reykjavik now viewable on the iPad 'Inspire Me' app... announcement shortly?

[stalling attitude]

both new routes announced this morning starting December

[bobsyerunlce]

Thursdays and Sundays to KEF ON Easyjet. I found flights in Jan and Feb for under £100. Perfect.
I hope that route does well. It's an amazing place and with those days and prices, it should do.

[MerchantVenturer]

This would be the first regular route to Iceland from BRS, scheduled or charter. Like Marrakech, I suspect it will be predominantly leisure traffic and Iceland has the reputation of being a relatively expensive tourist destination. The demographics of the BRS catchment may have encouraged the airline to start this route.

Marrakech was operated year-round by Ryanair between 2009 and 2011 with decent loads for the most part although in the end that airline presumably decided the yield did not justify a continuation. Thomson is also advertising a new Marrakech summer service in 2014.

[Bristol_Traveller]

I've just hit my first bump in my plan to use bmi to get from Bristol to Brisbane. bmi tell me they aren't interlining bags with any other airline, so I'm going to have to go airside at FRA, pick up my bags, and check them back in again.

It's a good thing I've got 3 hours layover in FRA in both directions. :hmm:

[MerchantVenturer]

Two in and one out it would seem today.

The easyJet Reykjavik (Keflavik) and Marrakech against the apparent axing of the bmi regional to Hannover this winter (seems no longer bookable after early November). Hannover was the surprise one when the routes were announced despite it being one of Bristol's twin cities.

Let's hope that's the only glitch in your BRS-BNE adventure, B_T.

[bravoromeosierra]

I do wonder if bmi are ever actually going to implement their online MMB & check-in.

Seems like the should have done by now!

[2J&D]

B_T i am interested to know where you booked your ticket? There has never been an interlining agreement with an airline and BMI Regional and so it would be interesting who might have sold you the ticket without telling you this. I know it is something they are working towards but as you say you will have to collect baggage etc which isn't the best situation!

[Morrihell]

Surprised whilst on holiday in Languedoc last month, to see that the town of Clermont-l'Herault is twinned with no less than Patchway!

Keflavik, that's an interesting one, Copenhagen's still flying 3 (?) per week, perhaps Keflavik will work?

MH.

[MerchantVenturer]

The airport has now confirmed that the next phase of the eventual £150 million development has commenced with the £6.5 million central walkway expected to be completed next summer.

It will include four new pre-boarding zones serving up to six departure gates with connection to the departure lounge featuring an escalator and six lifts.

The new facility will be able to accommodate the likes of the B 787 and A 350 and provision will be made for an airbridge in the future for the hoped-for long haul.

The central walkway is the latest development in the infrastructure expansion following the completion of the western walkway in 2010, and additional immigration and security areas and three new aircraft stands all opened last year.

Future developments include extensions to the terminal building, a public transport interchange, a multi-storey car park and an on-site hotel which will appear as passenger numbers increase.

This link accesses the airport's press release concerning this initiative and contains a video 'walk-through' of the planned central walkway.

Next phase of development begins at Bristol Airport ? Bristol Airport (http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/media-centre/news-releases/2013/10/central-walkway.aspx)

[globetrotter79]

So, I assume from having the current not-very-much view of the outside world from the dep lounge in future there will be zero view...

I suppose at least there will be some natural light etc - unlike the thoroughly depressing main dep lounge area in EXT!

[Bristol_Traveller]

@2J&D

The ticket was issued on LH (220) stock, using one of their published fares for BRS-BNE (-RCGB type fares). The routing rules include:

BRS-LH/BM-STR/NUE/MUC/HAM/HAJ/FRA/DUS-SN/OS/LH-ZRH/VIE/
MUC/FRA/DUS/BRU-SN/OS/LH-BKK-TG/LH-BNE

The problem was that LH re-issued the ticket (after TG cancelled the BKK-BNE sector, and I had to re-route BKK-SIN-BNE and onto SQ), and the re-issued ticket didn't make it to BM correctly.

BM have confirmed through check-in and interlining of the bags will be fine. So all good news in the end.

[LGS6753]

From Travel Mole:

Wales blocked from abolishing unpopular air tax (http://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?c=setreg&region=2&m_id=s~T_mdT_Y!&w_id=9473&news_id=2009116)

[Wycombe]

Travelmole says SAS will be operating BRS-ARN (Stockholm) twice weekly for a short season in S14:

New flight from Bristol to Stockholm (http://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?news_id=2009189&c=setreg&region=2)

[Bristol_Traveller]

Nice to see SK back again with their weekend excursions. I used it when it ran last time, and it was very handy. (I think I also got lounge access with my *G).

[bravoromeosierra]

Flights now on sale (they have been for a few days), using B737-800 equipment. What did they use on the routes before?

[yeo valley]

last time sas did this route, the plane used was a b737 600. hope that helps.

[Churchillian]

Nice flypast this morning by AIB101 "Airbus 101" A350 F-WZGG. The aircraft carried out a low approach at Cardiff before overflying the Airbus factory at Filton and then running through Bristol Airport East to West at around 300ft AAL. It continued its tour of Airbus sites, departing to Chester Hawarden.

[MerchantVenturer]

Aer Lingus Regional will restore the Bristol-Shannon link from 3 April next year. Flights will operate daily on an ATR 42 leaving SNN at 1010 and arriving BRS at 1140. The return will leave BRS at 1205, arriving back at SNN at 1335.

The airline previously operated this route but it ceased at the end of summer 2012. Between 2005 and 2010 BRS-SNN was operated by Ryanair.

[MerchantVenturer]

One in and two out today.

Flybe will axe BRS-JER from next month and the summer-only Isle of Man route will not now operate next year.

[AIRPORT66]

Since swissport took over the handling of easyjet how well are they performing are they good or crap.

[strawberry Ribena]

It's still menzies until 20th jan.

Servisair and easyJet to expand their Ground Handling partnership to include Ground Handling at Bristol Airport
Bristol Airport, UK - Servisair and easyJet are pleased to announce the signing of a long-term ground handling contract at Bristol Airport.

Under the agreement, Servisair will provide comprehensive ground handling services to easyJet including passenger and ramp handling.

“We are very pleased to add the Ground Handling at Bristol to our portfolio of stations with easyJet”, says Tommy Watt, COO Servisair UK. “We are delighted that easyJet has chosen Servisair as their handling partner for their busy operations at Bristol. Servisair will continue to work closely with easyJet in the delivery of quality services to their Customers.

The new partnership at Bristol will commence on the 21st January 2014.

[Hull City AFC]

Bristol have gained a rotation to/from Ibiza next Summer from Thomsons - using the aircraft availability from the dropped W service to/from MME.

Thursday
LBA - IBZ - 06:00 - 09:40 TOM3432
IBZ - BRS - 10:40 - 12:00 TOM6433
BRS - IBZ - 14:00 - 17:30 TOM6432
IBZ - LBA - 18:40 - 20:20 TOM3433

[MerchantVenturer]

Following Flybe's withdrawal from the BRS-JER route from next month, Blue Islands has announced a Saturday rotation commencing 29 March next year.

Currently Blue Islands operates BRS-JER with ATR 42s 2 x daily Mon-Fri and single daily on Sundays.

Blue Islands announce more Bristol flights - Business News | businesslife.co (http://www.businesslife.co/BusinessNews.aspx?id=blue-islands-announce-more-bristol-flights)

[ub2]

Ryanair back up to 4 based a/c as of end of march

[marko1]

Will we see any new routes from Ryanair as a result. A look at the schedule so far still showing a fair few w patterns. Also I thought Ryanair announced recently extra flights to Dublin next summer , they haven't appeared yet

[AirGuru]

TOM have seemingly dropped KVA and RAK for Summer 2014 from BRS.

[MerchantVenturer]

Is the increase in base size confirmed? That said, this year's reduction was never publicly announced by either airport or airline so far as I can determine.

Summer 2013 saw more FR flights overall each week when there were two based aircraft than summer 2012 did with five.

The fact that so many flights were operated by non-based aircraft also spread out the traffic flow a bit more - on Saturdays for example there were seven FR arrivals between 1940 and 2040 all of which then turned around and took passengers to the aircraft home bases at a time when little traffic from other carriers was in evidence.

At times last summer there were nearly 30 departures (all airlines that is) before 0900. I can't see this reducing next summer so the extra FR departures in the morning rush will add to the often congested departure areas. The central pier currently under construction with its new pre-boarding zones and new gates will certainly be needed.

With more based aircraft back at BRS there will be less need (in theory anyway) to restrict a lot of the route network to operations between other FR bases and BRS.

Thomson summer 2014

Not too much of a surprise if Marrakech has been dropped. Since TOM's original announcement easyJet decided to operate to RAK 2 x weekly.

Kavala, and the likes of Santorini and Volos, seem to feature occasionally with charter operators at the airport but have never really stuck at BRS. I don't know what size of aircraft TOM had in mind for the flight (it was 'to be announced' for a long while if my memory is to be relied on) but whatever it was presumably did not stack up with projected bookings.

[MerchantVenturer]

There is currently no booking availability for BRS-CDG on the Air France website for next summer.

The service is being operated this winter by a CityJet ARJ 85 which replaced the Air Hop! E190 of last summer.

No availability for CDG via Amsterdam using KLM/AF aircraft is shown either. Other KLM Cityhopper airports such as LBA and CWL do show availability to CDG via AMS next summer and I'm pretty sure BRS used to too, as well as the direct AF service.

At this stage the conclusion seems to be that the direct AF service is to be withdrawn. It's gradually been downgraded over recent years from 3 x daily Airlinair ATR 72s to ATR 42s, then to a 6 x weekly Air Hop! E190 this summer to a daily CityJet ARJ 85 currently.

[Morrihell]

It's been a Hop E190 at least twice this week (on the days I've seen it.)

MH

[Bristol_Traveller]

Withdrawal of the AF BRS-CDG route wouldn't surprise me greatly.

* For short-haul (CDG, and Europe), AF's fares ex-BRS are usually ~£100 more expensive than ex-LHR. EZY will be caning them to death on BRS-CDG, and they'll be shooting themselves in the feet on BRS-CDG-Europe Short-haul.
* For long haul, KL-AF are quite happy if you route via AMS instead. CDG is a lousy hub, and AMS keeps the money in the family.

EZY's interest in capturing the business flier is going to hurt all the 'traditional' airlines who provide connecting flights and interlining bags, and all the other things a *network* requires. Too substantial an EZY presence will diminish BRS's *network* connections, and we'll end up having reduced short-haul and long-haul journey options ex-BRS.

[MerchantVenturer]

It's quite a contrast between AMS and CDG, B_T.

Whereas easyJet operates daily for the most part to CDG with AF now just operating daily too with either a Hop! E190 or CityJet RJ85, KLM operates AMS at 3 x daily in winter and 4 x daily in summer with easyJet chipping in at 9/10 weekly. Furthermore, KLM will be all E190 from mid February and three out of the four summer rotations will also be on the Embraer with the F70 doing the fourth (summer this year was 2 E190s and 2 F70s).

I'm keeping an eye on the Brussels route. It's been rebuilding quite steadily since 2009 when 31,250 passengers were carried that year to a current position at 45,143 for the first eleven months of this year which is an increase of 16.4% on the same period last year.

However, a check with the summer 2014 timetable shows the aircraft type as Brussels Airlines ARJ 85. I thought they only had the ARJ 100s now which might be too big for the route. I read somewhere that the SN-liveried Flybe Dash 8 Q400s are being returned after the winter although I can't confirm this.

It would be a great shame if the SN route went the same way as the AF appears to be going and BRU is a route that I can't see easyJet being interested in.

easyJet has been the making of BRS in terms of routes and passenger numbers but it will be extremely disappointing if they see off some of the 'traditional' airlines, although business is business of course. There is talk of an easyJet Jersey route. It probably wouldn't be more than daily and not even that in winter but what would it do to Blue Islands with their 2 x daily schedule throughout the year?

BRS passenger figures up again in November (CAA stats), this time by 5.2%. The rolling 12-month total is 6,113,839 (up 3.3% on this time last year) and the summer has bettered the summer of the previous best calendar year in 2008 when the airport handled 6.228 million. The winter months in recent years have been less busy than 2007/2008, although this November's 364,000 was 9,000 more than November 2008 so perhaps subtle changes are afoot.

[bravoromeosierra]

Is there significant enough demand for easyJet to increase frequency to Paris in replacement? I notice that the route isn't even daily with easyJet in the winter schedule so maybe not..

[MerchantVenturer]

CDG seems to have been feast or near famine at BRS for a number of years.

Looking first at Air France, back in the early 90s Brit Air operated F 28s in competition with Brymon Dash 8-300s for year or two before leaving the field clear for Brymon by now operating with BA livery and call signs.

In the early 'noughties' Air France Regional returned with small ERJ jets at 3 x daily against BACx ERJs also 3 x daily. That lasted until 2004 when AF pulled out.

BACx later morphing into BACon increased to up to 5 x daily until the news broke that Flybe would be taking over BACon and that the BRS base would close with the loss of most of the routes, including CDG.

For a while it looked as though BRS would have no CDG route at all in summer 2007 until easyJet stepped in for the first time on the route with a daily flight. That winter Air France commenced a 3 x daily service with Airlinair ATR 42s, later upgraded to 72s, against easyJet with summer 2008 seeing easyJet timetabled at twice daily (although I'm not sure all the flights actually operated) and AF continuing at 3 x daily (fewer at weekends with both airlines).

Gradually easyJet reduced its rotations to daily and within a couple of years AF had downsized to ATR 42s again.

In recent mid-winters easyJet has operated less than daily (4 x weekly in January this winter for example) and of course AF reduced to 6 x weekly in the summer just passed and is now daily, albeit with 80-100 seat aircraft.

So the history of the route makes it difficult to even guess what might happen in the near future.

Aer Lingus Regional

CDG might be shrinking at BRS but Ireland is growing.

After the recent announcement of the re-commencement of BRS-SNN from next summer, the airline announced today that BRS-ORK would go from daily to double daily, again from next summer.

[MerchantVenturer]

The announcement that BRS-ORK would be double daily next summer isn't quite what it would appear. It's really continuing at single daily but with a second flight on Mondays and on Saturdays.

[marko1]

New flights next summer (july to sept) to enfidna with syphax airlines every saturday evening

[MerchantVenturer]

There will also be a Nouvelair flight (A320) to NBE on Wednesdays, apparently being used by Thomson but I don't know whether exclusively so.

Looking at the Thomson and Thomas Cook websites they will continue to operate this summer as in summer 2013 with TOM on Sundays (although this year I believe it will be a 'W' flight) and TCX 3 x weekly (Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays) in peak season.

With Nouvelair and Syphax this will give six weekly rotations in peak summer with TCX also upgraded from A320 to A321.

2014

Robert Sinclair, BRS CEO, has given an upbeat message for the New Year saying the airport expects 2014 to be the busiest year in the airport's history.

2008 holds that record with 6.229 mppa. 2013 is in second place with a final total expected to be above 6.1 mppa - the 12-month rolling total at the end of November was 6.113 million.

2013 will have seen nearly 200,000 additional passengers so to overhaul 2008 will not actually require such a large number. The last two years will have seen annual passenger numbers increase by around 350,000.

If the forecast is correct the additional room in the departures area brought about by the central pier with its four new pre-boarding zones serving up to six departure gates currently under construction will be sorely needed.

The CEO also looks forward to improved access to the airport with the South Bristol Link and Metrobus routes. Press reports suggest the projects will see construction begin in May this year. Plans have been approved and funding is in place.

I don't think that road access will be dramatically improved but some of the worst pinch points will be removed around the south western edge of the city.

[marko1]

Does anyone think we may see a turkish service to istanbul from bristol anytime soon? I know its on the airports target list but i really think this could be a successful route. Looking at turkishs route network bristol could fit right in - right aircraft type etc

[MerchantVenturer]

anno aero discussed this, albeit nearly a year ago.

In a discussion about BRS the aviation analyst site pointed out that the airport has 'aggressively' promoted itself as a candidate for a MEB3 (Emirates, Etihad, Qatar) route but that runway limitations might be an obstacle.

If that is the case anno aero suggested that Turkish Airlines to Istanbul is 'the most obvious solution' for a hub link to the east.

A month or so before its BRS piece anno aero published an article about Turkish Airlines in which it reproduced a copy of a note it had acquired that showed over 30 routes the airline intended to launch in 2013. BRS was not on the list, neither was any other UK airport.

I suppose only Turksh Airlines will have some sort of idea whether BRS interests them. The airport too might have an inkling because I have no doubt the two have spoken at some time and possibly continue to do so.

The full anno aero essays referred to above, which I say again are around a year old, can be read at these links:

Bristol Airport set to hit 6m passengers again; easyJet rules the roost (http://www.anna.aero/2013/02/13/bristol-airport-set-to-hit-6m-passengers-again/)

The big leak: Which airports are on Turkish Airlines? route network shopping list? - anna.aero (http://www.anna.aero/2012/12/12/the-big-leak-which-airports-are-on-turkish-airlines-route-network-shopping-list/)

[MerchantVenturer]

Further to my previous post, a piece has appeared in The Independent today written by the ubiquitous Simon Calder that discusses the transit market at hubs with particular reference to LHR and the movement of traffic to Middle East hubs and increasingly to Istanbul.

I don't know how well informed he is but this paragraph caught my eye:

Turkey's national carrier has been slow in exploiting its location, but is now expanding relentlessly – serving more places in Africa than any other airline. Unlike its Gulf-based rivals, which have to decide if they could fill a wide-bodied plane, Turkish Airlines can deploy smaller 737s to places such as Birmingham and Edinburgh, with Bristol tipped to be next. This provides an exotic short-break destination, but it also unlocks Asia, Africa and (soon) Australia to passengers from these airports.

The full newspaper article can be read at:

Simon Calder: Transit traffic and the airport problem - News & Advice - Travel - The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/simon-calder-transit-traffic-and-the-airport-problem-9051139.html)

[marko1]

Very interesting. Simon is very much an expert in all things travel so who knows. I think it would be a big coup if bristol can get an Istanbul link.

Also there seems to be a lot of swapping and changing with Ryanair for next summer. Bratislava, lodz and Szczecin appear to have been dropped and there are no flights on sale yet for Katowice. Will they still be basing four aircraft this summer.

Just noticed that easy jet will be offering three flights to faro on Saturdays this summer.

[OltonPete]

I am in the "when" not "if" club and surprised it hasn't been announced for 2014 although there is still just about time for a June/July start.

I know you can't just use passenger numbers per airport as a guide but Bristol is one of a few 6 million pax and above airports not to have TK (exc FR dominated ones and probably the unlukiest - Glasgow).

There are even airports with lower figures with TK services (excluding Germany obviously) such as Bilbao, Valencia, Naples and Bologna. I realise there is more to it that that such as ex-pat population, nearby airports, competition, the greater metro area but taking all that into account I still believe Bristol will be the next UK airport although Glasgow I am sure think they deserve it after actually making it into a TK press release only to have EDI to start.

Pete

[Buster the Bear]

Luton! No Turkish Airlines flight from this airport with over 9mppa.

[OltonPete]

Buster

Orly as well, more no doubt and although Stansted has flights to Turkey it is still competition.

As I said not straightforward, just found Billund is served as well by TK which although not daily is a reasonably quiet airport.
I

Pete

[Bristol_Traveller]

TK already serve the London market out of LHR and LGW, so it wouldn't make sense to also fly from LTN which is almost entirely LCC and charter.

BRS-IST would be a good route to have, although it would affect *A demand through FRA/MUC. There seems to be very intense competition between LH and TK. (LH recently significantly devalued TK flights in Miles and More to match the devaluation of their own flights).

The block time for BRS-IST must be approaching 4 hours. Not sure how much fun that is on a 737. (It's no fun doing transcon US on one). Out of LHR they use 321s and 777s, with occasional appearance of First Class cabins (sold as Business seats).

I guess they'd operate an afternoon flight, for connections to Asia, rather than a morning flight (probably with a nightstop) for connections to the US. I can't see them wanting to do both.

Maybe Simon Calder gets his info from reading this forum?!

[bravoromeosierra]

KLM will now use the E190 on all rotations as per the summer schedule.

[Bristol_Traveller]

A new initiative from Singapore Airlines and First Great Western allows through ticketing (on SQ issued tickets) from various railway stations in the West.

Here's the press release from the FGW website (http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Your-journey/Travel-connections/Rail-Fly):

First Great Western and Singapore Airlines are proud to announce the launch of through-ticketing from selected towns and cities in the South West and those served by Singapore Airlines' route network from London Heathrow Airport, including the Heathrow Express rail link between Paddington Station and the airport. Travellers will therefore be able to purchase a ticket for hundreds of different route options such as Cardiff to Singapore, or Sydney to Plymouth, etc.

The stations on our network which will be open to these arrangements are as follows:

Bath Spa
Bristol Parkway
Bristol Temple Meads
Cardiff Central
Exeter St. David's
Oxford
Par
Penzance
Plymouth
St. Austell
Swansea

Bookings open on 24JAN14 at this website (http://www.rail-fly.com/).

It looks like it's being powered by Accesrail (http://www.accesrail.com/), which operates as a virtual airline with the code 9B. Each train is allocated a 9B 'flight number', and many UK railway stations are already allocated IATA airport codes.

[anothertyke]

Is this genuinely a through ticket in the same sense as say Manchester-Seattle via Heathrow on BA? What happens if the train/plane is two hours late? Does SQ look after you?

[Keyvon]

Yet another new Ryanair route: Bologna (Tue-Sat) from April 1.

[marko1]

Has it been confirmed that Ryanair will be basing four aircraft this summer? I had a quick look at a Saturday in August and I can only see use for three so far. Is there a chance that more routes may be announced ? I noticed Katowice is still on the list of destinations but not available to book

[ub2]

yes there will be 4 a/c based but there are still some gaps, I have heard that ktw is being dropped but is still operating this winter

[MerchantVenturer]

The Ryanair timetable at BRS is usually a work in progress until just before the season begins. It may be at other airports too.

I used to try to compile the latest timetable in the months leading to a season but there were invariably so many changes along the way with routes coming and going, timings changed and occasionally even days changed that I don't look in detail any more until early March each year for the forthcoming summer season.

This is not a criticism of Ryanair, just a statement of how it seems to be.

I do keep a list of routes dropped by airlines at BRS going back many years and Ryanair does bring back routes that it previously dropped.

For instance, this summer Bratislava, Scezecin and Lodz seem to have been dropped and possibly Katowice.

Bratislava operated from 2007 but was dropped for summer 2011 before being brought back that winter and eventually became a summer route. Scezecin ran in 2008 and 2009 and was then dropped before, perhaps surprisingly, being brought back for summer 2013. Katowice operated from 2007 until 2009 and was dropped but re-appeared in winter 2011/2012 and has remained year-round since. Lodz commenced in summer 2012 and also operated in summer 2013.

Other Ryanair routes currrently operating that have been dropped and brought back in the past include Gdansk and Budapest, and it was announced around this time in 2012 that Dinard would be brought back for that summer, having last operated in 2008. It was put into the booking system then dropped out a few weeks later.

I hope that Bologna won't join the list of one-season FR routes out of BRS which include Cagliari, Eindhoven, Perpignan, Montpellier, Toulon, Trieste and Bydgoszcz (lasted two months) or those that lasted a little longer such as Derry, Grenoble, Salzburg, Shannon, Pau, Rimini, Porto, Belfast City, Marrakech, Seville and Riga, although some of these routes are now operated by other airlines.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Is this genuinely a through ticket in the same sense as say Manchester-Seattle via Heathrow on BA? What happens if the train/plane is two hours late? Does SQ look after you?

Yes, it's all issued on one PNR, and one ticket number (presumably SQ's 618 stock). The rail segments are treated as flights.

That means a delay in one segment will trigger an automatic re-accomodation of the passenger on a new flight. (In practice, it'll be interesting to see how train delays are relayed to SQ, so they know you really were on a delayed train, not just trying to 'rebook' yourself to a later flight).

The system behind it has existed for a while, and travel agents have been able to use it, but this seems to be the first time it's been marketed directly to consumers.

Is this SQ's way of avoiding competition out of BRS from the EK,TK and QR's, given that there's no aircraft that can fly BRS-SIN from our little driveway.

[ub2]

now only 3 Ryanair a/c to be based as of end of march, some routes back to non based

[MerchantVenturer]

Not surprised that there's been another change - see my #2357.

Last summer the presence of so many non-based aircraft operating routes seemed to spread the arrivals/departures load a bit more evenly throughout the day.

Brussels Airlines BRS-BRU

The summer timetable is now showing the route operated for Brussels Airlines by bmi regional, still 3 x daily on weekdays. Until the last few days it was shown as a SN ARJ.

bmi regional operated the route for SN before Flybe took it over.

Passenger numbers have risen substantially in recent years from 31,250 in 2009 to 49,046 in 2013, an increase of 17% on 2012. It's to be hoped the smaller bmi regional aircraft won't impact negatively on the passenger growth on this route.

[FRatSTN]

Last summer the presence of so many non-based aircraft operating routes seemed to spread the arrivals/departures load a bit more evenly throughout the day.


I assume you mean the total number of arrivals/departures. If you look at the Ryanair schedules alone from Summer 2013 they were horrifically peaky with sometimes almost 5 or 6 hours with no flights through the afternoon then nearly half the day's flights between around 7:30 and 9:00 in the evening!

[MerchantVenturer]

Yes, I did. I should have worded it more precisely.

As you are aware, last summer the non-BRS based FR aircraft operated more flights each day/week than the BRS-based ones meaning that many FR arrivals and departures were occurring at relatively quiet times for the airport generally.

As you point out the FR flights were often in clusters with for example six or seven arriving and then departing during the mid evening on most days at a time when many of the based aircraft of other airlines (notably easyJet) would have been away from the airport in the middle of their final rotations of the day.

I don't make any comment as to the operational efficiency such a situation because I'm not qualified to make a judgement.

I look at it from a passenger's perspective where anything that lessens the quite severe congestion that sometimes occurs at peak times in the departure areas at BRS where there can be up to 30 departures in three hours in the morning peak before 0900 is to be welcomed. The central walkway currently under construction with new pre-boarding zones ought to go some way to making life more pleasant for passengers anyway.

[CheekyVisual]

Not to mention the fact that the only deal BRS were prepared to offer FR was for off peak arrivals and departures a situation FR were well placed to take advantage of with 40+ other bases to fly in from. Probably good business all round unless you are an FR pilot or cc wanting to be based in BRS !

[Severn]

Looks like the Summer '14 Innsbruck Saturday flights will now be using an Estonian Air EMB-170 with 76 seats. Looks like the aircraft will be BHX based as the aircraft on Saturdays will be doing BHX-INN-BRS-INN-BHX.

Below might explain a little why it will be UK based and is taken from: www.ch-aviation.ch (a great news/fleet/schedule website by the way)....

15JAN14 - Estonian Air and aircraft charter specialist, Air Charter Service (ACS), have signed an agreement in which ACS will exclusively market and sell one of Estonian Air's four EMB-170s. ACS Commercial Jets Director, Matt Purton, explained: "With a capacity of 76 seats and a range of around 3 hours, we feel that the aircraft is very versatile and will be ideal for sports teams, Oil and Gas clients and the MICE industry. The aircraft is in an all economy plus configuration, with 31 pitch seats in a two by two configuration."
Mikael Wangdahl, the COO of Estonian Air, commented that his airline sees strong market potential for the aircraft in the British market where demand has been driven by Tour Operators looking for niche routes from regional airports to Mediterranean countries in particular.

The schedule is below and was released today:

New route: Innsbruck - Bristol Int'l starting May 24, 2014.
OV 8722 _____6_ 24MAY2014 - 20SEP2014 INN 1020 BRS 1130 - E170 Charter Flight

New route: Bristol Int'l - Innsbruck starting May 24, 2014.
OV 8723 _____6_ 24MAY2014 - 20SEP2014 BRS 1205 INN 1455 - E170 Charter Flight

[Welshtraveller]

I am flying on the Saturday BRS - INN in June. I received a confirmation invoice from Inghams with the original flight details with Austria airlines, 0915 departure with a 0835 arrival on the return. Has this flight been replaced with Estonian airlines? Thanks

[bravoromeosierra]

Since when did aircraft beginning parking the other way on stands and what's the reason? Noticed this morning... still got pushed back "forwards" though.

[GrahamK]

Wind related?

[mathers_wales_uk]

This is likely due to strong winds. It is preference to park aircraft with nose into the wind to minimise any potential damage.

If there is not enough stands to provide this especially for aircraft that is on the ground for a long period then the airport authorities and ground handling agents will deviate from normal parking positions on stands.

They will still need to be towed off stand especially if there is no jet blast screens to prevent any damage to equipment, buildings or injuring ground staff/passengers.

[MerchantVenturer]

This week the airline's marketing director announced a number of initiatives including the abolition of business class tickets that will be replaced by an enhanced all-economy product; a possible change of name to Bmi; an announcement about code share partners in the next couple of weeks.

The airline has a three-pronged strategy with one of the prongs being wider customer groups out of Bristol with a focus on the business traveller (the other two prongs involve Aberdeen and Norway).

The next step would be to ensure 'that Bristol gets more connectivity'. There is also an intention to connect into longer-haul hubs but whether that would involve BRS is not said although the strategy suggests it might well do so. As far as code shares are concerned the marketing director stated that they had 'looked back on some of our former partnerships and tried to rebuild those'.

It seems that a push has already started at BRS. Free parking is offered to those travelling to Frankfurt in March and April and there is an online survey on the BRS website asking business travellers for their views on bmi regional.

Furthermore, the next business travel forum organised by the airport will take place next month at a city centre location where bmi regional representatives will be on hand to answer questions.

Full details are at:Bmi Regional goes all-economy - Business Traveller (http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/100220/bmi-regional-goes-all-economy)

[BAladdy]

SN have decided to replace the DH4 leased from BE that is currently used on the BRS-BRU route with a BM ER4 from 30th March.

Brussels Airlines to wet-lease an ERJ-145 from bmi regional in Spring - ch-aviation.com (http://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/25609-brussels-airlines-to-wet-lease-an-erj-145-from-bmi-regional-in-spring)

SN2060 BRS 06:10 BRU 08:35 ER4 x7
SN2056 BRS 11:10 BRU 13:30 ER4 x67
SN2058 BRS 17:25 BRU 19:45 ER4 x6

SN2055 BRU 09:50 BRS 10:15 ER4 x67
SN2057 BRU 16:35 BRS 16:55 ER4 x6
SN2059 BRU 21:05 BRS 21:25 ER4 x6

[virginblue]

That means 30 seats less per flight - is the route a poor performer?

[Buster the Bear]

Inghams summer flights to Innsbruck still shows the flight being operated by Austrian within their booking engine.

[MerchantVenturer]

That means 30 seats less per flight - is the route a poor performer?

I posted the below at #2360 on 30 January shortly after the change to bmi regional appeared in the Brussels Airlines booking engine. It goes some way to answering your question although it obviously can't address the yield on the route.

Brussels Airlines BRS-BRU

The summer timetable is now showing the route operated for Brussels Airlines by bmi regional, still 3 x daily on weekdays. Until the last few days it was shown as a SN ARJ.

bmi regional operated the route for SN before Flybe took it over.

Passenger numbers have risen substantially in recent years from 31,250 in 2009 to 49,046 in 2013, an increase of 17% on 2012. It's to be hoped the smaller bmi regional aircraft won't impact negatively on the passenger growth on this route.

[virginblue]

Is that departing and arriving passengers? Assuming that, on the basis of 17 weekly flights in each direction 49046 annual pax mean 28 pax per flight on average. So makes some sense to use a 50 seater.

[MerchantVenturer]

Average loads throughout the year would certainly be in that area; probably a bit higher because the route traditionally drops one daily rotation in the main summer holiday period.

It's a route of over 20 years' continuous standing, originally by Sabena then by SN Brussels/Brussels Airlines, although there may have been a short hiatus at the time Sabena disappeared.

A decade or so ago it was operated at 4 x daily on weekdays by SN's ARJs/Bae 146s and at one time carried over 100,000 passengers per year.

In recent years the route has been operated for Brussels Airlines by bmi regional, then by Flybe. NCL-BRU was similarly operated but SN pulled that route last March even though it was averaging slightly higher loads than BRS-BRU. I wouldn't have been surprised to see BRS-BRU go the same way, despite its substantial passenger number increases in recent years, so perhaps the yield is better than was the case on NCL-BRU.

BRU is not a huge destination from the UK. A look at the most recent CAA stats shows scheduled routes to BRU from only six UK airports, viz: LHR, MAN, EDI, BHX, BRS and EMA, although bmi regional is to commence NCL-BRU this spring on its own initiative.

As you point out a 50-seater would be more than adequate most of the time but there would have been times last year when some flights carried more than 50 passengers, so the smaller bmi regional aircraft may put a slight brake on continued passenger growth.

[Welshtraveller]

Inghams summer flights to Innsbruck still shows the flight being operated by
Austrian within their booking engine.


I noticed this as well & the invoice refers to Austrian Airlines flights. Not sure what is happening, is the flight being replaced with Estonian Airlines?

Thanks.

[MerchantVenturer]

A few weeks ago in another airport forum a poster who is usually extremely well informed about BRS matters said that Ingham's Saturday Verona flight this coming summer would be operated by a BHX-based Estonian Airlines E170 routing BHX-VRN-BRS-VRN-BHX. The reason was that Inghams wanted more seats than last summer's bmi regional E 145 could provide.

Originally the Inghams website showed bmi regional as their carrier to VRN in summer 2014 but they now show Mistral (which operates this route for Tui from BRS) which suggests they are taking seats on that flight. They used to do so before Tui put on the smaller Mistral B734 to replace the TOM B738 a couple of years ago.

The point is that if the Estonian E170 was going to operate this pattern from BHX via BRS on a w on Sats to VRN could it operate a similar pattern with INN as well? It would be a long day for the aircraft with eight sectors.

However, Inghams are showing its flights to VRN on a TOM aircraft which might suggest that it's true after all that the Estonian E170 will operate BHX-INN-BRS-INN-BHX. The snag in that is that Inghams are still showing Flybe as their BHX carrier to INN.

I think I'll lie down now.

[Welshtraveller]

The Inghams website is still showing the Innsbruck flight with Austrian Airlines. Not sure what is happening ~ who knows! :confused:

[Capt. Tango]

Hi all,
Quick question for anyone.
As easyJet have now moved to Servisair and Summer '14 looming, who does
Menzies now handle here?

Many thanks,
CT

[G3jetman]

Hi....now that Swissport handle EZY at BRS...Menzies now handle EI, GR and from 1st April Thomas Cook (x 2 A321)

Hope that is of help!

Jetman

[chrisy08]

Does anyone know what aircraft Thomson will use for the June 2014 flights from Bristol to Antalya? 757, 737-800, 767?

[yeo valley]

chrisy 08 the ayt flts are on a 757. 2 based in brs with the odd w pattern with a b737.

[bravoromeosierra]

I thought the B757s were being replaced to make BRS a B738 base only this summer? Maybe I was imagining it...

[yeo valley]

the 757 will be 2 brs based in s14. dont know after that. there was talk of 757 being replaced by 3 b737 800. but nothing came of that.

[Capt. Tango]

Ah, so they are sticking with the 757 for S14... I had heard from a good source at TOM that the base was going to be 737-800 for S14.
Nice to see the 757 stay for a while longer at BRS :ok:

[APB44]

Nantes appears on the list of BRS destinations with Ryanair. Any infos ?

[G3jetman]

These are flights bringing in Rugby fans for Wales v France this Friday. A number of extra flights coming into BRS due shortage of hotels in Cardiff.

[Welshtraveller]

Flight was initially operated by Austrian Airlines, changed to Estonian Airlines and now returned to Austrian Airlines with new flight times:-


BRS INN OS 2574 14:20 17:20
INN BRS OS 2573 12:40 13:40

[Bristol_Traveller]

BM seemed to have a lousy start to the this week this week, with the morning flights to FRA and HAM cancelled, and the lunchtime flight to MXP cancelled too.

I went out on the MUC flight, which was delayed 30 minutes or so. There were three BM RJs on the West Apron when we boarded.

Anyone know what happened?

[G3jetman]

Technical issues caused the cancellation of the morning FRA & HAM yesterday. The MXP flight aborted due to an engine issue too!

[Bristol_Traveller]

Technical issues caused the cancellation of the morning FRA & HAM yesterday. The MXP flight aborted due to an engine issue too!

Wow - that's a run of bad luck. That would have been expensive for them to sort out too. I hope not too many passengers were displaced.

[MerchantVenturer]

The timetable/seat selector is showing five A320s and six A319s based this year in peak summer. Last year it was three 320s and eight 319s.

[Bristol_Traveller]

I've just received an email from the airport, asking me to complete a questionnaire to support their case for re-instating direct flights to the USA.

I was quite surprised by that, and I wonder what's driven it?

We've got some quite good US options at the moment, with the EI via DUB (with US Preclearance), KL via AMS, SN via BRU and (theoretically...) BM via FRA and MUC.

Obviously, being a *A flier, I'd love to see UA back again. And prefer it not to be DL. Or DY or FR!

[bobsyerunlce]

I would guess it would be one of the American Carriers but have no evidence or data to support my guess. I just can't see any European or Middle eastern carriers choosing a BRS to NYC route. I've just completed the survey in the hope that my extra voice will help with the effort to reinstate the route.
Actually, despite what I've just said, might Norwegian be a possibility?

[Welshtraveller]

Does anyone know the aircraft type for Tuesday's flight with Thomson's to Palma? Is this the first flight of the season this week?

Thanks.

[MerchantVenturer]

Mayfly confirms it will be a Boeing 757 - one of the BRS-based ones. It is the first flight of the season of this series.

BRS-NYC

BRS talk about a strong business case now that 'the economic conditions are recovering'. They concede there are good and frequent services via European hub airports but believe that a direct service 'would bring many benefits to the region in terms of international profile, inbound tourism and cost and time savings to businesses'.

They say they are meeting airlines over the next couple of months.

easyJet BRS-CDG

Now that Air France is about to give up its BRS-CDG route the daily easyJet rotation will be all that remains.

Looking at next week the easyJet BRS-CDG legs are already shown as sold out on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with the CDG-BRS on Tuesday also sold out. Remaining fares next week are all very high (£163 in one case) and all of April is showing one-way fares well over £100 in many cases with £200 on one day.

There seems no sign of easyJet adding to its frequency, presumably judging that if it can fill flights at such fares why spoil it? There must be a danger though that some passengers will look elsewhere permanently if flights continue to filled regularly several days before they operate. CityJet at CWL might be looking at the situation with keen interest.

[Welshtraveller]

Thanks MerchantVenturer.:)

[Bristol_Traveller]

I'm convinced that AF's failure to get BRS-CDG to be sustainable is because of their unrealistic fare rules ex-regional airports. If you want to do less than two nights (or a Saturday) away, the fares can be eye-popping.

EZY are able to demand good fares because they're also offering flexibility. It's easier to pay EZY £320 for a one day return than it is to pay AF £550.

Another miscreant on that front is SN to BRU. Talking to a colleague who had to take a one-way BRU-BRS (followed by BRS-DUB on EI, and DUB-BRU on EI), he paid €350 one-way. (He should have bought a return spanning a weekend for €250 and binned the return leg).

[MerchantVenturer]

Point taken. B_T, about 'It's easier to pay EZY £320 for a one day return than it is to pay AF £550' but the easyJet BRS-CDG flights next week are now shown as sold out on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, with Monday and Tuesday's CDG-BRS also shown as sold out.

This means that currently you can't even get a seat on six out of the ten weekday sectors next week no matter how much you were willing to pay. I wonder how many people have found themselves in this position in recent days and how many will over the weekend and into next week and, the way things seem to be moving, into the forseeable future.

easyJet will have four A320s at BRS from next week (five later in the summer) yet all but Sunday's rotation next week are on A 319s.

[bravoromeosierra]

Air France did or do offer "one way" fares from BRS since they introduced their new fare categories. On a few occasions I've purchased tickets for circa £40-50 as single one way fares.

[Bristol_Traveller]

I just had a quick look. AF offered one-way fares for GBP7 and GBP27 (excluding taxes/fee/surcharges) in V-class (very limited availability) if you booked 40 days in advance. Otherwise the cheapest one way was GBP275.

From 01APR14, the cheapest one-way BRS-PAR fare on AF is GBP275 - plus taxes, fares, surcharges. So probably about GBP320 all in, and you have to travel via AMS.

[globetrotter79]

Are there enough people in the BRS catchment area who would pay a premium to be able to have the facility of a day return schedule to Paris (bearing in mind the flexibility of schedules available for business travellers to Paris ex-LHR?

If "yes" then perhaps this could work on a double daily frequency with a bmi E145 (assuming they can get any half decent slots into CDG)...

[crackling jet]

announced on local radion earlier this morning, code share aggreement with BMI and Lufthansa stating that this will open up hundreds of new destinations to the southwest with many thousands of extra pax per year,

[ericlday]

'hundreds of new destinations ' Wow thats great start counting now !

[virginblue]

It is effectively a thrice daily feeder into the Lufthansa network as you can connect to a lot of international destinations at either FRA or MUC (with the exception of most African and South American destinations which are FRA only). So you could route outbound via FRA and inbound via MUC or vice versa. Timings are of course not exactly tailored to the lufthansa hub waves, but reasonable connections should be possible.

Bristol to Germany
BM1821/LH5301 MTWTFSS BRS 06:40 FRA 09:20
BM1845/LH5309 MTWTFSS BRS 12:05 MUC 15:0
BM1827/LH5307 MTWTFSS BRS 16:30 FRA 19:15

Germany to Bristol
BM1822/LH5302 MTWTFSS FRA 09:50 BRS 10:30
BM1846/LH5310 MTWTFSS MUC 16:10 BRS 17:10
BM1828/LH5308 MTWTFSS FRA 20:05 BRS 20:45

LH longhaul destinations served from both destinations: Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, Beijing-Capital, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago-O'Hare, Delhi, Dubai-International, Hong Kong, Houston–Intercontinental Johannesburg, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Montréal-Trudeau, Mumbai, New York-JFK, Newark, Riyadh, San Francisco, São Paulo-Guarulhos, Seoul-Incheon, Shanghai-Pudong, Singapore, Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion, Tokyo-Haneda, Toronto-Pearson, Washington-Dulles,

BMI Regional agrees codeshare with Lufthansa - www.travelweekly.co.uk (http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/Articles/2014/04/02/47498/bmi+regional+agrees+codeshare+with+lufthansa.html)

[ara01jbb]

Precisely the kind of sensible bread and butter feed that BMI-R should have been providing LH from the UK regions when LH owned BMI :ugh:

[Bristol_Traveller]

The BM/LH codeshare is great news, and well done to BM for sorting that out. (Annoyingly, not quite fast enough for my trip to LAS/LAX starting on Friday).

There's some very good, time-effective, routings to Asia via FRA using the afternoon flight outbound, and coming back on the morning one. MUC is actually my fallback hub - it's not quite as well timed, but the long-haul flights out of MUC tend not to be quite so heavily booked (aka - cheaper), and the MUC based crews seem a bit happier with their world than the FRA based ones.

Congrats to BM.

[virginblue]

I wonder if this could be a way forward for bmi given Lufthansa's/Star Alliance's relatively poor feed from the UK regions (despite at least adding EDI and ABZ from FRA in addition to MAN and BHX over the last couple of years). Places like NCL and GLA with a strong oneworld/Skyteam presence have a once daily DUS-service, but no feed into FRA or MUC. Probably too small a market for Lufthansa's 100 seaters, but maybe just right for a BDcodeshare. They are also feeding Star's secondary Brussels hub from NCL and EMA, fitting the overall picture.

[bravoromeosierra]

I wonder if Silver/Gold *A passengers will get lounge access at BRS if flying on a LH issued/coded ticket?

[Bristol_Traveller]

I wonder if Silver/Gold *A passengers will get lounge access at BRS if flying on a LH issued/coded ticket?

Sadly not. *A rules mean it's the Operating Carrier who qualifies lounge access, and BM aren't (yet) a *A member. That means no lounge access, in BRS, FRA or MUC. (Unless LH*G arriving long haul on a flight numbered LH400-499)

You won't earn any miles in any *A mileage scheme for the BRS-FRA/MUC segments either.

[bravoromeosierra]

That's a shame; although had I thought about it I guess that would have been the case. I guess for someone like me who has status with both *A and SkyTeam it makes KL still slightly more tempting. I quite like my post long haul lounge access.. but that is negligible!

It's good news anyway.

[sinbad73]

I'd be very surprised if all the relevant ticketing/interline agreements are in place yet :ugh::ugh:

[Bristol_Traveller]

I'd be very surprised if all the relevant ticketing/interline agreements are in place yet

They are. I flew BM/LH on a BRS-FRA-BKK-BNE-BKK-FRA-BRS in October last year. One ticket, issued on 220 (LH) stock. Bags interlined, boarding passes issued, no problems at all.

What was missing was the ability to book using an LH flight number, and visibility on the LH website. (I had to piece the itin together and get a TA to ticket it). That's what the codeshare actually brings - a presence back on LH's network, without the convolution of going BRS-(LH)-BRU-(LH)-FRA.

That said, LH haven't loaded the codeshared flights to the GDSes yet. And it doesn't look like you'll be able to book BRS-FRA/MUC by itself via LH, as there's no LH fare been filed as of yet.

[crackling jet]

Anniversary yesterday Apr 10 1973 of Invicta Vangaurd G-AXOP crash on approach into Basel. Lots of locals on board and some friends,

[AirGuru]

TOM will offer Dubrovnik as a cruise package for Summer 2015. Remains to be seen whether these flights will be purely cruise orientated, or whether Dubrovnik will become a 'full-time' Summer destination when they release the schedule.

[Heathrow Harry]

are there any plans anywhere to improve the connectivity to the M5?

Or is it doomed to sit amongst the bucolic fields and hedgerows at the end of country lanes for ever??

[MerchantVenturer]

No plans whatsoever and it's extremely unlikely that any new road of such magnitude would escape the vice-like grip of the well-heeled and well-connected who come out of the cardboard in vociferous numbers, if not in actual ones, whenever their perceived idyllic, chocolate box cover surroundings are threatened. They were in overdrive as a loosely connected group of disparate objectors when the major expansion plans for the airport first saw the light of day and managed to delay the proceedings for several years, albeit they did lose that one in the end.

It's physically possible to extend the runway over the A 38 to the east but that would entail taking full possession of a common for the extension to be worthwhile and the airport, understandably, has decided that's one battle it wouldn't win.

The only slight bit of sunlight on the horizon, and it's not much, is that funding and planning approval are in place for a link road to be built between the A 370 and the A 38 on the south-western outskirts of Bristol itself which will at least remove the tedious drive around the one way streets in south Bristol for those approaching the airport from the M 5 at Avonmouth via the A 4 Portway. The road ought to be built within the next couple of years unless Bristol's notorious predilection for zapping major projects at the last moment comes into play yet again.

The airport is only 3-4 miles from the main Bristol-Exeter railway line but apart from the questionable economics of operating a spur to the airport the 600 foot-plus elevation of BRS means that extensive civil engineering would be required to reach it.................and of course the rural guardians wouldn't like a railway line any more than a road or an expanded airport.

For a city region that is so well connected on the surface - at the crossroads of two major motorways from Midlands-North/South West and London-South Wales and at the centre of major rail lines running in all the important directions - it's supremely perverse that the last few miles to the region's airport is such a challenge.

I often thought that the usually excellent BRS management missed a trick when they had the Continental service to Newark. They could have told the American travellers that they would be landing at a miniature airport smack bang in the middle of Little Old England's fields and hedges with cows looking over the gate at them.

The fact that this lilliputian airport with all its physical difficulties including murk and mist, not to mention strong winds, has performed so well in attracting passengers leads to the obvious question of how busy it would be if it was larger with a longer runway and better connected on the surface.

There was a place that ticked most of these boxes, all of them really, but the F-word has ceased to be mentioned as it no longer has a runway.

BRS is tied to a maximum of 10 mppa through the planning consents mentioned in my first paragraph. It's certain if that is reached at some point, and the airport management tries to increase the numbers, the protestors will be out of their chocolate boxes quicker than you can say J S Fry.

[bravoromeosierra]

I think you whacked the nail on the head there, good post. I think BRS have played their cards well, albeit with the mediocre set they were handed, to produce an airport which has a solid collection of year-round destinations and decent passenger numbers.

In an ideal world "Bristol Airport" would be at Filton, with it's pre-existing rail link and it's own junction off the M5.. but as you infer, that ship sailed a long time ago. However, as ever a long runway doesn't mean prosperity and I think BRS would struggle with LHR just up the road.. or indeed just up the motorway had FZO been developed. But c'est la vie.

[JaffaCake]

As an operator at Brissle Drizzle Int'l, a long time user of Filton for the weekend job and a resident of Somerset, BRS is a complete and utter anachronism in the world of major airport interconnectivity. Jasper Carrot used to joke that East Mids was an airport so rural it had a cattle grid at each end of the runway, I think that description better fits Bristol 20 years after it was probably observed!

The location and terrain make decent roads and rails almost impossible to engineer for a reasonable cost/benefit, let alone the concern of local (and frankly barking) citizens coming into play. As MV says, the link road will help but it has to be built first...

Filton was a blatant and outstanding candidate for an airport to serve Bristol and the surrounding area into the future and even after all the years it was formally ruled out, it breaks my heart when I fly over that strip of concrete, particularly when I'm busy preparing for (yet another) low viz approach to BRS.

Simply stated, I cannot believe how outrageously narrow-minded, improvident and egregiously stupid it was not to develop Filton in the 1990s. :ugh: :ugh:

[MerchantVenturer]

JC, you're probably aware that BAE tried to develop Filton as a city airport in the mid 1990s. The application led to a planning enquiry following which the relevant government minister - I think Selwyn Gummer but humble apologies to him if I'm wrong - rejected the application.

Unsurprisingly, the application attracted numerous objections including one from the then owners of BRS, Bristol City Council. In the mid 1990s much of BRS's traffic was charter/inclusive tour and from their point of view a business airport across the city leaving them with mainly charter work was not something that they could contemplate with equanimity.

In fact, having one airport for scheduled business traffic, almost certainly turbo-prop/ small jet because the low-cost rush across the regionals had not yet begun, and another for holiday inclusive tours may not have worked either, given that the BRS catchment size is not the West Midlands, the North West or the South East.

When the celebrated wartime airport at Whitchurch was deemed too small for future development the city council opted for the former RAF Lulsgate Bottom (sounds vaguely Shakespearean) when legend/myth/possibly fact has it that they could have moved to Filton as tenants of the Bristol Aeroplane Company in 1957 when the council closed Whitchurch.

That's all in the past and realistically cannot be overcome now. As the Americans say, Lulsgate is now the only game in town and it's that or nothing.

It does seem the money people can see something in it because they've not been slow in investing scores of millions of pounds over the past decade and a half with much more in the pipeline.

I've been using the place as a passenger since the 1970s and I do admit to having a soft spot for it. I can't honestly recall ever having had a major problem there or been seriously discomfited in many hundreds of flights through it. I shall whisper it with the wooden desk gripped firmly but in all that time I've been diverted only once.

[crackling jet]

Filton was Bristol City Councils choice in the early to mid 50's to replace Whitchurch, though when Bristol Aeroplane Company were approached they refused on the grounds that you could not have a manufacturing and testing airfield operating in conjunction with a commercial airport, so that plan was scuppered.

Now had they gone another 12 miles to Weston super Mare airport with it's then miles of empty flat land around it and railway on the perimeter and M5 coming along later, who knows what we could have now in the southwest. Only one fly in the ointment with this idea- it was owned by the Bristol Aeroplane Company again and used for maintenance.

BTW just a point of interest, did you know that in 1936 W-S-M Airport was the busiest airport in the world this info supplied by a friend of mine and confirmed via internet

[MerchantVenturer]

Thank you for that cj. I knew that Weston Airport was very busy at one point in the 1930s, not least with the ferry flights to Cardiff, but I hadn't realised it was that busy.

I went to school at Weston in the 1950s and always meant to go up on the 7s 6d (37.5p) pleasure flights from there then but I never did.

So, a Severnside airport (well, almost) might have appeared several decades before the various schemes that have been put forward for such a facility over the past quarter of a century. The land on either side to the east and west is pretty flat so a long runway should not have been a problem. It would certainly have been a better site than Lulsgate but if Filton had been available that was the obvious choice in my view.

Weston Airport, like parts of Filton airfield, now seems to be the scene of a huge new housing development, although I believe that the large helicopter museum on the site is still going strong.

[JaffaCake]

Hehe. I landed at Weston in a light aircraft a fair old while back; I live very close to it now (lucky me) and the old runway is now a dual carriageway under construction.

MV, I remember the Selwyn Gummer rejection but as I wasn't flying then it didn't seem to be that big a deal. As you say, low cost and all the volume it brings wasn't even contemplated. I still think (with glorious hindsight, of course) that not developing Filton was a bad decision. Belfast with its massive (?) catchment area has two airports, both largely serving different or slightly overlapping customers; Lulsgate and Filton could have complimented each other, perhaps even raising the commercial and industrial viability of the city as a whole had the government at the time had some balls.

I guarantee you there isn't a single pilot operating out of BRS with its ski-jump runway who doesn't fly over Filton and sigh. We all still have a soft-spot for BRS however 'cos, as you say, it's better than nothing and has certain undeniable idiosyncrasies... some of which are apparently worth investing in!

[Ph1l1pncl]

I passed through Bristol Airport for the first time last weekend, it was nice to see that the development work was progressing on a new pier, I have to ask will the new pier have seats available in the departure gates? As it was a slight shock to the system while waiting in the gate and having to stand for so long especially since they got us into the gate area before the plane had landed from its previous flight.

The expansion I imagine can't come quick enough as the airport handles far more passengers than my local (Newcastle) but the space seemed about half the size of the terminal in Newcastle. It was pretty surreal being driven through the suburbs of Bristol while on the flyer bus to the train station, but I thought added to the quaintness of the West Country.

[MerchantVenturer]

I'm glad you enjoyed your visit and the new central pier will have seats in its four new pre-boarding zones. The pier currently under construction is illustrated in a video at the below link nearly half way down the right-hand-side of the page that also shows the full extent of the proposed expansion plans of which the pier being built now is the latest phase.

Planning and development ? Bristol Airport (http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/about-us/planning-and-development.aspx)

You may well have used the western walkway which is only a few years old but was built under general permitted development not requiring full planning consent, but this meant it could not be used to enhance the floor area of the terminal with such things as seating, apart from a minimal number to cater for people with impaired mobility. Planning consents have since been obtained for the major expansion which means that the 400-metre long western walkway could be upgraded but thus far the airport has chosen not to.

The airport is on a small site as some of the previous posts in recent days have mentioned. The new terminal opened in 2000 was built into the side of a hill which means that incoming passengers enter at ground level from the apron, descend the stairs and leave the terminal still at ground level.

JaffaCake talks of the airport's idiosyncracies and he's undeniably correct. In some ways it's entirely appropriate because Bristol is an idiosyncratic city. The Sunday Times recently decided it's the best city in the UK to live (this sort of thing will always be subjective) and it's certainly one of the country's most economically successful cities. PM Cameron last year said it was the second richest UK city after London but I don't know how he measured that - presumably by GVA or GDP per capita. Yet it sits cheek by jowl alongside some of the most deprived areas in the country with its inner city and huge, sprawling council estates on its edges.

Your Flyer journey would have taken you through the down market suburb of Bedminster (but even that has its jazzy parts) to Bristol's main railway station which is set well away from the central areas - another idiosyncracy.

Bristol Airport like the city whose name it bears can be both infuriating and endearing, often at the same time, which is why some people love both.

[bravoromeosierra]

So BRS will get it's first jetbridge (or two in that central pier?) by the looks of that video. Moving up in the world eh..

[MerchantVenturer]

It won't be added initially it seems. Last year the airport included this paragraph in its press release regarding the new walkway/pier.

The design of the new facility takes into account the latest generation of twin-engine, wide-body jets, such as the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350, with provision made for the addition of an airbridge for passengers boarding potential long-haul flights in future.

Next phase of development begins at Bristol Airport ? Bristol Airport (http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/media-centre/news-releases/2013/10/central-walkway.aspx)

On another topic, it's now been confirmed in the local press that the new hangar being built on the south side is to accommodate the £40 million Gulfstream of vacuum cleaner multi billionaire Sir James Dyson.

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Jet-set-Tycoon-s-plane-pound-2-million-Lulsgate/story-20978102-detail/story.html

[anoraknophobia]

The Evening Post is reporting that the large hanger under construction southside is for the exclusive use of Mr James Dyson,he of vacuum cleaner fame.He has recently taken possession of a £40 million Gulfstream 650.The £2 million hanger will house the Gulfstream,helicopter and other executive jets.There will be a full time staff of fifteen to maintain the aircraft.
With reference to M.V and others mention of Weston airport.When the Bristol Brabazon was on the drawing board there was a proposal for the runway to be lengthened and construction to take place at the airport.However a survey revealed the subsoil to be unsuitable for development.In its it time it did play host to a production line for Bristol Freighters.Bristol Britannias flew in for fitting out and on one occasion a Handley page Victor flew in for work,but that did need the telegraph poles on Oldmixon Rd railway bridge being taken down.Better stop this reminiscencing or I'll get shunted off to the spotter thread.
OOPs sorry M.V by the time I composed this Piece you already posted.

[Pandy]

The design of the new facility takes into account the latest generation of twin-engine, wide-body jets, such as the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350, with provision made for the addition of an airbridge for passengers boarding potential long-haul flights in future.


I thought that the runway length issue was (as good as) unsolvable and that the master plan envisaged (all those years ago) that the 787/350 would have lesser runway gobbling characteristic so limited long haul would be solved by better aircraft runway performance

Haven't got a clue what the runway performance of the A350 is but thought the B787 missed its target by quite a bit?

So longhaul from Brissel, what with ? A narrow body A321neo / B757? But a widebody, could a B787 or a A350 actually make anywhere meaningful from BRS off the current runway?

Not against air bridges far from it, just seemed a bit of a weird explanation.
Also isn't there a problem with wings tips for WB overhanging some lane west of the terminal?

[bravoromeosierra]

The road you mention is Winters Lane, it wraps around the airfield at the 09 end. I seem to recall there being some issue with wingspan clearance but an A330 has done it (see below), so apparently so could a 787 (same wingspan) but the A350 is just under 5m wider.

EI-EWR - Aer Lingus Airbus A330-200 at Bristol - Lulsgate | Photo ID 43398 | Airplane-Pictures.net (http://www.airplane-pictures.net/photo/43398/ei-ewr-aer-lingus-airbus-a330-200/)

[MerchantVenturer]

Just a brief recap of the situation, Pandy, but I have no technical knowledge of aircraft performance so I will steer clear of that one other than to report in general terms what has been put into the public domain by the airport and by one airline.

When the airport master plan was published around ten years ago it stated that Boeing had told the airport management that their 787 would be able to operate a distance in excess of 5,000 nautical miles from the existing runway.

The master plan recognised a potential problem with the full length parallel taxiway as the wings of anything larger than a B 767 would overhang the boundary fence immediately beyond which is a public road. It was envisaged the problem could be overcome in the short term by using turning circles and backtracking the runway with a possible relocation of the road (Winters Lane) in the future; that might not be easily achieved as it would mean intruding onto part of a golf course.

In 2010 Thomson MD Chris Browne announced that BRS would be one of the airports from which the 787 would operate.

Thomson will use 787 to offer new destinations - www.travelweekly.co.uk (http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/2010/07/19/34268/thomson-will-use-787-to-offer-new-destinations.html)

At the beginning of 2013 the airport applied to the local authority for a non-material amendment to its outline planning consents to enable, inter alia, the gate lounge within the central walkway now currently under construction to be widened slightly. The specific reason given was that the Boeing 787 was likely to be configured to hold more passengers than was contemplated when the original plans were submitted (from 260 passengers to between 290 and 310 passengers).

Last year Thomson announced that their weekly summer services to Sanford and Cancun would not operate in summer 2014. I'm not aware of any definitive reason being given but the former First Choice 258-seat Boeing 767s that operated the routes will not be available after mid summer this year, but whether that is the reason or whether commercial factors played a part may be something that is sensitive to the airline.

Various rumours come and go. One is that the wing overhang problem has been overcome. I have no way of verifying this as I have no technical expertise.

It seems that the airport still expects 787 operations at some point - I read that the A 350 may not be viable but again I don't know.

If the 787 and 350 will not be able to use the ski jump runway, as one pilot in this thread recently described it, the potential loss of a wide-bodied Middle East scheduled route in the future is more damaging in my view to the airport and to the local economy than any inability to operate some long haul holiday charter flights.

There are alternatives though, one being a Turkish service using narrow-bodied aircraft to its hub at Istanbul.

[Pandy]

Thanks MV

Seems a bit strange - increase the gate size (or at least get planning for it) and then state

with provision made for the addition of an airbridge for passengers boarding potential long-haul flights in future.


Maybe it means that a B787 can get off the runway with a full load, otherwise why increase the gate size?

The availability of scheduled longhaul from any airport south of BHX and west of LHR is almost non existent, BRS is the only airport that might make a go of it (with reasonable PAX volumes) & give millions the choice of avoiding LHR.

IF LHR closes & moves to Boris Island then LH from BRS becomes even more important as it would be a serious trek otherwise

[bristolflyer]

I suspect if Boris Island ever gets built BA would suddenly see the attraction of connecting flights to the regions with all those endless slot spaces and BRS would probably have numerous daily connections. I understood that the 787 was now off the board as it exceeded or is at the very edge of the airport's limits. The 767 just made it, but it was a bit hit and miss! As much as I would love to see a DXB connection, the regional ones depend a lot on cargo to make the routes profitable. Something that is not possible logistically or operationally at BRS.

[santito]

All that would happen if Boris Island was built and LHR was closed is that BRS would gain another feeder route (BA). I can't envisage any new LH starting. Maybe if we had another 1000ft of runway to play with, but I just don't think the economics stack up for EY/EK/QR (even with the 787, maybe things will be different with the A350?) due to performance constraints.

RE the cancellation of the TOM long haul services, I thought it all happened after the report that was issued regarding the hard landing on 09, which lead to some serious airframe damage a couple of years ago? Basically the runway is seen as marginal for operating such services due to its undulating surface and length.

[Pandy]

I can't envisage any new LH starting. Maybe if we had another 1000ft of runway to play with,

That's (sort of) my point - there's not a feasible airport for LH, with a hope of any reasonable PAX nos, west of LHR and south of BHX. CWL / BOH / EXT might have the runway but not a lot else.

My back of a fag packet calculation is maybe south west region 5.5m, southern wales ?1.2m and other fringe areas (nearer to BRS than anywhere else) say 1m, total 7.7m potential LH PAX and what do they do - all go to LHR and guess what they need another runway (or Boris Island) to handle it all.

Maybe the runway issue length should be revisited NIMBYs and all!

[AirGuru]

South Wales 1.2 Million ? Try 2.2 Million, not including areas to the west or even upto Llanelli.

[Pandy]

Big bow to your superior knowledge, did say it was 'fag packet' counting

So we're up to 8.7m what's the pop of greater London?

[MerchantVenturer]

The hard landing of the TOM Boeing 767 occurred in October 2010 and the AAIB report into that incident that commented on the high number of such landings on 09 with that type of aircraft was published in 2012. If TOM had decided to stop using this aircraft at BRS as a result of the AAIB report would they not have done so at least from 2013, or even the year after the incident (2011)? So far as I'm aware the occasional B 767 still operates winter cruise flights to the West Indies.

There should be some pointer later this week to the way Thomson is thinking about long haul from the region, meaning West Country/South Wales, when its summer 2015 programme is due to be published. It might be a straight toss up between BRS and CWL or Thomson might decide that other airports such as LGW and BHX can meet the demand from the Severnside area as well as from further west in both Wales and England. That's certainly the case this summer.

I don't agree entirely that BRS is the only viable option for long haul from Severnside, at least for holiday charter flights. CWL has shown itself in the past to be capable of generating high loads to Florida and to the Caribbean. It was presumably the respective yields that saw TOM preferring BRS to CWL for the summer transatlantic charters a few years ago, when CWL had been the main Severnside airport for this type of traffic for many years before that with a number of carriers and holiday companies.

CWL has also seen more Caribbean cruise flights in recent winters. That does seem an oddity considering that BRS has a large reservoir of the type of punter that one normally associates with such holidays but it is a fact.

So far as wide-bodied scheduled long haul to the Middle East is concerned the cargo issue is certainly a pertinent one, assuming the 787/350 could use the runway.

If one of the MEB3 decided on CWL it might be a leap of faith to a degree because such a service would undoubtedly need a significant degree of support from outside Wales - ie from England - and West Country travellers (the obvious main source of potential support) already have the choice of BHX and particularly LHR, and the majority have looked for many years and continue to look no further than the M 4 eastwards for their long haul. There would also be the likelihood of diluting BHX to some degree if EK was the airline involved at either BRS or CWL.

If BRS was the choice it would almost certainly need less support from Wales than the other way around as its core catchment is larger and generally wealthier but, as is the case with the current network as a whole, around 50% of passenger numbers begin or end their journey beyond the Greater Bristol area.

The clincher might be APD being devolved to the Wales Government and being reduced to a zero rate, which would then make CWL look far more attractive for flights such as those to the Midddle East if England remained saddled with the high rates imposed by the Westminster Government.

I remain convinced that a Turkish Airlines link via Istanbul with smaller aircraft is BRS's best bet for a way into the major economies of the Far East.

Every time we discuss BRS's future we come back to the poor decision to locate the airport on Broadfield Down all those years ago. Had Filton been chosen (and I accept from what we were told here a few days ago that the BAC didn't want an airport on their airfield in 1957) none of these ifs and buts would enter the equation now, although South Gloucestershire nimbys would be replacing North Somerset nimbys.

[AirGuru]

BRS will already see a Dubrovnik route for 2015 as part of the expanded cruise programme to include more regional airports, so whether TOM increase the base size for this it is not yet known although they did look to increase the number of based aircraft last year.

Personally, i believe that the LH market is a pretty even battle between CWL and BRS as the MON on behalf of Cosmos SFB charters were very popular two summers ago, with a short lead in time with a less known operator. CWL certainly can get loads on these sorts of routes, which has lead to further winter cruise flights with P+O, Thomson Holidays and recently Sandals. So it would be of no surprise to me to see CWL harbouring the LH ops for TOM in Summer 2015, although BRS is still a very strong competitor as of course the TOM flights operated quite recently.

TOM 2015 goes on sale this thursday (24th April).

[CheekyVisual]

Thomson will be retiring the 75/76 fleet over the next few years. My understanding is the plan is to go 78/Ng so if Thomson have decided that BRS is not 78 suitable LH either resides in the South East or Midlands unless CWL can start persuading airlines people will travel in to Wales to fly LH again as they did in the late 90s.

[anoraknophobia]

As of 1st of may Thomas Cook will be basing two A321s at Brs replacing the A320s.I'm not sure how many A320s Easy Jet are basing at Bristol this season,but it would seem that a lot of of Bristols increase in passenger numbers this year won't necessarily reflect in many more aircraft movements.

[yeo valley]

it looks like 5 a320 and 6 a319 based at brs s24 according to airports mayfly.

[MerchantVenturer]

Last summer it was 8 x 319s and 3 x 320s. The most based was summer 2008 with 12 x 319s. In recent summers as with this summer it's been 11 based aircraft with 320s gradually replacing some 319s.

Any increase in overall passenger numbers this summer will come mainly from the larger Thomas Cook and easyJet aircraft. There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of additional rotations across the board. 20,000 passengers will be lost from the axing of the TOM transatlantic charters although about this number ought to be carried by the reinstated Aer Lingus Regional Shannon service.

Ryanair is slightly down on summer 2013 but there are additional Cork rotations and the short peak summer season service by SAS to Stockholm.

BRS should see a small annual increase in passenger numbers by the end of the year, much the same as has been the case in the previous four years.

The annual rise in passenger numbers in recent years has been achieved against the background of falling air transport movements at the airport.

2005 5,199,321 passengers 61,393 air transport movements

2006 5,710,230 65,827

2007 5,883,873 58,755

2008 6,228,656 60,070

2009 5,615,336 53,824

2010 5,723,432 53,799

2011 5,768,001 52,674

2012 5,916,258 50,659

2013 6,134,826 53,966

All stats courtesy of CAA

2013's rise in atms is slightly false in that the number was boosted by the Airbus Corporate Shuttle operated by bmi regional's 50-seat aircraft. In the first three months of 2014 atms are about 1.5% down on the same period last year, with passenger numbers up around 3.8% in the three months till the end of March.

[AirGuru]

TOM Summer 2015 schedule from BRS. I believe this will see the total number of based units increased by 1 to 3A/C ? 49 departures per week. No SFB or CUN from BRS or CWL.

Palma: 5x weekly
Ibiza: 3x weekly
Mahon: 2x weekly
Reus: 1x weekly
Alicante: 1x weekly
Malaga: 1x weekly
Tenerife South: 2x weekly
Gran Canaria: 1x weekly
Lanzarote: 2x weekly
Fuerteventura: 1x weekly
Malta: 1x weekly
Enfidha: 2x weekly
Corfu: 2x weekly
Neaopolitan Riviera: 2x weekly
Dubrovnik: 1x weekly
Pula: 1x weekly
Bourgas: 2x weekly
Heraklion: 2x weekly
Rhodes: 1x weekly
Kos: 1x weekly
Kefalonia: 1x weekly
Zante: 2x weekly
Paphos: 1x weekly
Larnaca: 2x weekly
Dalaman: 3x weekly
Bodrum: 1x weekly
Antalya: 2x weekly
Sharm el Sheikh: 2x weekly
Marrakech: 1x weekly

[BleadonHell]

There are some ground workings taking place in the long stay car park @brs close to the car rental building. My journeys through the airport over the past couple of weeks have been during the hours of darkness so I was unable to see what was going on.

Could the be the much awaited hotel development ?

[MerchantVenturer]

I don't think it's the hotel. I'm not aware that a detailed planning application has been submitted, only outline planning consent thus far so far as I'm aware. Today a roller seemed to be levelling the surface so maybe it's an enhanced car park of some sort.

Thomson summer 2015

I don't know whether today has confirmed Air Guru's advanced information. I never bother with initial offerings because inevitably what eventually occurs in 12 month's time will be altered.

Is Marrakech really back in the mix? A year ago it was shown for this summer but then axed, presumably because easyJet later stepped in. Maybe they will wait to see what easyJet does next summer or even take seats on easyJet flights.

Pula is back if Air Guru is correct which with Tom's Dubrovnik and easyJet's Split would give three Croation destinations next summer.

[G3jetman]

The works being carried out in the Long Stay car park is additional parking spaces for Premier Parking! As for the Hotel....watch this space! Everywhere you look at BRS building work is going on....Southside and Northside

[MerchantVenturer]

Thanks for the confirmation re the car park, G3j.

Certainly lots of building work going on, but when wasn't this the case in recent years (not a complaint, merely an observation)?

The South Side is becoming a very important complex in its own right with the expanded Bristol Flying Centre facilities (an unofficial terminal 2?) with its associated airline Centreline; the Bristol & Wessex Aeroplane Club; and now the new hangar nearing completion for the locally-based domestic appliance multi billionaire, not to mention all those cars in the Silver zone.

I'm rather surprised that the usual suspects haven't been screaming to the local news media about it all.

[MerchantVenturer]

Santorini

The Thomson website is now showing Santorini weekly on Tuesdays from 26 May next year, depart BRS 0600 arriving back at 1500.

I think the last time BRS had a weekly Santorini flight was in 2005 operated by Aegean Airlines with a Boeing 737-400.

[jlake2212]

G-TCAD TCX A320 has been WFU and ferried from Manchester, in return BRS have gained a brand new A321 in New Colurs reg G-TCDC

[bravoromeosierra]

Whilst reading the local rag (Weston Mercury IIRC) sat waiting at the barbers today they had an article about the airport hotel.

Apparently the airport resubmitted/modified the planning application to reflect a change in design at the end of April to make the hotel "look nicer". The article said the building project will last 70 weeks and begin in July; subject to the modified application being approved by NSC.

Plenty of rhetoric from the local populate about the building being too big, among other things. No name on the brand either; personal preferences aside.

[Pandy]

Routes online has got an interesting bit about Thomson this week

Quote
At Bristol Airport, Thomson and First Choice will introduce new routes to Santorini, Greece; Pula, Croatia; Marrakech, Morocco; and Dubrovnik, Croatia. The summer 2015 plans also include the addition of further weekly flights for existing routes to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt and Heraklion, Greece and will bring the total destinations on offer from Bristol Airport to 25.

”The introduction of four new routes to Pula, Santorini, Dubrovnik and Marrakech are very welcome and provides exciting new destinations for passengers in the region to visit. Dubrovnik also adds a fly-cruise option, while additional flights to Sharm el Sheikh and Heraklion offer a wider choice with more flexible stay lengths for passengers across the South West and Wales,” said Shaun Browne, aviation director, Bristol Airport.

[yeo valley]

Looks like brs just caught with the thomson new route and additions for s2015. all this was released about a week to 10 days vago. if you look back at a few posts they are all discussed on them.

[MerchantVenturer]

The Bristol Airport website has carried the airport's press release since Monday (28 April). Local news media outlets and the travel trade press/web sites have picked it up at various times through the week.

First Greyhound link from/to Newport-Cardiff-Swansea

From Sunday the route is being revised leading to a cut of up to 25 minutes in journey times. It will no longer call at UWE in North Bristol or at Bristol country bus & coach station but instead will operate via Avonmouth and the A4 Portway. I wondered about the advisability of routing right through the city from north to south and the bus company now seems to realise that with the often congested traffic conditions it wasn't a good idea.

It was never possible to travel between airport and Bristol bus station on this service anyway, only between Bristol and South Wales which meant non-airport travellers, and I understand this part of the service wasn't well used. Some journeys will extend to Swansea University.

[MILEHIGHBOY]

Anyone know why the above is operating into BRS today?

Spanish Exchange Students?

[G3jetman]

Yes it was students.....nice to see different colours coming in, although it was the old colour scheme! Freebird finished their winter cultural flights from/to Antalya via GLA today!

[MerchantVenturer]

G3jetman

I note the Freebird Antalya flights have operated weekly since January. Do you know if it was a case of Turkish people being exposed to West Country and Scottish culture (The Wurzels and pipe bands - the two together would be interesting) or Britons enjoying the cultural delights of Turkey?

[bravoromeosierra]

Hiring an A321 for a school exchange trip?! I remember when we were lucky to get a coach with a working DVD player for ours. :}

[MerchantVenturer]

Whilst reading the local rag (Weston Mercury IIRC) sat waiting at the barbers today they had an article about the airport hotel.

Apparently the airport resubmitted/modified the planning application to reflect a change in design at the end of April to make the hotel "look nicer". The article said the building project will last 70 weeks and begin in July; subject to the modified application being approved by NSC.


That does seem to be the case according to a Construction Management Plan submitted to the local authority. The submission relates to a 251-room hotel.

http://wam.n-somerset.gov.uk/MULTIWAM/doc/Letter%20from%20Applicant/Agent-2378390.pdf?extension=.pdf&id=2378390&location=Volume4&contentType=application/pdf&pageCount=1

Nearly five years ago the airport announced an agreement with Pedersen Airport Hotels to develop an onsite hotel who, at that time, were expected to select an internationally recognised brand and it was hoped the hotel would be open by 2012.

I seem to remember reading a while back that the airport intended to press on itself with the hotel so presumably the agreement with Pedersen has lapsed/been terminated/is no more for whatever reason.

Airport hotel ready for take-off ? Bristol Airport (http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/media-centre/news-releases/2009/10/airport-hotel-ready-for-take-off.aspx)

[bravoromeosierra]

Thanks for sharing the document.. I did try searching on the NSC website but didn't bring anything up.

The PDF link seems to indicate things are eventually going ahead then.. I assume they have an agreement for a tenant. Holiday Inn Express, Hampton by Hilton or Premier Inn maybe?

[crackling jet]

Just an observation but where the afore mentioned 'premier' car park work that has been carried out in the last couple of weeks and if you look at the plan for the hotel location they both appear to be occupying the same ground !!!, so that isn't looking good, mind you they only specified work starts in July but failed to state what year.

I do wish they'd just get it and the multi storey car parks built, we have CWL and EXT with new owners who seem to have big plans and before you know it they'll be snapping at our heels and between them they can do a lot of damage to us and it'll be the early 80's all over again with Bristol trying play catch up, Too much complacency with the 'they'll never catch us up now' mentality.

:ugh:

[MerchantVenturer]

I'm certainly no apologist for BRS. My association with the airport is as a relatively local resident and as a passenger user of many decades and, although in general I find the facility suits my needs very well for short haul and some long haul via hubs (there are times when the London airports or sometimes BHX make more sense for me for long haul), I'm not uncritical at times, but that's the case with most if not all airports I've used when being picky.

I believe strongly that BRS has been extremely fortunate in the high quality of its senior management beginning with the late and legendary Les Wilson, with seemingly supportive owners since privatisation. For too long in city council ownership the elected representatives didn't know whether they wanted an airport or not and some wanted to be rid of their loss-making airport entirely. The same applied to the loss-making docks at Avonmouth and Royal Portbury which have also enjoyed a remarkable renaissance since being handed by the city council to the private sector (on a 150-year lease in this case).

The master plan of a decade ago that included the huge outline expansion plans now approved was delayed in execution for several years mainly by the need to overcome the many objections raised by the highly-organised opponents. The recession then took a hold on the economy with the inevitable negative affect on the aviation industry although BRS was affected later and to a lesser degree and began to recover earlier than many regional airports in this country.

Nevertheless, passenger numbers did not keep pace with the original master plan projections after 2008 which is a major factor in the pace of the infrastructure expansion as the airport had always said it would be carried out incrementally as passenger traffic increased.

In fact, in recent years such things as additional aircraft stands and the central walkway that's nearing completion have seen some of the expansion planks put in place, and since part privatisation in 1997/full privatisation in 2001 there have been numerous amelioration schemes of one sort of another with, at an estimate, approaching £100 million spent in that time.

16 months ago two frameworks of 13 contractors were signed in order to avoid the costly and time-consuming EU procurement rules when the expansion plans moved forward. The extension of the main terminal to the west appears to be moving forward - I read somewhere recently that work will begin within two years - with a design contractor appointed two years ago.

I'm not aware of any plans by EXT and CWL to match this scale of infrastructure expansion apart from the Western Gateway proposals at CWL which at this stage appear no more than a wish.

Given their track record I'm confident that BRS will be expanded by the current management/owners as demand dictates. It's just a pity that the physical limitations of the place present such an obstacle to what could be realistically achieved at a more suitable site, but that's the fault of previous generations and BRS is not the only airport in the wrong place by any means.

[derelicte]

It really is the most terrible shame that both BRS and CWL are not shut down and replaced with a proper airport by the Severn somewhere. I know this is old ground. I'll get me coat.

[Pandy]

It really is the most terrible shame that both BRS and CWL are not shut down and replaced with a proper airport by the Severn somewhere. I know this is old ground. I'll get me coat.

Much better idea than Boris Island far more accessible to 90% of the population, I'll dream on

[MerchantVenturer]

I'm certainly not against the idea of a Severnside airport in theory although the practical aspects might be more challenging, as well as political and nationalistic sensibilities relating to the actual location.

The ideas/schemes put forward in the past have usually featured an airport on the Welsh side of the estuary although a Pilning (north of Bristol) airport was considered and rejected in the 2003 government white paper on the future of civil aviation.

Some have linked the much discussed Severn Barrage idea with a Severnside airport enabling road and rail traffic to cross the estuary on the barrage. The Barrage seems to have more support in Wales than it does on the English side of the river, not least because it would emasculate Bristol's port facilities.

Had earlier generations exercised a greater degree of prescience and co-operation (although in fairness few if any people prior to this century could have seriously predicted how busy airports such as Bristol would become compared to their previous somnolent existence decade after decade) Bristol Airport might now be FZO/EGTG instead of BRS/EGGD.

[MerchantVenturer]

At the end of March at #2396 I drew attention to the fact that easyJet is now the only carrier between Bristol and Paris with a single daily rotation to CDG and that by the weekend several days in the week ahead had already sold out on either the inbound or outbound sectors, sometimes both.

This trend has continued ever since with next week the most extreme yet. CDG-BRS is sold out for the next seven days from today through to next Saturday, and BRS-CDG sold out today and next Friday.

Effectively this means that there is no Bristol-Paris service next week for most people now looking to book, because the majority would want to travel there and back from whichever end they began. This is undoubtedly excellent business for easyJet because the fares on the five days where there is availability on BRS-CDG are not cheap with the highest shown as £238.74 next Saturday.

I wonder how many people who have had to look elsewhere in recent weeks may be lost to the route in the future and whether someone like bmi regional might be looking at a possible opportunity. Their fares would normally be higher than easyJet's but with the current monopoly on the route it can be seen that some passengers have to pay a large premium to travel with easyJet. I know that costs/availability of slots at CDG or even Orly come into it but Flybe quickly stepped in to increase its daily Exeter-CDG to double daily when it became apparent that Air France was leaving BRS.

Ryanair

The news this week discussed in the CWL thread regarding Ryanair commencing a weekly Thursday TFS-CWL this winter might or might not have an effect on BRS in the future.

FR has presumably calculated that its won't seriously dilute its BRS-TFS which will operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays this winter with easyJet operating the route on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. I wonder why FR didn't opt for a day when it had no BRS service. The timings of the BRS and CWL routes are both morning services, albeit CWL begins at the TFS end, so there is not even the possibility of adding an extra half day's holiday by flying from one airport and returning to the other.

On a more general note, it will be interesting to see if this is the beginning of a change of Ryanair policy for Severnside. It hasn't really kicked on at BRS in recent years. Some routes come and go and last summer the base was reduced from five to two aircraft, apparently because of a failure to agree peak hour and overnight parking charges with the airport, although rotations and routes were not reduced in number through the use of non-based aircraft for the majority of flights.

This summer the base seems to be three aircraft with the other rotations again operated by non-based aircraft.

It may be then that CWL will see an increase of FR routes in the future. If it does it remains to be seen how this will affect its BRS network. Ryanair might be using the CWL initiative as a shot across the BRS bows to persuade them that it (Ryanair) calls the tune and to remember that, or it might be a move to spread the Severnside load ............on Ryanair's terms.

[EI-BUD]

MerchantVenturer,
You raise very interesting points in your post.

When FR had limited European routes and flew Dublin - Murcia as one of its earlier Spanish routes, it then launched Dublin - Alicante, ironically on the same days at the same times. I have no doubt this was a closely measured comparison and various stats measuring everything from sales to yield to no of customers checking the pricing to the level of ancillary services booked by passengers on respective was powerful data.

I'm not a Ryanair insider so I don't know for sure. Though I'd say the CWL TFS route will be very good exercise. If hypothetically the data shows that CWL is more attractive for holiday fliers (eg) then they may ultimately treat CWL as the secondary airport for BRS... Look shat is happening at Milan and Brussels. I can see CWL bring the secondary airport for BRS and a host if destinations being served that are not ex BRS , the idea to closely match BRS for this experiment on a similar route makes perfect sense ...

[FRatSTN]

I guess you mean a little bit like how they now operate from Liverpool and Manchester. A lot of the more regular running major city routes go from Manchester eg. Brussels, Madrid, Milan, Rome. Plus Manchester has a higher frequency on the typical sun routes like Alicante, Malaga, Palma etc. than Liverpool.


Liverpool is now a more random mix with a lower frequency on the Spanish sun routes but more in the way of the traditional smaller Irish, French and Eastern European airports.


I'm not sure IF Ryanair do eventually open a base or at least expand more significantly in Cardiff whether that will cause a similar split between Cardiff and Bristol. I'd say that as Bristol is arguable the "primary" airport of the two that major city routes such as Milan and Barcelona would be more likely Bristol than Cardiff. However Bristol doesn't seem to have all that many city routes with Ryanair. For instance they still use Girona rather than Barcelona El Prat and other cities like Berlin, Rome, Venice etc. they don't operate at all. I'd say EasyJet is probably the reason why.


Unless they add more city type routes from Cardiff, I can't really see a split between certain types of routes/markets that would suit Bristol/Cardiff. I think Cardiff could end up replicating something along the lines of Bournemouth's network of almost exclusively summer sun routes to Spain and the Canaries, with little effect on Bristol.

[HDP]

Any news on the rumours about Turkish Airlines starting a route to IST? It's been a while since I heard any news.

[MerchantVenturer]

I've not heard anything recently.

Turkish has been expanding aggressively in recent years with BRS thought by some to be the next likely recipient because there is no direct Middle East connectivity from south west Britain with the smaller Turkish Airlines aircraft to Turkey likely to be a better fit commercially and operationally than the larger aircraft used by the MEB3.

The ubiquitous Simon Calder gave the rumour legs in a piece in his newspaper at the beginning of this year.

Perhaps a more realistic appreciation of the situation was put by anno aero in a feature about BRS last year which can be accessed via this link:

Bristol Airport set to hit 6m passengers again; easyJet rules the roost (http://www.anna.aero/2013/02/13/bristol-airport-set-to-hit-6m-passengers-again/)

The BRS routes director told anno aero at that time, “We work very hard to match the right airline to the right route. We are not in the business of encouraging new routes which are not sustainable for our airline partners, so we will sometimes sacrifice short term gain in favour of finding the right fit.”

anno aero believed then that the airport might turn to Turkish Airlines if the operational performance challenges proved too great for the MEB3 to overcome.

Realistically then Turkish seems far more likely than an MEB3 future presence but the timescale is hard to estimate.

Ryanair

Many thanks for your thoughts EI-BUD and FRatSTN.

[MerchantVenturer]

It seems the arrival of the two A 321s has not coincided with the best of fortune at BRS in the past week, as reported elsewhere in this forum.

Last Sunday the lunchtime flight to Zante was replaced by a Small Planet B 737 leading to over 60 passengers being unable to board and being taken by road to Gatwick where they eventually left over 12 hours late.

The following day the afternoon flight to Bodrum was delayed over five hours when a TCX B 757 had to be positioned in to operate the flight.

Today the flight from Enfidha due at 1330 is delayed with an eta shown as 2231. Furthermore, it's being operated by a Transavia B 738 which, if the scheduled A 321 was booked to be anywhere near full, will presumably mean some passengers were unable to board the flight. I don't know what flew out to Enfidha this morning.

The afternoon and early evening flights for the two A 321s out of BRS to Turkey are shown as 'departed' on the BRS website.

bmi regional

Doesn't appear to be any availability to Milan Malpensa on the bmi regional website from November.

[caaardiff]

Not a great week for charters at BRS. Both TCX flights today showing next info and TOM Enfidha nearly 6 hour delay.
TCX had 2 aircraft in yesterday to operate to Enfidha. The flight was split between Transavia and what appeared to be a private 737.

[ericlday]

Looks as though the TOM Enfiidha is a 'W' flight with Luton that has picked up 6hr delay ex LTN
Airborne LTN with 8hr+ delay

[MerchantVenturer]

This morning's flights to Ibiza at 0600 and to Palma at 0645 are both shown on the airport's website as 'Delayed Next Info 1400'.

However, the 1300 to Zante, normally flown by the aircraft operating the IBZ rotation is shown as 'boarding'. There is no information against the 1350 to Dalaman, normally flown by the aircraft that operated the PMI rotation.

A poster on the Thomas Cook thread says that the airline has five leased aircraft today: a Vueling A 320; a Multiflight B 733; a Transavia B 738; a NEOS B 738; an Air Greenland A 330.

The TOM Enfidha is flown as a 'w' as already stated. The two based TOM B 757s are also currently showing slight delays of about an hour inbound from Malaga and Arrecife respectively.

[Welsh Bobby]

Whats happened now re this morning's TCX delays? IBZ showing as cancelled the PMI has disappeared of the departures board??

[mathers_wales_uk]

Both the TCX7006 Ibiza & TCX7052 Palma are showing as cancelled when I just had a look at the Bristol departure board.

Both return flights on the Bristol Airport website are showing as delayed.

The Palma Airport website is stating that TCX7053 is expected to depart to Bristol at 22:55 (11hrs 45 mins late) with the arrival from Bristol expected to arrive at 22:00.

There is no record of the TCX7006/TCX7007 on the Ibiza Airport website which is likely to mean it was cancelled.

Even if the Zakynthos managed to depart on shedule it is not meant to arrive back into Bristol until 21:20 meaning a relief aircraft is likely to be flown into Bristol to operate the delayed Palma flight unless passengers have been bussed to an alternative departure airport.

[Welsh Bobby]

so does anyone know what's happened to this morning IBZ passengers- outbound and inbound?

[MerchantVenturer]

No idea, Welsh Bobby, although a poster on another aviation forum says he was at Leed-Bradford today when a Multiflight aircraft (presumably the B 733 mentioned above) brought in a load of passengers with TCX/BRS labels who were waiting for coaches. Maybe these were from Ibiza. The coach trip would have taken twice as long as the flight.

At least this afternoon's rotations to/from Zante and Dalaman operated normally.

[MILEHIGHBOY]

Apparently Pax on the above were bussed to MAN.

They made the MAN Flight wait for 4 hours while these pax were bussed up!

[MerchantVenturer]

A poster on another aviation forum who is in a position to know has just posted that Titan will operate BRS-IBZ-PMI tomorrow and return with a B763, with a Privilege B757 from MAD operating BRS-CFU tomorrow.

[MILEHIGHBOY]

Apparently the PMI-BRS Pax are estimated to depart around 20:40L tomorrow. So by my estimates thats going to be a 32 Hour delay!

[secallaghan]

Both flights cancelled, pax bussed to Bristol hotel over night, TCX 7006 will now depart 2.35PM on the 2nd (33hour delay) and is now TCX 0914 via Titan airways, not sure on the departure time for Palma but believed to be something similar.


One of the pax's in a conversation with a airport taxi driver (the pax where local and went home for the night) told them Thomas Cook knew they could not provide air crews for both flights the previous day, (apparently in conversation with a pilot on the Saturday).:{

[MerchantVenturer]

The delayed Ibiza and Palma flights have now made the local television news and the local paper.

It seems that some passengers may have been taken to IBZ or PMI by other means and some brought back in the same way because the local news media talk of around 250 passengers still in Bristol this afternoon and others waiting in the Balearics for transport home.

The Titan B 767 was itself delayed leaving and took off from BRS about 1830, 36 hours after the passenger should have left.

Apart from the delay itself, the main complaint from passengers seemed to be an entire lack of communication from the travel company/airline, which seems all too common in the industry. They were kept at BRS for around eleven hours on Sunday before being taken to a Bristol hotel, having been told they'd be picked up from the hotel at 10 this morning. They weren't. Eventually they were taken to BRS and should at last be approaching their holiday destinations now.

Thomas Cook has apologised for the situation which they blame on 'the impact of short term availability of crew, including sickness'.

Passengers will receive 400 euro each as compensation for the delay. This plus any further compensation under EU regulations, plus the cost of hotel accommodation and leasing of aircraft will cost the company a huge amount, and this isn't the only incident of significant delays and leased aircraft in the past few days.

[MerchantVenturer]

press release / document by bmi regional (http://static.ow.ly/docs/14-06-05%20bmi%20regional%20Bristol%20Success%20APPROVED_2ejD.doc)

The above was linked through the BRS Twitter site today.

It's a joint press release from the airport and airline primarily focusing on the achievements at BRS. Unsurprisingly, given the nature of such documents, it presents a positive and upbeat scenario.

The press release does say that the airline plans to increase its cabin crew base size at the airport by 30% in the coming months which appears to equate to an additional four staff. It also mentions 'robust growth' on the German routes following the LH code share.

Milan Malpensa is still not bookable for the coming winter so this may not be part of any future plans.

[nivsy]

All flights curently grounded at BRS has ben reported on Radio 5 live due to power failure? Due to be on a GLA bound aircraft later today - now have my doubts. Any up dates on reopening times and expected knock on delay?

[TSR2]

All flights, inbound and outbound appear to be operating as normal according to the airpot's Arrivals/Departures Board.

[ericlday]

I would hardly call it operating as normal with the delays that have been incurred.

[JTN]

Not completely...
Flights are leaving (8 away so far), but without hold luggage. Still quite a backlog of flights scheduled 6am-8am not yet starting check-in.

[nivsy]

indeed...sounds a bit caotic-this is what I get I guess for not choosing my usually reliable BA ex LHR! Lesson learnt.....thought since within the area "oh lets go EasyJet from Bristol....wrong decision I am now thinking!

[stalling attitude]

Thats right Nivsy. Fires and power failures are a uniquely Bristol phenomenon and couldn't happen anywhere else. :ugh:

[JTN]

Nivsy

Don't want to get into a fight over this, as I (at least partly) agree that primary and secondary power going down is not very impressive - accepting of course that we don't yet know the severity of the incident or whether it was even possible for the backup generators to have solved the problem.

But in BRS and Ezy defence I fly very regularly on BA from LHR and Ezy from BRS. Ezy / BRS have a by-far better track record re on-time performance on the routes I use. The difference is that Ezy's operation does not have the resilience of BA, so on the (very rare) occasion I have had delays on Ezy, they tend to be fairly lengthy since there are no spare planes sitting around to pick up the slack when something goes wrong. This is the first time I have personally experienced a delay caused by Bristol Airport itself.

[Stone Cold II]

Yeah easyJets fault for starting the fire. Things like this wouldn't have happened in BA and LHR especially when things like snow happen because they were brilliant a few short years ago.........oh wait.

[EpsilonVaz]

FYI easyJet have a number of spare aircraft for disruption.

[nivsy]

Dont recall ever actually blaming EasyJet particularly...just myself for making the wrong decision...although for info the last time I did actually fly Easy from GLA to BRS which was scheduled for a Sunday night actually arrived in Bristol on the Monday so excuse me for giving EZY and BRS another chance. Still at Bristol. Just under 4 hour delay. Terminal caotic.....but functioning. We all have choices...why are BRS lovers so "touchy" :ugh: small airport at top of hill syndrome?

Oh and the airport website is really poor for keeping up with latest delays....but its ok cos lets concentrate on vouchers that gives you a few pence off a fat burger!

[TOM100]

In fairness there needs to be a pretty serious
investigation. Pretty poor really - let's hope for BRS
there is a credible explanation (will be expensive whatever).

I work in an office with 1000 people in, not a
multi million users, complex, safety critical
operation and we have multiple back up generators
including diesel ones so the lights should never go out. They need
a lot of maintaining and very regular load testing.....simulating
peak load use......

[nivsy]

althogh to be honest I dont think it has done BRS airport much harm - stags and hens filling the bar, lots of coffee and food bought...probably a nice wee earner...well until the airlines maybe seek comp from BRS?

With car in the long term car park at BRS -Another point why dont they actually tarmac that car park properly.....I am trying hard to forget that I could have driven up by now....anyway, such is life. I am sure the return on Sunday will be pain free and on the ground at BRS well on schedule!

[MerchantVenturer]

With car in the long term car park at BRS -Another point why dont they actually tarmac that car park properly.....

It's a perfectly reasonable question and you're certainly not the first to raise the issue. The answer is probably that there is little competition and that punters will park at the airport anyway.

In fact, there are competitors nearby some of whom in the past were the subject of complaints by the airport to the planning authority. Some were closed down by the local authority but others have continued, possibly because they also offer accommodation and parking in some cases. They now seem to co-exist with the airport as their minibuses are in and out of the airport's drop-off car park all day long. Nevertheless, the airport's own car parks never appear to lack customers.

Two multi-storey car parks feature in the airport's expansion plans.

As for today's unfortunate events the airport and airline staff deserve high praise for their efforts in keeping things going in the face of challenging conditions. A number of flights are still showing delays, some of several hours, but there have been no cancellations. The worst of the disruption occurred at the busiest time with 23 of today's 90 departures scheduled before 0730 with most of the aircraft being 150-seaters or larger. Given BRS's limited footprint there were a lot of passengers to squeeze into a relatively small space with others arriving all the time.

Most of those passengers interviewed on the local telly, radio and newspaper were sympathetic to the situation. A pat on the back too for Robert Sinclair the airport CEO who came out of his office onto the 'factory floor' to explain and apologise to potentially disgruntled passengers.

The main question appears to relate to the failure of the back-up generators and the CEO recognised this in an interview on the local tv news.

[TOM100]

I read it was a small fire in a distribution panel
if the panel serves your mains and back up
or you have back up generators located near
to mains panel then you really don't have a
back up as you either have a single point of
failure or single location of failure.

Hopefully the Head of Engineering or whoever
will get to root cause.

in these circumstances I am sure the staff
worked under great pressure and as u say shud be praised.

Obviously this should not have happened though. I am not going to gush about Robert Simclair tho - that's his job and he shud lead from the front. When I worked for BA all senior managers and directors wud be in the thick of it with you in a mass disruption situation.

[Standard Noise]

Normally we have a Delivery frequency open for an hour or so to deal with the early morning rush. Today it opened up late and we had the freq going for several hours and despite there not appearing to be a great deal happening, there was a huge amount of work being done by the team of three in the Tower with ever changing flight plans, slots and talking to Ops Depts at the airlines about extra aircraft coming in to help with the backlog.


Hats off to the customer facing teams in the Terminal, they faced a huge task. What always annoys me is the mentality of 'it's chaos, no one knows what's going on'. Nobody comes to work expecting that sort of situation, it's almost impossible to prepare for.

[TOM100]

Do you know if they short shipped bags ?

The fact it happened at busiest time is even more reason to test all your BCPs at that time.