BRISTOL - 4

[Invicta DC4]

If I recall correctly, the 707 that was "stolen" had a PPL in the right hand seat.

[hostiegirl]

Thanks Watabench! We had a lovely little base lots of our crew went to Cyprus for summer as we had a base out there, been no mention of this in media you'd only think we had 2 bases at Lgw and Man the way they talk!!. Well they have been stranded fingers crossed they have managed to get home today!.
Good luck to all xl crew in getting new jobs! Not going to be easy an awful time to be looking for other airlines! but fingers crossed.

Just like to say a massive thanks to all Brs staff from Servisair to alpha, ambilift guys, engineers, bus drivers, cleaners etc etc:ok: been up at Bristol for 10 years
Flying colours/Jmc/Go-fly/Easyjet and finally Xl been great
So sad it's over for now!:{

[Bristol_Traveller]

I've noticed that LH seem to have put a bunch of FRA-BRS flights back into the schedule, after the dramatic pruning earlier in the month. (Unfortunately, not soon enough for me to have avoided having to come back to LON on weekend. Grrr). It's back to 3x on Weekdays, 2x on Weekends.

Ah - no they haven't. Their "mobile" timetable is wrong. The main timetable still shows virtually nothing from Friday til Sunday again. Grrr

However, the £39 fares (in E class) don't appear to feature any more. I'm honestly not too upset about that. It wasn't an ideal strategy to out-price EZ and FR to Europe ex-BRS. I'm quite happy to pay more for a ex-BRS service that means I can avoid LHR, rather than expect LOCO type pricing. I've got a good load of flights ex-BRS this month, and while it's definitely not 99p fares, they represent fair pricing in my opinion. Is anyone still getting stupid pricing TO Bristol?

Last night's LH4964 FRA-BRS was well loaded (60-70 people?). Ｉthink I spotted a few XL crew bags???

[hostiegirl]

BT yes those crew bags would have belonged to the Bristol crew who were based in Larnaca for the summer to get home they had to go lca-ath-fra-brs to FINALLY get home to no job! Expect to see those crew bags very soon on ebay to pay some bills!!!:ok:

[Bristol_Traveller]

Ah, that figures. They had Aegean BPs, and I was wondering what on earth routing they'd been on to get those. Then I saw the bag tags.

They seemed pretty cheery, considering. (Whereas I was in a grumpy slump, following a "challenging" weekend in AMS).

[andy_smith89uk]

> However, the £39 fares (in E class) don't appear to feature any more. Are the £48.52 fares (inc charges/taxes) not just the £39 fares but with increased fuel costs 'tho? Base fare is shown as £12, rest = taxes and charges.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Yes, the E fares are still loaded (at £11 rtn - EKOMBI11) - and that would have been the lowest fare (formerly £78 rtn, inc taxes and charges - now about £83, because they "discount" the YQ on the lowest fares).

However, from what I can see, virtually all availability in E has been zeroed out on all flights, and there's very little T / L avails. Obviously, this affects all the other E/T/LKOMBI- fares around Europe, so far fewer people will be using the very lowest fare class to fly into/out of Bristol (it would appear).

Ex-BHX, E is also virtually zero, T is very tight, and L similarly so - so maybe we're not being unduly picked on?

This means the cheapest widely available fare will be £165 (TKOMBI11) and quite a few people will end up on WKOMBI11 at £215.

[birdscarer]

The BBC has reported that Mac are (predictably) one of the interested parties in LGW.
Will be interesting to see if BRS would be a sister company to LGW, or if they would sell it from the portfolio to satisfy Comp Comm.

[Bristol_Traveller]

I'd be flabbergasted if the CC considered there to be any competitive issue between LGW and BRS.

Whether Mac are in a position to purchase - that's another question.

[bristolflyer]

I agree the CC had no problem with BAA owning Southampton. It was the London and Scottish monopoly they had problems with. Perhaps Bristol could have the old monorail from the satelite at Gatwick instead of a covered walkway!!

[Bristol based Taffy]

Great idea bristolflyer.:D

Oh and while they're there a few thousand feet of runway wouldn't go amiss :E:E:E

[balkan]

With regard to the XL 737 parked at BRS, the aircraft has been 'secured' in such a way as to not actually touch or do anything to the aircraft but to prevent access due to payment issues. Its been heard that XL would currently owe the Ground Handling agency something in the region of £45,000 and that's nothing compared to whats been heard about how much is owed to the airport authority!!

[anoraknophobia]

I was at the back of the airport this afternoon and noticed a hydraulic lift catering lorry was parked at the back of the aircraft. The rear door of the plane was open and although I coud not see any activity I presume that catering equipment belonging to the catering company was being removed.Further to this another site on pprune is stating that the aircraft is due fly to Lasham in the next couple of days.
I don't know if any of you can remember when Paramount airways went in to receivership,but I remember the late Les Wilson had ground vehicles parked in front of the aircraft. If I rememer correctly a couple of days later these were removed and the aircraft flew back to the leasing company without the outstanding bills being paid.

[crackling jet]

yes and a couple of foreign airlines were quite surprised to have their ex Paramount a/c being grounded at Bristol, by having a ' lean ' placed on them when they visited, only to be released after money owed by Paramount use was paid by the new operators, as a bankrupt airlines a/c carries its own individual debt where ever it goes.

[Standard Noise]

Situation must have been resolved in some way. The aircraft is no longer blocked in and is, from what I understand, free to leave for Lasham. Rumour has it the ground handling agents are refusing to push it off stand and the a/c is not permitted to 'power back' off stand (well, not yet anyway).

[Standard Jet Dep]

Hostiegirl I have obviously worked with you in the Past at my little baby Flying Colours in BRS and then onto JMC. I am curious to your identity, so if you dont mind drop me a PM.
As you probaly recall with the TCX base closure in 2002 its not very pleasant at all however it will all come around again. But just when is the answer. All the very best to you in the future anyway.

[Goldilocks95]

I also heard that the xl aircraft was free to go this afternoon but the managers apparently told the ramp teams to block it or refuse to move in some way! apparently its because of the amount of money that is owedto servisair. i know it was still parked up on western apron when i past it at 10ish this morning and the door was all sealed with the tractors blocking it in....sad sight to see. Of course it had the 767 first choice outbound Sanford parked up beside it this morning as well.

[crackling jet]

is anyone going to take over from XL, as there seems to be independent travel agencies and tour operators that utilised XL a/c, it would be a shame to let it go when the passengers are there to fill an additional Brs based a/c for some airline to step in.

Perhaps A Bristolian may have some views on this !!!!

[Welsh Bobby]

passengers are there to fill an additional Brs based a/c for some airline to step in.


yes most of them are from South Wales!- base any new airline at CWL and fill the seats from there,that would make a nice change!

[Bristol based Taffy]

Hey don't worry Welsh Bobby you've got Globespan for next year.

I'm sure they'll provide you with plenty of interesting stories, if not pasengers.

:eek:

[crackling jet]

Welsh Bobby,

not the 'mines bigger than yours' Cwl/Brs argument coming up again !

Cardiff and bristol both had an XL a/c based unit a couple of years ago, however Bristol filled theirs and kept it, Cardiff did not so lost theirs ! So how come that if there is enough call for a Cwl based unit why is it not there now, and why did XL close their base for last summer 07 ?

The Brs-Cwl situation in the early eighties was reversed, with all the new operators heading over the bridge. But the city council put in place an excellent management and marketing team prior to the airport being sold some years later, where from its implementation the figures rose steadily each year.

Then when it was finally sold it went to a transport orientated company with the expertise to run and build on the already successful reputation, unlike Cwl which was sold to a couple of welsh pasty farmers from the valley's

[santito]

Any news on the proposed walkway yet?

[bristolflyer]

I've heard Cardiff is allowing it's runway to be used for filming Top Gear due to the long periods of times it is empty!

[WATABENCH]

XL aircraft left thursday. Dont know where it flew too, how it was pushed or how it got fuel on board.

[airvanman]

David Copperfield made the XL vanish!

went to Lasham with loads of others so Jethro is saying

[Severn]

I appologise if this is already known and has already been discussed but
I was wondering if there is one less based TOM aircraft next year in CWL?
I ask because from looking at the TOM summer timetable for both June and August next year it seems that BRS have more TOM flights per week than CWL.
If i am correct CWL have 3 TOM based aircraft this summer, where as BRS have 2 FCA 757 based aircraft (with a visiting 767) and this is reflected in the TOM online timetable.
But next year, as both TOM and FCA timetables are both in the new TOM timetable, and it seems that CWL only has 31 flights per week (62 if you count outbound and inbound) with no long haul with TOM.
BRS on the other hand has 74 flights per week including TOM Sanford and Cancun long haul flights (each one per week).
(This has all been taken off the TOM online timetable, looking at both a week in June and a week in August next year, as well as looking at the current timetable for the last month/this month)
So it seems....
CWL have 1 more flight per week to:
AGP, ALC, FNC, GRO, IBZ and KGS
where as...
BRS have 1 more flight per week to:
AYT, BIA, CUN, DLM, FUE, MAH, MIR, NAP, PMI, SFB, SKG and VRN

and both have the same number of flights to:
ACE,BJV,BOJ,CFU,EFL,FAO,HER,LCA,LPA,MLA,PFO,REU,RHO,SSH,TFS & ZTH

So what does the future look like with TOM in both CWL and BRS?

[MerchantVenturer]

The based XL B738 flew fifteen charter rotations a week from BRS this summer (during the previous 2-3 years there was an Air Malta A320 operating for the Group as well so the operation had already been scaled down a bit).

The destinations flown this summer by XL are listed below with the total number of charter rotations flown from BRS by all operators (incl XL) to the destinations in question shown in the figure on the right of each row .

Kefalonia 1 x weekly - 2
Corfu 1 x weekly - 5
Dalaman 1 x weekly - 5
Palma 2 x weekly - 11
Sharm el Sheikh 2 x weekly - 4
Larnaca 1 x weekly - 6
Tenerife South 1 x weekly - 3
Lanzarote 1 x weekly - 4
Crete 1 x weekly - 5
Rhodes 2 x weekly - 4
Kos 1 x weekly - 2
Zante 1 x weekly - 4

With the charter market at most airports in a gradual decline it might be that not every XL rotation will be picked up by someone else.

I'm not sure if XL had published its plans for BRS in summer 09 and, if so, how they compared with summer 2008.

[crackling jet]

What was the second Globespan departure to Toronto (YHM) this morning, a 737 came in about an hour after the 757 departed, was this put on to catch some of the ex Zoom passengers from Cwl ?

[cyfarthfa]

Crackling jets remarks on the 19th are spot on. Time to bury once and for all this BRS v CWL rivalry. As he stated in the late 1980,s early 1990,s BRS had the dynamic Les Wilson and team driving the business ever upwards. CWL was at that time rum by a consortium of three County Councils. It was management by committee in other words no decisions could be made without reference back to three sets of councils and we all know how inefficient that is.
However, with reference to the "pasty farmers from the valleys" they went to one of the west countries finest schools - Taunton. They must have have learned something there as they are now both multi milionaires and that was before their company TBI bought Cardiff Luton & Belfast International airports.

[extalex]

The ex-based XL 738 departed BRS for Lasham for storage so that is where it is for now. Before that it was on Stand 30L.

Alex

[crackling jet]

Not many details as yet, only that it's a New Zealander from the finance world

[WATABENCH]

From BBC Bristol


Security concern grounded flight
A plane had to make an emergency landing after the crew alerted police to a security threat on board.

The Eurocypria flight from Bristol to Cyprus was diverted to London Stansted on Sunday morning.

Essex police officers surrounded the plane and the passengers and baggage were unloaded.

It was found to have been a false alarm and police said there was no cause for concern. Officers would not release details about the nature of the threat.

The journey continued at about 1545 BST and the plane flew to Crete where passengers stayed overnight before another flight took them to their destination in Cyprus the following morning.

Precautionary measure

A spokesman for Essex Police said that they were not investigating the incident any further.

"Essex Police received information from the crew of an aircraft that there was a potential threat to passengers on board a flight which was from Bristol.

"The Eurocypria flight landed shortly after 1pm on Sunday 21 September at Stansted Airport, with the airline taking the decision to land the aircraft.

"Passengers and crew were met by officers and security staff.

"It was soon established that there was no validity in the threat.

"Following a delay due to security measures, the passengers were able to continue with their onward journey."

A spokesman from Stansted Airport said: "The captain landed the aircraft at Stansted as a precautionary measure and it was quickly found that there was no validity in the threat."

No-one from Eurocypria has been available for comment.

[danielhobbs]

We have some more information and picture of the new CEO to join Bristol International.

Bristol Spotting | Aircraft Spotting, News and Photos at Bristol International Airport (http://spotting.biagrouponline.co.uk/?page=news)

Will be very interesting to see what he can bring to an airport like Brisotl International.

[flyerboy]

After looking on thomas cook website for any changes for W08 an interesting addition is LS2036/37 to SSH. I would imagine due to the distance this to be 757

[MerchantVenturer]

It’s now reaching the end of the summer schedules and I’ve had a look at the Ryanair passenger figures for August as the first anniversary of the opening of the BRS base approaches. Load factors are shown to the nearest half of one per cent.

I know yield is the really important figure but the load factors at least give a clue to the potential market for a route.

Katowice 3031 passengers, average load 168, load factor 89%
Wroclaw 4382, 168, 89%
Rzeszow 2753, 172, 91%
Poznan 3052, 169, 89.5%
Budapest 2996, 166, 88%
Porto 4553, 163, 86%
Bratislava 2666, 166, 88%
Riga 4457, 162, 85.5%
Dinard 4139, 159, 84%
Bergerac 4598, 164, 86.5%
Beziers 4396, 169, 89.5%
Pau 4258, 152, 80.5%
Milan Bergamo 9757, 157, 83%
Knock 5665, 157, 83%
Derry 4054, 119, 63%*
(* lf shown for the full 189 seats in the B 738 albeit Derry is load limited to fewer available seats than this.)

Derry, Porto and Pau have been axed, at least for the winter, with new routes to Gdansk, Marrakech, Szczecin and Grenoble taking their places, the last-named being the first route to go head-to-head with easyJet from BRS.

The other FR routes that are operated by aircraft from outside the BRS base are:

Girona 10294, 166, 88%
Shannon 8323, 160, 84.5%
Dublin 30217, 149, 79%

There have been reports that the Polish boom is wilting in the UK. The FR Polish routes have held up well in numbers as have the two easyJet Polish routes, viz:

Krakow 9257, 149, 95.5%
Warsaw 3896, 150, 96%

Finally, easyJet still competes with FR to Milan and carried 6885 passengers on its Malpensa route in August. easyJet appears to have dropped the Saturday rotation in August (though it has since returned) and so the average load last month was 132, a load factor of 84.5%, very similar to FR’s 83% to Bergamo.

[Standard Noise]

Shame they don't replace Derry with Belfast City.
Might be cheaper to nip home then.

[bravoromeosierra]

These seem good load factors; is this correct to a varying degree?

[crackling jet]

Reading the UK Airport News site, on the Bristol news items, there is an article headed ' management and tour operators seeking replacement for XL' this was dated last week, but no text for item appears when selected.

Does anyone know what the story was and information as to whom may be in the frame to take up the slack for the indpendant tour operators

[WATABENCH]

I noticed the same headline and no story, I heard Monarch were being courted to pick up the XL slots, but then the same rumour is also over the bridge even though CWL didnt have an XL base, I notice that TCX are doing a big cabin crew recruitment drive incl BRS and they're doing it now, which is a good 5 months before the usual period of Feb-Apr for taking on for the summer season. So may be they've got something up they're sleeve for the winter, October is a very strange time to take on staff for a charter unless you are expanding do you not think??!
I believe Tui have got 2 SSH flights over the winter on mon and thurs, but thats the only winter expansion I can see from them.

[Welshtraveller]

UK tour operator Holiday Options is advertising three weekly flights from Bristol to Olbia next Summer. The actual airline and flight times is not mentioned, just says “to be advised”. Sounds like there is a possibility Easyjet will operate this route (even though the Summer 09 flights have not been released) or perhaps Holiday Options will charter another airline such as SN Brussels. What do you think?

[2J&D]

Must be the EZY flight. I don't think Holiday Options would be able to run a 3 weekly service, against the EZY flights that operated this season. Makes it a great option for those that do not want your standard 7/14 night holiday. We as agents have found the FNC flight great as it give us more options, with the 3 weekly flights.

Would also be great to see MON at BRS. Gives us access to another operator (Cosmos) and not just TCX and Thomson! Any extra flights makes our job a little easier, especially since XL went. Did not realise until they were gone just how much they had to offer from BRS!

[WATABENCH]

Bristol to Dakar, Senegal this winter with "The Senegal Experiance". weekly flight. An intresting new route to a brand new destination for the Brits.

[freightdoggy dog]

Flyerboy...Jet2 B757 to SSH and Jet2 B737 to CMF every Sunday during the winter.

[airvanman]

WATABENCH A couple of ?s for you. Who is operating the Dakar Who is replacing AEU on the Banjul. Cheers!

[WATABENCH]

Not sure to be honest, picked up the winter guide the other day and it has it in there. The Banjul flights have been replaced by airline Hamburg International, not sure if it will be a double drop with Dakar.
First Choice no longer doing Banjul in winter from BRS.
JET2 - I guess these are charters for somebody as the routes arent on sale on JET2 website.

[flyerboy]

Dakar pax are using Brussels airlines via Brussels
Jet2 are doing SSH for Thomas Cook and CMF is possibly for Esprit
Hamburg International is correct and should be 2 A319s

[WATABENCH]

Senegal experiance website shows flights with Hamburg Intl in to BJL and not Dakar as per the airports destination guide....confusion reigns i guess!

[hostiegirl]

Jet2 are operating the ssh and cmf that XL were meant to be doing this winter.

[Wycombe]

Quickie question:

My folks are due to fly Titan, on behalf of Fred Olsen Cruises, from BRS-CIA next Thurs (16th Oct), returning via AGP just over a week later.

Their info says type = 757 or equivalent. I thought Titan had something smaller at BRS?

[Vasto1M]

The cruise flights have used both the 757 and 737 this summer. The flight on the 16th is due to be a 757.

[Bristol based Taffy]

I see that the BEP is running an article regarding the 'possible' developement of dear old Filton International airport on their web page.

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

You can see the muppets at "sadly broke" running around like headless chickens again complaining about noise issues and climate change.
Whilst booking their cheap flight to Spain from Lulsgate Bottom

:E:E

Suprisingly no comment on the web page from well known poster ;)

[fyrefli]

I see that the BEP is running an article regarding the 'possible' developement of dear old Filton International airport on their web page.

I preferred your uncorrected version where you called it the "BNP" :)

After all, I (and others of my acquaintance) have long referred to it as the Bristol Evening Fascist ;)

[Bristol based Taffy]

Yes...oooppss :E

M.V. will be laughing :O

[MerchantVenturer]

The Bristol Evening Post ceased to have any ‘feel’ for its community when ownership moved from local control to the Northcliffe Newspaper Group some years ago.

It seems to rely a lot on press hand-outs from organisations with a local connection, but then I imagine so do many regional newspapers.

The re-hash of the Filton story seems to have a occurred on a slow news day when a local planning consultant, a marvellous title for people of varying skills and knowledge, told the newspaper that the Regional Spatial Strategy (something drummed up by two unelected ‘quangos’, the South West Regional Development Agency and the South West Regional Assembly) opens the door for a second airport for Bristol at Filton. The government though still seems distinctly unimpressed.

Incidentally, the good old BEP/'BNP' keep perpetuating the myth that FZO has one of the longest runways in the country and it was rolled out again in the current hack’s piece. At 91 metres (299 feet) it might be one of the widest but its 2,460-odd metres certainly don't make it one of the longest, but significantly longer than BRS for all that.

Bae tried to turn Filton into a city airport in the 1990s but the idea was kicked out of court by the relevant government minister of the day, one Selwyn Gummer no less, after a public enquiry.

Always assuming the airport operator (Bristol City Council for much of the second half of the last century) could have established a working accommodation with the owner, then even without the benefit of hindsight it is as obvious as anything can be that Filton should have been chosen over Lulsgate when Whitchurch was deemed too small for requirements in the 1950s.

Foresight was never the hallmark of Bristol City councillors of the 20th Century, or of the 21st for that matter.

There is surely no requirement for Bristol to have two airports. It’s just a pity the one that it has got is in the wrong place when a much better and bigger site was always sitting there across the city.

It’s now too late to seriously think of Filton – part of the site is being sold for non-aviation development and there are now many thousands of residents living in the immediate vicinity.

[Bristol based Taffy]

Thanks again to the ever knowing M.V. for filling in the gaps.

Hey maybe you should offer your services to BEP, at least they'd get the facts straight...........ooopppsss sorry they need to sell papers
:eek::eek::eek:

Yes the constant quip about Filtons measly 2,460m runway as one of the longest in the U.K. always makes me smile.

Do you think they are getting the two F's mixed up???

Fairford v Filton :ugh:

Not sure of actual length at Fairford but certainly longer than Filtons

Or are they looking at it sideways which would then make it the longest runway in the U.K. at 299 FEET:{

[Wycombe]

Fairford is 3000m.

[WATABENCH]

Local brews at new Bristol Airport bar
14.10.08

Bristol Airport is to begin serving local beers and ciders at its new bar. A partnership between the airport, SSP UK and Butcombe Brewery will see the recently rebranded Zero9 bar serve drinks including Butcombe Bitter, Cold-Filtered Blond and Ashton Press Cider.

The airport's new bar is located on the mezzanine level overlooking the departure lounge with views over the airfield. The change is part of the airport's 'sense of place' initiative, which encourages the use of services from local suppliers to showcase the best of south-west England to visitors.

Nagesh Shikram, SSP UK bar manager at Bristol Airport, said: 'Being able to enjoy a pint of Butcombe while relaxing before a flight is another point of difference for Bristol International compared to airports outside the region.'

Guy Newell, managing director of Butcombe Brewery, added: 'Having our beer and cider stocked at the airport is a great opportunity to win new converts, as well as meaning loyal customers can enjoy their favourite pint each time they fly.'

:ok:

[Ranger 1]

Bristol based Taffy ;

Filton despite having a nice wide and long runway, are restricted due to the old Brabazon hanger infringing the trasitional surface, this restricts the type of aircraft, Carrying fare paying Pax under the CAA regulations.
No doubt some authority on PPRUNE will correct me if I'm wrong :ok:

[HEADWAY]

Just asking again if there have been any new developments about the walkway? Was also wondering if there is also news on Ryanair bringing in more aircraft and routes in Feb 2009?

[OltonPete]

HEADWAY

The April, May & June flights have been released for sale and as with
BHX & EMA there are a few clues in the flight schedules.

Sunday is a good day to check and indeed Bristol has three early morning departures which I believe is one more than at present. I am not sure if aircraft three has been announced and I am guilty of not checking the search engine but it is 23.52 ;).

Most days there is currently work for two aircraft but Sunday is
showing: -

0730 GRO
0630 BZR
0640 OPO

Unless say GRO changes to a GRO based aircraft then Bristol will
have three based units with more routes announced in the next
month or so.

Pete

[birdscarer]

This is an interesting article in the BEP on the walkway.... CLICK HERE (http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Bristol-International-Airport-press-ahead-covered-walkway/article-408307-detail/article.html?cacheBust=U3lXlpRSg3R6/)

[mozzereggd]

This bit was interesting !

"Bosses at Bristol International Airport are pressing ahead with plans to build a controversial covered walkway from the terminal to the runway."

[MerchantVenturer]

A new concept perhaps - bus stop-like structures all along the side of the runway. Brings a whole new meaning to Airbus. In reality, it's just the latest example of sloppy reporting on the part of the Evening Post.

It's good to see the airport is calling the bluff of the North Somerset Council planners. The councillors' decision to reject the walkway as permitted development flies in the face of the opinion of their own professional advisers.

The crazy thing is that a major regional facility is at the mercy of a group of councillors with a parochial and provincial mindset from one of the smallest local authorities in the South West.

If this epsode finishes in court I would love to see the councillors who made the decision be made liable for costs personally if it is decided their actions were unreasonable. As the airport spokesman points out, the council gave permission for a walkway to the eastern apron as permitted development, albeit this is single-storey.

The anti-expansionist lot try to give the impression they speak for the majority of local people. They don't and still less for those in the wider region (newspaper and television polls have indicated a significant majority of people in favour of airport expansion at Bristol - it usually comes out around 70% of those who take part).

As for Ryanair, there have been persistent rumours that a walkway to the western apron is an essential ingredient of their expansion at BRS - that and giveaway airport charges, probably.

Incidentally, doesn't the new CEO start work today? It will be interesting to hear his public pronouncements on the future. Paul Kehoe was quick off the mark with his views when he started. Pity he didn't stay around to put them into practice.

[Bristol based Taffy]

This should get them thinking!!

Hope they have got deep pockets!! :rolleyes:


An unprecedented decision means council tax payers in Hertfordshire will have to foot part of a £1m bill after Herts County Council was found to have acted ‘unreasonably’ while opposing the Stansted Airport (http://www.stanstedairport.com/) expansion.
After hearing six months of evidence at a public inquiry last year, planning inspector Alan Boyland concluded that the inadequacies of the case presented by Uttlesford district and Herts county councils mean they should pay part of BAA's costs, estimated at more than £1m. Along with Essex, the councils spent £430,000 presenting their case.
Mr Boyland's recommendation that expansion from a maximum of 25m to 35m passengers a year should be allowed, in accordance with 2003's Air Transport White Paper, was endorsed by the Government last week - as was his finding that the councils' flawed arguments put the airport to some unnecessary expense when it appealed against refusal of planning permission.
The rarity of the ruling - believed to be a first - is emphasised in a letter from the Department for Communities and Local Government to both councils, which reads: ‘In planning appeals both parties are normally expected to meet their own expenses and costs are only awarded on grounds of 'unreasonable behaviour' resulting in unnecessary expense.'
‘The Secretary of State [Hazel Blears] agrees with the inspector and accepts his recommendations. Accordingly she has decided that an award of partial costs against Uttlesford District Council and Herts County Council on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour is justified.’

[MerchantVenturer]

It's just a pity councillors can't be made to pay from their own pockets when they make perverse decisions.

Back to Ryanair, a look at next week's web Mayfly (on the BRS apron website) makes intriguing reading.

Daily FR flights are shown to ALC, AGP, MJV, FAO and ORK.

If they operate they will have no fare-paying passengers because these destinations don't appear on the FR website or on their booking engine from BRS.

These destinations, along with the established routes that will operate, call for 3 based aircraft.

Could it be that FR originally planned these routes for this winter and through some sort of admin c*ck-up they still found their way into Mayfly? If so, it would mark a battle royal with easyJet.

I can't think that Mayfly would just make them up for fun.

[WATABENCH]

Olten Pete, BRS-GRO is currently operated by GRO based a/c, so the plot thickens, I cant imagine FR would night stop crews, way too much expense in that, so maybe it is a 3rd BRS A/C, fingers crossed.
Nice to see Jet2 in BRS last night, always good to see something diffrent, CO went 21 hrs tech yesterday, due out at 7am this morning.
These local councellers and anti expansion group are a bunch of complete planks! This walkway would take out any real need for buses to the W apron meaning reduced emissions, as the BRS spokes person says, its a complete own goal if they continue to say no to it. Lets hope the courts have some sense, and follow the example of the courts in Herts(STN) make them pay for being such berks!
BEP - walkway to the runway, ha ha thats absolute comedy, cuh you wait for 1 airbus and 3 come along at once!!
By the way, I was talking to a passanger last week who lives next to Felton Common, I asked her what her thoughts on the expansion of BRS were, she said the airport was there before her, the noise doesnt bother her or her neighbours and they love the fact they can walk from there front door and 3 hours later walk off in Spain, now thats quite a boast ha ha :ok:

[birdscarer]

Some CGI images of the proposed terminal on their website.....looks smart.

Check them out HERE (http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/about_us/our_future/planning_application.aspx)

[Bristol based Taffy]

Thanks for the link BS

Must admit they look very impressive, and would certainly give the region an improved airport and provide a first class advert for Bristol as a forward thinking city.

Shame I've a feeling the local tree huggers, and potty councilors will deem it a total waste of time & money, prefering to suggest spending it on Royal Portbury Docks as this produces so little carbon emissions....and it has wind turbines!!!!
Rant over

:{:{:{

[birdscarer]

Ha ha! Sad but true!
It is worth anyone that cares about BRS expansion to sign up to a support site. They will get the latest info to act on.
These are three I know about (Click on links):

BIA Official site (http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/about_us/support_bia.aspx)
Facebook Group (http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?id=518575497#/group.php?gid=6367512443)
BISON (http://spotting.biagrouponline.co.uk/forums/)

[MerchantVenturer]

Pretty pictures but a bit light on detail because they say detailed plans are still being worked up.

Seems the master plan proposals which were published following the 'wide-ranging consultation' of the draft master plan may have been altered again.

There is now no mention of a hotel or multi-storey car parks for instance but as I said the narrative that accompanies the pictures is generalised.

What does seem clear is that there will be a further significant delay before any planning applications are submitted. The airport is now saying that when detailed plans are drawn up they will consult again before submitting them to the planning authorities, so in other words the airport seems to have gone back to the drawing board and will publish in effect a new draft master plan to be commented on.

The original master plan time scale talked about planning submissions in the spring of 2006. This slipped and slipped again for various reasons but the airport had hinted strongly they would be submitted late this year.

It now looks as though we shall be well into 2009 before the plans are submitted to the local authority.

Factor in a likely public enquiry and it is difficult to see that, if they are finally approved, any construction can begin until late 2010/2011 at the earliest.

The anticipated reduction in passenger numbers this winter and possibly next summer will give some breathing space but if the economy picks up over the next two or three years we could see 7-8 mppa before any work commences.

Now that would give the airport senior management a major headache at peak times in terms of overcrowding in the departure areas.

However, if this is what it takes, and I have no doubt it is, to develop the airport into a facility that will take the Bristol region forward well into the 21st Century in the face of a pack of objectors with their own agendas then everyone - airport, airlines, staff and passengers - may have to bear some short term pain in trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot.

[santito]

Looks superb from the pictures- let's hope the council pull their collective finger out and let BIA proceed!

Will there also be some widening/ repoisioning of the taxiways/ apron to accommodate a 787?

I understand the current runway is long enough to take a Boeing 787 on a long haul route? Would be nice to see Dubai, Washington, India, etc on the cards in the future!

[Confirmed Must Ride]

with the constant 787 delays BRS will be probably have 2 terminals by the time it is finally flying!

[MerchantVenturer]

A bit more detail was outlined today in the BEP.

It seems there will still be a 3-star hotel and a 5-storey, 3,600 space, car park with a bus and car drop-off on the top storey linked to the terminal by a glass-walled corridor.

Aircraft stands will be increased by nine to thirty-three.

The consultation - to take place in January - will include public displays and presentations along with information in libraries and on Bristol Airport's website.

The planning submission is now not expected until March 2009.

The BEP's web edition carried comments from eleven people, nine of whom were in favour of the expansion.

Only a straw poll I know but it's another little clue that the SBAE (anti-expansionists) are really a minority viewpoint and not a very big minority at that.

[crackling jet]

Did i read somewhere that the plan for the walkway was up in front of the north Somerset planners on Friday, to have the legitimacy of its 'planning not required status'reviewed,after being thrown out by them on reversal of the original granted approval after the SBAE stuck their noses in ?Anybody know if and how it went? Maybe the Hertfordshire result against the the Stanstead approval and its costs being put on to the anti campaigning local authority may make North Somerset and SBAE think again about their misuse of planning rules in the face of hefty costs being awarded against them. though each of the anti individuals should be made to pay the legal costs between themselves.

[santito]

All gone a bit quiet here- Anyone visited the North Somerset website to voice their opinions for the new walkway proposal?

[Goldilocks95]

i have, but looking at all the contacts who have said that they dont want it, the support are really in the minority!

Easyjet have released their flights for summer 09.....seems less the usual!

[MerchantVenturer]

Covered Walkway

I checked the North Somerset planning website this evening and so far there are around one hundred objections and thirty-five supporters regarding the airport's application for a Certificate of Lawfulness for its proposed western apron walkway.

Given the well-organised anti-expansion lobby (according to The 'Gruniad' the best of its type in the country) it is not surprising that the antis come out in force. The StopBristolAirportExpansion (SBAE) people have laid out a 'template' on their website for objectors to follow.

The silent majority in favour of BRS expansion (as shown by local newspaper and local television polls) always remain, well.......silent. They only become vocal when they want to fly direct to Outer Mongolia from Bristol and find they can't.

The SBAE people are worried that North Somerset Council will issue the certificate (an about-turn, having already deemed the proposal not permitted development) because the airport would mount a legal challenge if the local authority refused it which could be costly for council tax payers.

easyJet Summer 2009

Easyjet have released their flights for summer 09.....seems less the usual!

I had a wade through their summer 09 timetable and their booking engine this evening and the schedule is not much different from summer 08 so far as I can tell.

The problem with easyJet's web timetable is that it does not always agree with the web booking engine. I've already spotted some discrepancies between the two for next summer.

Broadly speaking it seems the Warsaw* flight will not be back although it is shown in the summer 09 timetable (a 'not available after March 09' box appears when trying a test booking for summer 09, although I believe the WAW is actually finishing this month) and the BFS seems to be 2 x daily instead of the 'historical' 3 and the CDG is also reduced to daily from (I think) 10 x weekly last summer.

* easyJet only have BRS and LTN as WAW destinations in their booking engine and LTN is also shown as not available for booking after next March, so it may be that these routes have not yet been loaded.

Last summer's new routes to Olbia and Biarritz will return, and Lisbon is also back having been dropped for this winter.

Beyond that, there is minor tinkering to one or route frequencies compared to summer 08.

I would add the caveat that this winter's published timetable has been reduced in some areas so I suppose the same could happen with next summer's published timetable if the economy does not pick up.

[birdscarer]

For those of you wishing to show support, but unsure how, it takes about a minute to complete the online form CLICK HERE (http://wam.n-somerset.gov.uk/MULTIWAM/createComment.do;jsessionid=5DF04C86B974B5502695BF892B28FDB7 ?action=CreateApplicationComment&applicationType=PLANNING&appNumber=08/P/2149/LDP)
Alternatively you can write to your local councillor CLICK HERE (http://www.n-somerset.gov.uk/Your+Council/The+Council/Councillors/councillorsbyward.htm)

Even if you are from Outer Mongolia and unable to fly into Bristol you can still show support....SBAE have people in Oz!

This comment is a good example of the mentallity of what BRS is up against! CLICK HERE (http://wam.n-somerset.gov.uk/MULTIWAM/doc/Letter%20of%20Objection-1710379.pdf?extension=.pdf&id=1710379&location=Volume2&contentType=application/pdf&pageCount=1)

[WATABENCH]

"ps i dont live in bristol".....................Mr Moreland you are a MORON!

Nice to see a Thomson(not fca )763 in last night from HER bringing TUI agents back from confrence and going out to BGI this morning.

[santito]

I echo the above post and encourage anyone who has not yet signed, to go and show SUPPORT for the LAWFUL development work. I got the below letter from the council in response- looks like the public meeting is next week:

Application No. 08/P/2149/LDP

Description Certificate of Lawfulness for the proposed erection of a two storey building to provide a covered walkway

Location: Bristol International Airport, North Side Road, Wrington, Somerset, BS48 3DY



Thank you for your letter, which has been received and is acknowledged. Under the Access to Information legislation all correspondence received is placed on the relevant file as a public document.



The above application is to be considered by the South Area Committee on 12 November 2008. The meeting commences at 6.00 p.m.



The Room Number will be displayed in the Town Hall foyer on the day of the meeting. The Committee report will be available for inspection at Development & Environment Reception five working days prior to the meeting and on our website North Somerset Council - Council tax, planning, leisure, highways .. (http://www.n-somerset.gov.uk).



Objectors to, and supporters of, planning applications may address the Committee. The number of speakers and the time permitted for speaking is limited and I have attached a set of notes to explain the procedure for applications. Please note requests to speak at Committee must be received in writing by noon the day prior to the Committee meeting. For further information please contact the Council’s Democratic Services team – (contact details as shown on the accompanying notes which explain the procedure.)



A notification of the decision will be sent within a week (unless deferred). If you wish to know the decision earlier, please telephone the Case Officer, as shown above, after 10.30 am on the day following the meeting.

[JaffaCake]

There's a bus going from the airport to the council meeting next Wednesday laid on by the airport management in order to present the councillors with an alternative point of view :E. Employees who are free from work commitments are being encouraged to go along (in uniform if need be) and show support as the SBAE likely to be out in force as well. Everybody who has an active or passive positive interest in the airport's future should seriously consider turning up otherwise this will drag on and on to the detriment of the airport and those employed by it and the economy of the whole region.

And for crying out loud it's only a blinking walkway...! :ugh:

[mikelima1948]

Due to a number of supporters expressing a preference to make their own way to the Town Hall on Wednesday, the bus has been cancelled. However free transport will still be available to supporters who are at the reception area in the Administration Building by 1645 on Wednesday. The airport will provide either car share opportunities or a taxi to ensure supporters can attend the hearing.

[MerchantVenturer]

Insufficient Charter Capacity

Bristol Evening Post carried an article today regarding the BRS management's concern that they are unable to cater for demand since the collapse of XL.

What is described as an 'emergency delegation' of senior airport staff and South West Independent Federation of Travel Agents represenatives will visit the World Travel Market in London next week to try to secure extra flights.

An airport spokesman said that people wishing to fly from Bristol to some popular holiday destinations were unable to do so because not enough seats were available. TFS, CFU, SSH, LCA and ACE were specifically mentioned as having insufficient capacity.

The spokesman added that although the collapse of XL has lost BRS only one destination (Hurghada) the loss of their 14 summer and 7 winter weekly rotations is what is causing the real difficulties.

So far as SSH is concerned, Jet2 is already covering the breach left by XL this winter, and there are two weekly TOM flights to that Egyptian resort as well. Presumably they are looking to next summer having regard to the fact that last summer saw four weekly flights to SSH, two of them by XL.

New CEO

Is anyone aware of any public utterances by the new CEO, Robert Sinclair, who started work last month?

When Paul Kehoe started there were major local television and local newspaper interviews concerning his vision of the future and other matters appertaining to the airport.

Unless I have missed something, there has been nothing of this nature from Mr Sinclair other than his CV published in the local news media when his appointment was announced two or three months ago.

[Confirmed Must Ride]

Can it be confirmed that Menzies will start handling operations in the new year?

[JaffaCake]

North Somerset Council finally backed the development, voting 4-3 in favour. Glad its gone through but I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned and cynical about the democratic planning process in this country given the number of frighteningly misinformed 'statements of fact' quoted against the proposed plan and ensuing debate! Fundamentally people clearly did not understand exactly what the airport is proposing to build and there were several mini-debates on what walkways and piers comprised of and whether they constituted an expansion of capacity. :ugh: This went on for sometime before a councillor in favour of the development pointed out that if the walkway was vetoed, the airport were just going to go out and buy more busses! Councillors and other political appointees with this sort of power need to listen more to their professional advisors (i.e. lawyers and surveyors) and less to emotional-charged and deluded 'representatives' anxious to push an agenda that is either not relevant or incompletely briefed.

It worries me that if this is the sort of palaver the airport needs to go through just to get a walkway built, what sort of battle will it have to fight before the recently proposed master plans are accepted?

Sorry, rant off now!

[Right Touch]

Menzies have won the contract to Handle Easyjet flights starting from Jan 21st 2009

[yeo valley]

re walkway. does anyone know when the walkway is due to start. If its soon will it be ready for s09. ??

[MerchantVenturer]

I'm glad for the sake of the poor old North Somerset Council tax payer (although I don't live in that unitary authority's area) that their South Area Planning Committee has belatedly recognised that the council’s earlier decision to reject the airport’s application to build the walkway as General Permitted Development was seriously flawed.

Even the council’s own professional advisers had told it that the walkway would be GPD. In now granting the Certificate of Lawfulness for the structure North Somerset councillors have taken on board that the airport would almost certainly have mounted a legal challenge to a refusal that, in the view of many experts, would have succeeded, at no little expense to council tax payers.

It's also very pleasing that the anti-expansionists no longer have the game all to themselves. North Somerset Council received dozens of expressions of support for the proposal, due in no small part to BISON (Bristol International Supporters Online), an organisation that is growing almost daily in numbers and becoming a local voice to combat the myths put about by SBAE and its fellow travellers.

The expansion planning applications, when submitted, will of course generate a massive amount of heat and misinformation on the part of opponents, and the airport will need to show support outnumbers opposition. The work of a group like BISON will be vital.

I commend and thank Daniel (an occasional poster to PPRuNe) and Simon for their untiring work in organising a much needed focus group to counter the 'antis'.

mikelima1948, you must be delighted. Congratulations to the airport and thank goodness that common sense prevailed.

[mikelima1948]

Thanks M V. the airport and BISON were out in force at the Town Hall last night and where I was sitting, greatly outnumbered the protesters.

A great result for the airport, it was good to see democracy in action!

[Standard Noise]

Must admit, I prolly wouldn't have written to North Somerset on this matter until I saw an article in the Wells Journal a few weeks ago from one of the SBAE loolaa's, who was banging on about how the airport's new walkway would ruin our quality of life south of the Mendips, but it angered me so much that into print I went.
The happy news that the airport gets it's walkway is made all the better when I think that I won't have to look at it every day when I go to work.
Hooray!

mikelima - you should drop in for a cuppa and see our luxurious new rest room. Choccie bars are on me.

[bravoromeosierra]

Great news, its about time the supporters and the airport emerged from all this OTT overspill given to us from the NIMBYS.

Does anyone have any 'artists' impressions or anything; just wondering whether it'll literally be a metal shed walkway, or perhaps something with 'sit-down' gate areas? Perhaps someone will know!

[crackling jet]

Nqyguy,

Have a look at the Bristol international airport web site and look at the news and press releases, very impressive with five views incuding the ext with the walkway-two storey, lifts etc. no sit down facilities though- that would upset the nimby's

[santito]

There will be no 'bridges' from the walkway to the actual aircraft though are there? I suppose the council would not allow this on account of it making the whole airport experience being too pleasant for the paying customer, therefore making it more likely they will use the airport again in the future and thus increasing passenger numbers to an 'unaaceptable' level? :rolleyes:

[brs planespotter]

apparently menzies are going online on jan 21st 2009.it was servisair who ended the contract.

[santito]

Is it just me, or is BRS very quiet in terms of new developments/ routes/ airlines compared to its peers? I mean NCL have recently secured Aer Lingus to Dublin, there is talk of a service to Frankfurt, and some new routes coming online with Ryanair, Leeds, is picking up new routes with Jet2 whilst BRS just seems to tread water.... Do you think we are falling behind compared to other regionals like NCL and EMA?

[MerchantVenturer]

BRS has had a phenomenal run for more than a decade and it is inevitable that the existing comprehensive route network would reach the stage where new destinations become more and more difficult to find, and in the severe economic maelstrom in which we find ourselves new routes are going to be more elusive still.

In passenger number terms BRS has been going very well in 2008. It is one of the few airports in the UK that has seen percentage rises in passenger numbers every month this year until and including October, and October’s admittedly modest gain of just under one per cent was achieved despite the loss of the significant XL route network.

I regard BRS’s peer airports on the mainland as EMA, LPL and NCL as each one is in the 5-6 mppa bracket, along with BRS.

BRS handled 6.32 million pax in the 12-month period ending 31 October 2008, up 8.7% on the same period last year. EMA’s figures are 5.72 million up 7.9% on 2007; LPL 5.43 million up 0.1% on 2007; NCL 5.09 million down 10.3% on 2007. You also mentioned LBA – its figures are 2.91 million up 1.4% on 2007.

It will be seen that by this measure BRS’s year has been broadly similar to EMA but better than LPL and considerably better than NCL.

The coming winter will inevitably see a significant drop in passenger numbers at BRS with fewer charter flights and a marked reduction in rotations by easyJet in particular, but I doubt that many, if any, airports will see much growth this winter.

Next summer’s easyJet timetable seems similar to summer 2008 and the last time I looked Ryanair’s summer timetable appears to have enough work to keep their two based aircraft fully employed. In the current climate these things might be looked on as a positive.

Rumours have been floating around on a BRS unofficial message board that FR will add two more aircraft in the early part of next year. If that is the case, and I have no firm evidence that it is, there would no doubt be some new routes to keep the additional aircraft occupied. Against this is FR’s condemnation of the increased UK apd announced this week with the airline saying it will now enter into discussions with regional airports ‘about the future viability of passenger traffic and growth in the light of this increased cost’.

These are very unusual times and probably BRS’s priority is to retain the carriers, routes and passengers it already has until the economy begins to improve. I’m sure that behind the scenes though the management is always looking to the future and ever on the lookout to expand services.

Incidentally, unlike his predecessors going back to Dear Old Les, the new MD does not seem to have put himself about much in the local news media, unless I have missed all his appearances/interviews. In fact, I’ve never seen him on the local telly at all.

[santito]

Wow thanks, can't argue with that! ;)

However, I would love to see a Dubai route for easy connections to Asia from BRS- Guess we have to wait for the 787 and FlyDubai!

[Bristol_Traveller]

Thought I'd share this for discussion and information.

I've just hosted a 2-day conference in Bristol. 35 delegates, 17 of whom were overseas.

I managed to get 13 of them to use BRS, with the incentive that we would get people to pick them up / drop them off if they did. In the end and despite that, one used Heathrow + Coach to Bristol and another used Heathrow + Heathrow Express + First Great Western. Both used "cheaper fares" for their justification (although the guy on the HEX + Train actually spent more). 2 were already in the country.

Of the 13, the breakdown was:

4 KLM
4 LH
2 AF
2 EZY
1 SN

Various arrival times. 10 out this afternon on the AF/KL/LH flights. 3 going tomorrow on EZY and KL.

What Did They Experience?

Views of BRS were all totally positive. Ogranised, good size, well located, convenient. Loved the 20 minute drive into the city. Fares were reasonable, when taking into account the Heathrow Hassle.

We got caught in *dreadful* traffic getting out of Bristol this evening (around Redcliffe Way), and had a slightly panicky turn-up at the airport. But the way through security was clear, fast and (nearly) everyone made it.

The Airlines
Tuesday night arrivals were all fine. Punctual, and swiftly through the airport and into their hotels. 10/10.

Wednesday morning was bad. SN made it in on time, LH was 45 minutes late, AF was 68 minutes late... and no surprise, KL cancelled leaving 3 stranded in AMS, all of whom missed key sessions. EZY was punctual. Apart from the KL crowd, nobody was too annoyed. KL finally got them in around lunchtime. One of the LH flyers ended up taking the Airport Flyer (because he missed the driver), and was full of praise for it. Overall, 5/10. (Dragged down by KL)

Wednesday evening arrivals. All good.

Thursday evening departures. AF punctual, KL punctual, LH 25 minutes late. We (I) screwed up by leaving Central Bristol a little too late (due to a tawdry passenger), and getting royally stuck for 25 minutes on Redcliffe Way. The AF Passengers went earlier (20 minutes earlier, at 15:50) and were at the airport by 16:20. The KL passengers ran like wild through security and got their 17:25, and the LH passengers were fine, and well looked after and safely made their flight.

Why KL made no friends
So let's look at our KL crowd's experience.

Cancelled on the way inbound, and arrived 2.5 hours late, having missed key sessions.

The one of the party wasn't able to board at BRS on the way back, because he has been offloaded back in AMS due to the cancelled flight, and not re-checked. The other three were OK, but they closed the flight before they could sort this guy's ticket and BP out, and so he's currently enjoying the Holiday Inn. But I feel slightly less guilty, because his colleague rang me from AMS and told me that his onward flight from AMS was cancelled, so he would have been stranded anyway. Way to go, KLM. That's the way to look after people.

All the Bristol based team were courteous, polite, apologetic and as helpful as they could be. (I don't think it was too unreasonable to close the flight at 15 minutes before push-back, and I take some of the blame for not getting out the door earlier).

Next time?
This conference lands in Bristol about every 3 years on its world-tour, so I hope people will be more encouraged to fly into/out of BRS. However, I suspect word will get out that it's worth avoiding KL.

Overall though, people were really surprised at how much an improvement flying to BRS was over the Heathrow Hassle.

Strangest corporate travel booking. CDG-AMS-BRS-AMS-CDG???? Huh??? Was the AF really full both ways??

[MerchantVenturer]

Fascinating stuff B_T and it’s good to see you’re doing your bit to encourage use of the local airport.

I once travelled AMS-BRU-BRS but it was only because we volunteered to be bumped off a full KLM flight (the offer was too good to refuse) and we were then re-routed with Sabena, changing aircraft at Zaventem – some years ago of course.

It’s a pity about KLM letting the side down. I still notice the odd CityHopper cancellation at BRS but not as many as was the case earlier in the year. Seems the Fokkers are sometimes, uhm……………. Fokkers.

Had they come up to the mark you would have had a near one hundred per cent satisfaction rate. I think a lot of people will use regional airports if the product is right and the price competitive.

Like you I have done my bit in fostering the use of BRS by putting a fair few people their way down the years – not completely altruistic because I want to keep routes and carriers going as I never know when I might need them. We’re much too old now to want to flog over to Heathrow.

My best effort was in suggesting to an entire family emigrating to South Africa – they were our neighbours at the time – that Bristol would be worth looking at. They did look, liked what they saw, went from Lulsgate and subsequently said they were delighted they did – using our old friends KLM via AMS.

Incidentally, I note the outgoing CEO’s comments about the FRA route (your favourite?) in the minutes of the airport consultative committee meeting that took place towards the end of October last when he said the route was doing ‘very well’. If true it could mean those high prices sometimes thrown up in the LH booking engine were actually paid by some people, because the load factors didn’t appear to be earth-shattering through the summer, although they might have been more than acceptable for a new route I suppose.

He also said the Oslo route had performed ‘very successfully’ during the summer period and he hoped it would return in summer 09.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Incidentally, I note the outgoing CEO’s comments about the FRA route (your favourite?) in the minutes of the airport consultative committee meeting that took place towards the end of October last when he said the route was doing ‘very well’. If true it could mean those high prices sometimes thrown up in the LH booking engine were actually paid by some people, because the load factors didn’t appear to be earth-shattering through the summer, although they might have been more than acceptable for a new route I suppose.

It's certainly a very useful route for me, being both reliable (hello KLM, are you listening???) and connects into a good range of *A carriers at a decent hub. I still fly West with CO though.

I think the strategy with the FRA route seems be to hang-onto margins, as generating volume is probably pretty hard in the current circumstances. If that's the case, it's a sound strategy to protect the long-term viability of the route. Load factors seem to be in the 50% mark, which doesn't lend itself to the low-fare high volume model. Availability of E, T, L fares (the lowest / promotional fares) is being very restricted, which does mean that the business traveller is unlikely to pay the lowest advertised prices. That said, I'm still comfortable justifying the price differential over the hassle of London.

Some of the prices originally in the engines were complete mistakes, with only the base IATA YY-type fares loaded. That shouldn't be happening now. I find that the fares to/from BRS are generally identical for those to/from BHX (for the same fare classes - comments about class availabilities notwithstanding).

If the route can get to / be / remain profitable in the current environment, then it will be great, and hopefully allow volumes to grow and fares to drop in the future. (At least LH's dreaded, and bordering on punitive, YQ surcharges might lighten up a bit!).

[chrisy08]

Does anyone know why the CO77 flight was delayed from Newark this morning?? 5 hours delay??

[MerchantVenturer]

Newark was reporting very strong winds and resultant delays last night and the overnight CO flights from there to EDI and GLA were also showing delays of several hours.

Could have been a knock-on effect from the weather.

My son and his family are on CO 77 that eventually took off shortly after 1500 hours this afternoon.

He spoke to me more than once from BRS this morning (not a happy bunny) and said no reason had been given to them for the delay.

Their final destination is Miami (MIA) and they were told this morning they had missed their connection to Florida.

The handling agents informed them they will be accommodated overnight at a hotel in the EWR area and flown on to Miami in the morning - via Atlanta!

Fortunately for them, they will be in the USA for nearly three weeks so the effective loss of one day's holiday is bearable.

[chrisy08]

Oh right, thats fair enough then. Strong winds can be dangerous sometimes. Awww I bet he wasnt a happy bunny. I wouldnt be. Im flying CO77 in about week and half. Staying in New York for New years cant wait. Hopefully weather will be ok, lets just hope it snows while im there and not while im at Bristol :bored:

[airvanman]

Bristol International Airport Apron and Flight Information (http://apron.bristolairport.com/)

This now includes the western apron. Well done :D

[Goldilocks95]

i was at work today and i was told that the aircraft had to wait for de-icing in Newark and also had a bad slot for depature.

[santito]

Is it just me, or is there no longhaul to the carribbean/ Mexico from BRS over Winter 08/ early 09?

[MerchantVenturer]

i was at work today and i was told that the aircraft had to wait for de-icing in Newark and also had a bad slot for depature.

It seems there were weather or other general probs at EWR on Tuesday evening because when I checked last night on the EWR arrivals page over half a dozen returning CO flights from Europe, including the BRS, were showing delays of between three and five hours.

Full marks to CO though. Having been told at BRS that they would be put up overnight and flown on to Miami this morning my son and his family actually made the the last CO direct flight of the day on Wednesday evening from Newark to Miami. He told me they stepped off CO 77 from BRS at 1915 local and boarded the MIA aircraft at 1950. Whether their luggage went with them in so short a transfer time I'm not sure.

santito,

No regular transatlantic charters this winter (there are occasional cruise flights to the Caribbean though). I think the TOM (former FCA) flights to Florida and Mexico resume in the summer.

[santito]

How come? Credit crunch? Not enough pax last time?

[WATABENCH]

The early booking figures were very poor last year for SFB and POP (feb-apr), meaning First Choice ended up selling most seats at lower late deal prices, this in turn ment that they weren't getting the money needed to sustain the routes during feb-apr, it costs them slightly more to operate these routes as they need extra fuel to go via MAN/GLA.
The a/c could and has last summer on one occasion made it direct to SFB, but they can't put any cargo on it as it would be too heavy to go direct off BRS runway, and cargo is where the money usually is for these longhaul flights, hence why they operate the SFB via MAN and the CUN via GLA, Although I dont think CUN would make it direct even with no cargo.

[Welsh Bobby]

Sorry for this chaps but good reasons above to operate such flights from the longer runway down the road at CWL!!

[WATABENCH]

Oh for god sake :ugh:

Someone have a word!

[caaardiff]

:ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:

Whilst i'm on the Welsh side of the bridge, that is the most pointless post i think i've ever seen.
The fact still remains, these metal tubes with sticky out bits need to make the most money possible. Even during the current climate, i think that fact that the flights are operating out of BRS via other UK stations, shows that there is more money from BRS. If the money was in CWL, then the big blue would be parked there!

[MerchantVenturer]

WATABENCH,

You will know more about this than me but the booking pattern for the First Choice (now TOM) transatlantic charters seems to have run an odd course.

A check with the press release archive on the BRS website shows that the new First Choice programme (as it was then) was announced on 11 April 2006 with flights to commence in May 2007 for that summer season. The destinations were to be Sanford (weekly) and Puerto Plata and Varadero both fortnightly.

Then later in 2006 it was announced that forward bookings were so good that the commencement dates for the Sanford and Puerto Plata routes would be brought forward to February 2007, which is what happened, and Varadero commenced in May as originally planned.

The winter of 2007/2008 saw the Sanford and Puerto Plata services re-commencing in February 2008 after a break from the end of October 2007.

By this summer (08) the Puerto Plata and Varadero routes had been axed to be replaced by Cancun, in tandem with the faithful Sanford, but no routes have been carried on into the current winter.

I believe next summer will see the return of Cancun and Sanford.

[santito]

Great, as ever, thanks for the explanation...

I am a frequent flyer (30+ return flights per year) and recently moved from Bristol to Leeds.... I now use LBA.... What do I think of it?..... Well, let's just say BRS is definately the superior airport ;)

Shame BRS doesn't have the runway length to sustain these kinds of flights direct... as I am sure that it would be an even greater success if we had an extra 1500ft of concrete at one end... To be honest, it's amazing that BRS has done as well as it has with a runway shorter than the likes of regional rivals like Exeter, Southampton, and Cardiff!

[cyfarthfa]

Santito
Comes doown to the simple fact that Bristol is the major poulation centre for the south west segment of the UK, has the largest catchment area and is probably the major wealth generating centre. Hence the reason the LoCo carriers have done so well at BRS and why airlines want to fly from there rather than any other south west area airport.

[WATABENCH]

MV - I think the first year did well with early bookings, but last year started struggling, whether thats because there wasnt as much press about the routes or not as well supported by BIA i dont know, may be its boiled down to spare cash of the passangers, but since merger BHX seems to have done well for longhaul, from nothing with first choice to, Dom Rep, Mexico, Jamaica, Florida and now I believe Aruba, seems attention on longhaul there rather than BRS at the mo.

[WATABENCH]

Was reading the NCL thread and happened across this.....
timesofmalta.com - Easyjet, Ryanair interested in new routes (http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20081219/local/easyjet-ryanair-interested-in-new-routes)

[WATABENCH]

Happy new year to all BRS pruners, have heard on grapevine that Ryanair are wanting 2 more a/c in BRS by summer season, anyone else heard this, I know they're expansion plans have been put on hold a bit since the boeing strikes and credit crunch, so will be great news if true

[MerchantVenturer]

Hello WATABENCH.

Happy New Year to you and to everyone on this message board.

There have been rumours on an unofficial BRS message board for a number of weeks that FR will increase to four based aircraft this year, rising to six when the walkway to the western apron is constructed.

The same sources also suggest TCX will base three aircraft at BRS this coming summer.

I have no idea whether any of this is likely - much will no doubt depend on how the general economic situation develops, particularly regarding Ryanair’s expansion at the airport.

As for your previous post re FR looking at a BRS-MLA service, it seems the Malta Tourism Authority and government have been negotiating with ‘every single airline in Europe’ (as one report put it) to try to increase flights and much-needed tourism to the island.

The chairman of the Tourism Authority was reported saying it was an ‘uphill struggle’ but that some airlines did show ‘some sort of interest’ to operate to Malta and he expressed the hope that some, if not all, of the routes to Malta from Bristol (Ryanair), Newcastle (easyJet) and Leeds-Bradford (not sure of carrier) would be taken up.

Last summer there was only a weekly Air Malta charter flight to the island from BRS of course, and it seems to be operating jointly with CWL this winter.

Addendum:

It looks from this report that Ryanair will be commencing a BRS-MLA route in May.

timesofmalta.com - Easyjet to start selling tickets for Newcastle route (http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090101/local/easyjet-to-start-selling-tickets-for-newcastle-route)

[aeulad]

New route, easyjet to Corfu.

Regards

Mike

[MerchantVenturer]

Just to add to aeulad's post that the easyJet web booking engine is showing BRS-CFU 2 x weekly (Mon and Fri) from 22 May and another new route from BRS for easyJet, to Bastia (Sundays from 24 May).

easyJet already has a summer service from BRS to Olbia in the neighbouring island of Sardinia so perhaps its Corsican neighbour is a natural progression.

Previously Bastia has only been served by charter flights from BRS (as has Corfu) but when easyJet commenced its service to Olbia the charter flights to that airport from BRS ceased. I don't know whether Bastia is in the programme for summer 09 charters.

[Severn]

New Ezy Routes....

Does this mean that one of their new A320s on order being based at BRS and used for the CFU route as well as extra capacity on summer favorites ??

[Bristol_Traveller]

Either someone has gone wrong with the flight schedules, or there's a bunch of cancelled FRA flights in w/c 16 Feb.

LH4965 FRA-BRS 1xxx5xx (so lose Tue,Wed,Thu early flight to FRA)

LH4964 BRS-FRA xxx4xxx (so only flying Thursday evening to BRS)

I know it's half term week, but I'm a bit grumpy because I need to do a BRS-GVA//INN-BRS that week, and I wanted to go Tuesday morning. Guess I'll be going Monday night now.

[Goldilocks95]

No-ive checked it in the easyjet system and it wont sell more then 156 so its still an airbus a319

[Bristol_Traveller]

The BBC are reporting on the AAIB report into last winter's runway incidents.

BBC NEWS | England | Bristol | City airport runway 'was unsafe' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/7819334.stm)

[Standard Noise]

Nice to see some balanced reporting by the BBC yet again! :ugh:

The investigation identified the following contributory factor:

G-BWDA landed in a crosswind outside the operator’s published limits and the subsequent use of reverse thrust was contrary to the advice contained in the company’s Operations Manual.
They seem to have missed that bit, but there you go. But I trust the CAA is on the case and is looking into this occurrence.

[Crashlanding]

G-BWDA

Having gone through all of the reports listed, I cannot blame the pilots for landing outside of the wet crosswind limits, since the final broadcasted wind was yes outside of AAS SOP's but that broadcast was made while they was at 70ft RA, and since the captain would have been calling 80ft its very probable that neither would have heard that broadcast.

As for the use of Reverse thrust that I cannot say.

[leisurelad]

Well, Got myself a bargain today.

BRS-CFU in June for 11 nights £181 for 2 pax inc luggage. Thomas Cook wants that for one seat and EZY times are much much better.

Never been a big fan of the low cost thing as am born and bred charter lad (i miss the airline meals) but at these prices, too good to pass by.

Well done Easyjet

[WATABENCH]

Have heard a loose rumour out and about that EZY are wishing to put in up to 4 more aircraft at some point in the next year, and that FR will go up to 6 aircraft if or when the walkway is completed, and TCX might have 3 a/c in summer.
CWL seem to be heading for a hurrendous 2009 already, Globespan have pulled the YHM that BRS had last year, leaving no longhaul at all over the bridge.
I believe theres no expansion from either Flybe or Baby on the cards, also reading the CWL thread they've lost NQY service and NTE services, and the only new routes are replacing ones being cut with Baby.
Tom have also reduced schedules at CWL.
Thats not a positive start for our friends over the bridge, fingers crossed that positive things keep coming at BRS especially in the current market.

[HEADWAY]

Watabench- what do you mean by "if or when the walkway is completed". Is this just your opinion or do you know anything? Are they not going ahead with the building of it now? It's all gone a bit quiet about the walkway since the announcement of the approval in November. Does anybody know anymore about the walkway.

[WATABENCH]

Headway, didnt mean anything by the 'if' comment, dont know why i put it really. However you are correct in saying it's gone very quiet about it all, c'mon BRS get on with it, what you waiting for?

[frfly]

Yeah I wouldnt expect any FR expansion with the current set up - it just doesnt fit with the 25 min turnaround policy. FR only want contact stands.

[MerchantVenturer]

WATABENCH,

Re the extra four easyJet aircraft, this might be someone playing with figures in that at the height of last summer the airline had 12 based aircraft whereas at the moment the January schedule seems to need a maximum of eight. It may be that someone has heard that 12 will be operating again in August/early September.

If your 'informant' is suggesting that last summer's 12 will go up to 16, I can't see how that is remotely feasible in one go, especially in the light of the current severe economic slowdown. As you know, easyJet has for several years added one aircraft per year to its Bristol base.

There certainly have been rumours about Ryanair going up to four aircraft very soon with another two after the walkway is completed but how much substance there is in this I have no idea. It may be your source is the same as mine because the 3rd TCX aircraft also featured.

Currently, Ryanair is reducing its winter schedule from BRS with the Dinard axed and the Riga not bookable until the end of March (at least that was the case when I checked a few days ago).

As for frfly's comment, I have noted that their aircraft do park on the western apron on occasions, but he may be right in general terms in that FR may not want to make this too big a habit.

Finally, it would not be the greatest suprise in the world to me if FR did get back in bed with CWL. They seem to have a lot of aircraft to make use of and with TOM and WW stagnating at best at CWL, there could be some interesting opportunities for someone else and who is to say that MOL would not view the sun routes especially as tempting, provided he could get the right deal (for his company) from the airport?

Were that to happen it might impact on the BRS operation with expansion perhaps not as big as might otherwise have been the case. We ought to get a clue in the next few weeks, one or way or the other, if not sooner.

[Ranger 1]

I have not been in here much recently (understatement), however its encouraging to hear positive rumours about BRS on here and at work.
Light at the end of the tunnel one hopes.
:ok:

[santito]

Does anyone know how CO's loads are holding up these days? Just wondering if there is any chance to them pulling out as airlines look to become more efficient?

[MerchantVenturer]

santito,

Total passenger numbers for the first eleven months of 2008 are just under 3% down on the same period in 2007 (CAA stats).

November 2008 was up 4% on November 2007. December's figures should be published this week so it will be interesting to see whether this small monthly increase continues.

Of course, raw passenger figures alone don't tell us whether or not a route is profitable.

[Bristol_Traveller]

The provisional stats for November look glum.

October didn't do too badly, on about 7,500 pax (which is, I think, an average of about 55 pax per flight), but November is pretty horrid at a provisional number of 4,764. I'm sure December would have been difficult too.

I'm hoping it picks up in 2009. The fares are still in-line with the other LH UK routes, but generally LH prices up above AF/KL both on short and long-haul. IMHO the LH YQ doesn't help, but if they're getting the numbers they want across the business, I suppose you can't argue against it.

I see that LBA-FRA is being talked about. I'm fervently hoping that's a "new" route, and not a "re-routed" route....

[crackling jet]

New routes being anounced today according to local tv media, not bad for a recession !

[Charlie Roy]

Alicante
Cagliari
Eindhoven
Limoges
Malta
Montpellier
Perpignan
Reus
Rimini
Sevilla
Toulon
Trieste

[santito]

Crikey- 12 new routes?! not bad, not bad at all!

[Standard Noise]

And still nothing to Scandanavia.

[GayFriendly]

Be thankful for what you have got, 12 new routes in this economic climate is nothing short of amazing - up here at BHX after the initial FR base launch fanfare last year there isn't even a sniff of any new routes this summer and no sign of extra based a/c either......

[paul sheppard]

There may still be time as they do not have to make all of their announcements on the same day!

Here's hoping BHX is not forgotten and an announcement is due.

Paul

[jackitin]

12 more Ryanair routes from BRS, how fantastic.

Last year they taxied onto the grass 3 times.

After a cowboy approach ended up on the grass in the overshoot and had a full evacuation.

Most recently, with a bird warning for the airfield, having hit said birds close to landing, attempted a Go Around at which point both engines not suprisingly said no thanks, the aircraft missed the runway initially but after a hard bounce, as luck would have it, ended up on the runway with the gear through the wing. Another evacuation followed.

Compare the lack of coverage of these events in the UK National press with BA making the headlines after an aircraft was hit by a bagagge trolly even though the aircraft never flew. Thrill seekers must be delighted with an extra 12 chances of defying death from BRS with the Irish Rodeo show.:ok:

[Bristol based Taffy]

Most recently, with a bird warning for the airfield, having hit said birds close to landing, attempted a Go Around at which point both engines not suprisingly said no thanks, the aircraft missed the runway initially but after a hard bounce, as luck would have it, ended up on the runway with the gear through the wing. Another evacuation followed.



errrr ...have I missed something at BRS??????

the aircraft missed the runway :ugh::ugh::ugh:BUT after a hard bounce :sad::sad:
ended up on runway with gear through wing :\ :\ :\.

Well if it missed the runway the paddies would still be digging it out of the grass, and with the gear through the wing the local press would have had a field day (no pun intended)

I'm sure the regular contributors to this thread would have had something to say about this incident :E

[RVR27/09]

Jackitin;

Perhaps you should consider relocating your last post to the ,Safety, CRM, QA & Emergency Response Planning, Forums, :rolleyes: the only piece of your post relevant to the BRS forum, is the very welcome news of Ryanair's 12 new routes.
:D

[crackling jet]

Perhaps jackitin is from a parallel universe, i work at the airport in this universe and have never hear of any of the incidents jackitin refers, to, in fact the only Bristol related Ryanair incident i can recall was last years decompression and subsequent diversion into france by an outbound Bristol based a/c

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

When the runway works were in progress one based operator was the first to take a stand and cancel. It cost millions. It made the airport act..

http://tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:TNOREG1LCW645M::http://www.tradebit.com/usr/loopmaniacs/pub/9001/orange-20cd-20coverSMILEY-FACE-COVER-1.JPG




That's safety.

Right there. Right in the face of commercial expediency. Pilots say no. End of.

I'm very, very, proud of that.

The report justifies everything. I defy any airline current or defunct to demonstrate a higher standard.

WWW

WWW

[RVR27/09]

WWW as a Moderator should your post be in the proper Forum under Rumours & News?

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

No. Not really. I'm happy here. Ta

WWW

[jackitin]

This may come as a suprise but BRS is not the only airport that Ryanair operate into, had these incidents happened at BRS then by now the CWL mob would be demanding closure of the airport at BRS.

My point has been made for me by the fact that posters above seem ignorant of Ryanairs safety record. I haven't even mentioned the 90 deg bank angle on finals in Rome, landing in Denmark with Flaps 2 because they were too fast for any more flap and many other, as these happened in 07 so it hardly seems fair.

Ask the Ramp Staff, Rangers, ATC or other BRS operators about Ryanair and they will all tell you stories about beacons being turned on with pesonnel in danger areas, calling for push and start with holds open, steps down and tugs not connected and ignoring conditional push back clearances to block taxiways. In fairness to Ryanair, this last point may be as some of them do not appear to understand or speak basic english.

Free seats - "If something sounds too good to be true it probably is and you get what you pay for" are 2 phrases about Ryanair that come to mind. This is very relevant to the BRS thread as it may well be at BRS that the Irish chickens come home to roost.

[MerchantVenturer]

October didn't do too badly, on about 7,500 pax (which is, I think, an average of about 55 pax per flight), but November is pretty horrid at a provisional number of 4,764. I'm sure December would have been difficult too.

Hello B_T,

Bearing in mind the reduction in rotations for the winter with virtually nothing at weekends (there were five weekends in November that skewed the total figures adversely) the average load was still around 42-43. Nothing to shout from the rooftops of course but could have been worse in these economic dark days.

December was better with 6,190.

Incidentally, did you see the piece on the BRS website saying that during the first six months of the route passengers from Bristol made onward connections to every one of LH's worldwide destinations of which last summer there were 200 in 79 countries outside the UK and Ireland?

The top 30 onward destinations from Bristol included Munich, Vienna, Rome, Zurich, Cairo, Cape Town, Gdansk, Beijing and Bangalore.

Let's hope this shows the potential that exists to feed into LH's long haul on a growing basis.

[Bristol_Traveller]

I'm glad December was a bit brighter, as there really were a lot of missing flights around there (reflecting holidaying passengers). I looked at booking a BRS-FRA-INN & rt. around Christmas, and they were certainly holding out for pretty robust fares.

I was aware that we'd managed to send people to every corner of the world. I suspect myself and Mrs. B_T helped with our F trip to HKG, via the First Class Terminal at FRA. (That was amusing - seeing Bristol listed as a destination on the FCT displays, and being driven to/from the 146 in a big black 4x4). What I'd like to know is who flew to ALA (Almaty) and PUS (Busan).

What I thought was rather useful to know is that LH cancelled only 1 or 2 flights in the first 6 months of operation. (Yes, KLM, I'm looking at you...). And only lost one bag (and ironically, I know who it was - a poor guy travelling F from somewhere in the West of the US, for a conference in Bath).

[HEADWAY]

JACKED-IN - You've obviously have no idea what you are talking about and you seem to be very bitter with Ryanair. Just remember in the current climate, expansion of routes and more aircraft is a good thing for the airport and you can only admire Ryanair for expanding and creating more jobs and keeping people employed at the airport including the ones you mention. No airlines-No jobs!!!:mad:

[Skipness One Echo]

JACKED-IN - You've obviously have no idea what you are talking about and you seem to be very bitter with Ryanair

No he's right. Ryanair get frequent bollickings at Gatwick for calling for start when not ready and blocking in other aircraft who are doors closed and tug attached. They don't give a f***.

[Standard Noise]

jackitin - not sure what planet it is you're on matey, but I hope they bring you better drugs, you're barking.

RYR may have asked for push backs with steps down, holds open and tugs not connected, but hey, they've got a schedule to keep, so what? It doesn't credit me or my colleagues with much intelligence in sorting the situation out. As for 'ignoring conditional pushback clearances to block taxiways', you make it sound like some sort of concerted campaign by RYR to disrupt the airport. It's happened once when I've been on the desk in nearly 6 years and that wasn't a 'foreign' crew.

As I said, barking.

Skippy - if he wants to talk about Gatwick, then why doesn't he b***er off to that thread!

[jackitin]

Which bits are barking?

Are you advocating calling for push and start before being ready now " to attempt to keep the schedule" Interesting idea, maybe call as you get the bus to the aircraft just to be sure, to be sure.

Strangely enough all the other BRS operators also have schedules to keep and it is only one operator who consistantly shows a lack of professionalism in calling for start when not ready, often holding up the others.

If they are happy to show this lack of awareness to the rest of the world, imagine what happens in the confines of the flight deck.

[Standard Noise]

calling for start when not ready, often holding up the others
And who exactly have they held up? As I said, you're not crediting my colleagues and I with any intelligence or powers of judgement. They give us BIG windows to help us see what's going on and we act accordingly. No aircraft pushes without our permission so as far as we are concerned, we don't care if Mo'L himself is on board, they don't move until we're happy.
There is another operator at Brizzel who's crews regularly call for start before their pax have got off the bus, maybe you're confusing the two. Me, I don't give a rat's ass when they're ready, they get start or push and start when I see they're ready.

imagine what happens in the confines of the flight deck
I imagine they get on with their work. Do you have proof of anything else? If so I suggest you take it to the CAA, if not then you might not want to keep quiet.

As I said, woof woof!

[Silvertop]

Mr Noise,


And who exactly have they held up?

Er.....well me actually, admittedly a while ago(they have probably learned that it won't work at BRS now), but a certain a/c with a gold harp on its fin alongside me on stand 5 called for push & start before a tug had even arrived (shameless!), after several mins we called ,as we actually had a tug, their clearence was cancelled and off we went.

If so I suggest you take it to the CAA

I believe that would be the "IAA"

Cheers Silvertop

[Standard Noise]

Silvertop,

So a RYR called but didn't have a tug (bearing in mind the heads of stands 4 and 5 are blind to us) and was given push. Then you called several minutes later for push (assuming that you weren't ready at the same time as the RYR and therefore not in a position to call for push when they did), told my colleague you had a tug and the RYR didn't and he/she cancelled the RYR's push and pushed you instead.
I see no hold up unless you already had a tug at the time the RYR asked for push and you weren't quite bright enough to challenge my colleague's decision at the time. In which case, you only have yourself to blame DOH!

Have I missed something during my days off but I thought the CAA dealt with problems in the UK (were jackitin seems to be alleging that RYR are causing problems).

[Severn]

Re WATABENCH's post 890 on 10th Jan:

"TCX might have 3 a/c in summer"

Is there any more information on this?
Which carrier will be operating the teleticket flights over easter and in october?
And I also heard somewhere that Monarch will be operating some flights as well over the summer? If this is true will this be as extra capacity for TCX or TOM ?
Any other summer news ...? (I realise its a little way off yet)
Thanks in advance.

[Silvertop]

Mr Noise,

Well you asked "who exactly was delayed", and I thought I'd just let you know that on this particular occasion, well I was. No big thing really, I just thought your original comment was a bit sweeping.

I've absolutely nothing against RYR either, but this particular individual thought rather than be delayed by me pushing into the cul-de-sac he'd chance his arm, a bit of poor manners diplayed thats all.

Most pros will follow the un-written apron ettiquete so we don't have to get involved with distasteful whinging on your tower freq (already busy enough at BRS with ground & tower traffic actually) about some numpty having a go, of couse I'm not suggesting this would happen when you were on watch.:ok:

Cheers Silvertop

[Standard Noise]

Silvertop,
Sorry mate, still don't see where the delay came from on that occasion unless you politely sat waiting for him to get a tug then gave up waiting and spoke to us to sort it out.
Anyhoo, it was the sweeping generalisation that RYR were up to something faintly illegal or dangerous in jackitin's original post that I thought was a bit off.
Any nonsense on my frequency and those involved get the 'act like children, get treated like children' principle. Don't mind a bit of friendly banter though, lightens the mood sometimes.

Oh, and as for pilots 'chancing their arm', isn't that what you all do from time to time?:ok:

[bristolflyer]

BIA have launched their consultation phase for the proposed expansion. A short film and presentation can be found at www.thisisbristol.co.uk (http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk). Looks very impressive.

[jetstream7]

Which carrier will be operating the teleticket flights over easter and in october?

Tenerife
All season - AEA

Las Palmas
April - Air Europa
October - Bmi

Arrecife
Bmi

Paphos
Bmi

[santito]

Wow- the plans for expansion look fantastic- almost looks like a 'real' airport :} and Singapore, Hong Kong, Atlanta, Chicago, and Cape Town being targeted as future routes with NO runway extension?!

HOWEVER,

I just cannot see NS agreeing to airport expansion like that- we will probably end up with about 1/10th of that :ugh:

[2J&D]

Santito

Think the new destinations mentioned are relating to the introduction of the 787/A350....

How great would it be to make a direct flight to Asia / SA from BRS...Think of the saving on the taxes, without having to route via Europe!!

[santito]

Yep aware of the equipment needed to reach these destinations!

Is there also some plan to move the taxiway then? as I believe it is too close to the runway to allow a 787 to taxi whilst another ac is using the runway?

[EGCA]

Non-tech comment:
One pictorial in the proposals shows the A38 road diverted to the East in an arc away from the current location. Does this enable the full 6598 ft (sorry, 2011 metres...) of runway to be used? 27 appears to have a displaced threshold. Or do they actually gain some more length without actually extending the runway? Sorry if that sounds double-dutch, but is there currently a "dead" area of runway immediate to the A38 road that can be brought into use as a "starter extension" without physically lengthening the runway.
Sorry, not familiar with the layout on-site. Just looking at the development plan blurb, and an old Pooleys.

EGCA

[MerchantVenturer]

santito,

It may well be that North Somerset Council does not have the final say. There is a possibility that a public enquiry might ensue or, if the council does make the decision and rejects the plans, there must be every likelihood the airport would seriously consider appealing such a decision.

A further complicator might be if the Conservatives win the next general election and re-evaluate the expansion plans for a number of UK airports because they spring from the White Paper on civil aviation and that was Labour's baby.

The full-length parallel taxiway is a problem for aircraft with wingspan wider than a 767 because of the adjacent airport boundary fence along Winters Lane and the idea in the original master plan was to overcome this by the use of turning circles in the short term, although they did not discount moving Winters Lane further north in the future. I suspect that would cause a bit of fun because Winters Lane is a public highway and any displacement would shift the road onto part of the golf course.

EGCA,

The A38 was diverted via the arc you mention several years ago.

[airhumberside]

Ive just been looking in the search engines of Olympoic and Libra Holidays trying to find details of their flights from BRS to Greece this summer. Beyond a peak season bmi HER charter, Olympic seem to be using TOM/TCX while I can only find Kos on sale of the Libra website.

Apart from the bmi HER flight I mentioned, does anyone know of any non-TOM/TCX flights to Greece for Libra or Olympic this summer. IIRC last year they used XLA

[MerchantVenturer]

The last time I looked BRS had not loaded its summer 09 schedule onto its website.

Last summer saw the following charter routes each week, although I can't confirm the tour operators that used each one.

Heraklion 5 - TCX (x2) FCA XLA ECA
Corfu 4 - FCA (x2) TCX XLA
Rhodes 4 - XLA (x2) FCA TCX
Zante 4 - TCX (x2) FCA XLA
Kefalonia 2 - XLA FCA
Kos 2 - TCX XLA
Halkidiki (Thessalonika) 1 - TOM

The Greek market from BRS has been contracting in recent years with the loss altogether of such routes as Skiathos, Volos, Santorini and Chania.

Perhaps that's why easyJet is to commence a twice weekly service to Corfu this summer.

[MerchantVenturer]

There is a post elsewhere on this message board stating that Ryanair is to discontinue a raft of routes from Poland to various UK airports at the end of March, citing increased 'Polish navigational fees and charges'.

The routes from BRS to Gdansk, Katowice and Szczecin are included in the list and none are bookable on the FR web booking engine from the end of March.

Summer 09 will see just four Polish routes (Ryanair to Rzeszow, Wroclaw and Poznan, and easyJet to Krakow), down from a maximum of eight last year involving these two locos.

I haven't checked to see if Ryanair's 12 new routes announced recently take account of the axing of these routes or whether they will be looking for alternative uses for the aircraft.

[AirLCY]

The has been a huge reduction in traffic from across the UK, all London airports combined to Warsaw are down 15% for example. Definitely a wise move for FR!

[mustrum_ridcully]

No surprise about the Poland routes being cut. A large number of Poles have returned due to the economic climate, those that haven't are travelling back less as the £ is weak.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Some good signs in the BRS-FRA route in the summer timetable. A total of 19 rotations across the week, and a welcome return to flights at the weekend.

In particular, getting a couple of Saturday morning flights out will really help with those Monday morning appointments in Asia. Sunday is also looking much better for people coming inbound.

The only slight bumps are that the morning flights seem to be drifting later and later (Weds and Thurs it's out at 07:40) which might hit some connections, and the mid-morning rotations are simply all over the place - departures from FRA vary between 09:05 and 10:40, and departures from BRS between 11:15 and 12:05. I can see a very looong wait at FRA on inbounds from Asia if you land on Tuesdays (typical arrival time about 05:30, and then 5 hours wait until the 10:40).

Now, if LH can tame their fuel surcharges it will be really set to weather the storm. Having just compared some BRS-NRT flights in Y, the only difference between KL and LH is £100 difference in YQ. Similar story on European short-haul.

[crackling jet]

Talking of summer schedule, has anyone heard if SAS are back again this year ?

[Bristol_Traveller]

Having just checked a sprinkling of dates in June/July, I can't see any SK flights to OSL or ARN.

It's early still... they might add them in later in the year. In the current situation, I would guess they're wondering how many people will want to take their Pounds and try and spend them in Kronaland....

[santito]

How did SAS get on last year? Were loads any good?

[Bristol_Traveller]

I can't be sure - MV is our resident statto, and I'm sure has all the numbers at his fingertips.

I flew OSL-BRS and BRS-ARN-BRS last year, on weekday evenings, and was nothing short of staggered at how full the planes were. However, Load Factors alone don't necessarily make a route successful (I think the lead-in price on those flights was £29??). SK do at least have the advantage of not having fuel surcharges on their tickets, so their headline prices can be really pretty low.

I don't know how many people would want to take a Scandinavian break this summer. The costs in Norway were horrid even when the pound was strong.

[2J&D]

It is my understanding from speaking with someone working at the airport that SAS will not be returning to BRS.

This was something we talked about just before xmas.

Shame, as from what I could see the flights were very busy, however as BT mentioned loaded are not always indicative of whether they are making money on the route or not.

[Bristol_Traveller]

And, much like investments, historic performance is no indicator of future results...

It's probably better for SK to hold back this year, when the risk of failure is higher, and have them come back in later years - rather than get badly burnt and never want to come back again.

There's going to be an awful lot planes sat on the ground this year.

We'll still be looking good for *A airlines. LH are sticking around for the summer, and CO will switch over in November, which means the Christmas New York flight will be miles and status earning. And who knows, even SN might grace the *A during 2009.

Added - this (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/feb/03/theairlineindustry-sweden) might have something to do with SK not being around this summer

[Bristol based Taffy]

So it's definately November for their transfer???

Damm was hoping they'd join sooner....Spetember, so save me flying awful USAir!!!
Still 2010 will hopefully allow me to fly them and gain miles :D

Not sure the time line for SN though.

[Bristol_Traveller]

As I have understood it, CO leave SkyTeam on 24th October, and have said they will be in *A "very shortly afterwards".

Flying US? You have my condolences ... (http://news.economist.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/hBjdb0GjLuW0Mo0FY4w0Eu)

"Friends don't let friends fly US Airlines"

[Bristol based Taffy]

Thanks B.T. for that bit of info.

Will certainly improve my choice of carriers and departure airports (BRS) to the East coast.

Unfortunately, everything you hear about US Air is true. :\:\:\:\
NEVER AGAIN :{

I'm even considering A.C. to PHL via YYZ despite additional cost and time.

[MerchantVenturer]

The Oslo and Stockholm routes to do not appear in the SK summer 09 timetable, nor the BRS web list of destinations. Perhaps not surprising given the recent news about SK.

Beleaguered Scandinavian carrier SAS which slumped into the red for 2008 said Tuesday it would step up restructuring, lay off thousands and cut 40 per cent of its routes....................

'Horrifying' year for SAS ends with
losses, layoffs - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090203/bs_afp/swedenairlineearningscompanysas)

For the record the 8-week Stockholm season carried 3024 passengers on its 2 x weekly service compared with 2816 in 2007. The only full calendar month was July when average load was around 95 on the B 737 (I believe the series varied).

The Oslo route ran from April to October at 3 x weekly and carried a total of 14317 passengers. The best month was July with average loads of 111 on the B 737 (again I believe the series varied and possibly a MD 80 series might also have been used occasionally). The other months were in the 70 to 90 average load bracket.

I suspect these routes would have needed to have brought in sensational yields for SK to have continued them this coming summer given the airline's major problems.

CO to EWR

I have noticed that the Sunday outbound (and Sat/Sun overnight inbound) did not operate for the last three weeks of January, and last week the Saturday outbound (Fri/Sat overnight inbound) didn't operate either, giving only three rotations last week.

This week the full 5 x weekly winter schedule seems to have been restored.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Will certainly improve my choice of carriers and departure airports (BRS) to the East coast.

Yes - it's difficult justifying flying 1h45m east, to then connect into a flight flying 8hrs45mins west. FRA is an excellent gateway for Europe and Asia, but really not the right thing to do when heading for the Americas. (Added to that, you get multiple kicks of LH's YQ, which makes pricing somewhat "adventurous" compared to CO direct).

I hope CO / LH can get yields and loads right this year. Mayrhuber (CEO/Chairman of LH) is on record as saying something along the lines of a 5% global fall in passenger numbers would be "horrific". I'm guessing horrors are certainly on the way this year.

[GayFriendly]

Despite SK's 'horrific' financial problems they have just introduced the CR9 on the BHX-CPH route which I would have thought be an aircraft ideal for flights from BRS too? Lets hope they will be back next year (and that they also continue from BHX, i'm not sure if I can face flying with FR to Billund-Copenhagen West!!!)

[Keyvon]

Seat-only charter operator Kiss Flights has unveiled a new route departing from Bristol to Tenerife South, from 3rd Jul, on Fridays.
Flights are to be operated by Viking Airlines.

[airvanman]

BRS well shut. Never seen snow like it in the South West for many many years. A long night shift! Nothing going on here today?

[routem]

Sounds like you guys at BRS have had a very interesting day !! Just hope the punters appreciate how hard you've all been working to keep things going. Theres an old saying which seems appropriate: The impossible we do at once, miracles take a little longer "

Well done all. Keep up the good work

[MerchantVenturer]

I’ve had a look at the Ryanair timetable from July 09 onwards when FR will have four based aircraft at BRS, and have come up with the following schedule.

The schedule seems a pretty full one with (based on timings) the Girona, Shannon and one of the daily Dublin rotations now to be worked by BRS-based aircraft. The schedule allows an aircraft four rotations on some days.


Mon
Alicante/Bergamo/Bratislava
Beziers/Knock/Seville
Girona/Shannon/Rzeszow
Rimini/Dublin/Perpignan

Tue
Alicante/Shannon/Limoges/Eindhoven
Girona/Bergamo/Wroclaw
Montpellier/Poznan/Riga
Reus/Dublin/Toulon

Wed
Pau/Knock/Dublin/Trieste
Alicante/Bergamo/Budapest
Malta/Bergerac/Beziers
Girona/Shannon/Cagliari

Thurs
Porto/Beziers/Limoges/Eindhoven
Alicante/Dublin/Toulon
Girona/Bergamo/Rzeszow
Reus/Shannon/Montpellier

Fri
Alicante/Shannon/Seville
Beziers/Knock/Dublin/Perpignan
Girona/Bratislava/Riga
Rimini/Bergerac/Bergamo

Sat
Poznan/Shannon/Dublin/Toulon
Alicante/Limoges/Wroclaw
Girona/Bergamo/Pau
Reus/Eindhoven/Bergerac

Sun
Montpellier/Knock/Cagliari
Alicante/Shannon/Budapest
Malta/Dublin/Trieste
Girona/Bergamo/Porto

Alicante, Bergamo, Dublin*, Girona and Shannon - daily

Beziers and Knock 4 x weekly

Bergerac, Eindhoven, Limoges, Montpellier, Reus and Toulon 3 x weekly

Bratislava, Budapest, Cagliari, Malta, Pau, Perpignan, Porto, Poznan, Riga, Rimini, Rzeszow, Seville, Trieste and Wroclaw 2 x weekly

* 16 additional weekly Dublin rotations by aircraft based elsewhere

[WATABENCH]

Runway shut again this evening due to snow, shame as they have spent a hard couple of days with an army of trucks and diggers clearing the last lot from up there, now a fresh lot to deal with.

[MerchantVenturer]

Ryanair have announced a new route from BRS to BHD, daily from 30 March.

It is timed to be operated by a BHD aircraft until the end of June then, when the BRS base is expanded at the beginning of July, by a BRS-based aircraft. Until July the service is an evening one then it switches to out from BRS at lunchtime, back early afternoon.

easyJet have reduced their BFS route from 3 x daily to 2 x daily this summer with their afternoon rotation axed so the FR service will not mean many extra seats on the Bristol-Belfast route.

Whilst on Ryanair, their cull at DUB seems to have reduced the BRS-DUB route this summer from 23 weekly rotations to 20, there being no day now with four rotations.

[Standard Noise]

Who cares about extra seats? Christmas has come early cos the Ryanair pixie has been listening to Noisy. Hurrah!

That'll save me a few bob on car hire.

[mrloop]

From 25 Feb the OLT routes will only operate to/from Bremen with no Hamburg connection.

[WATABENCH]

06.02.09

New charter operator Kiss Flights will operate summer flights from Bristol Airport to Tenerife from July 3 until October 30. It will operate the route each Friday using a Viking Airlines Boeing 737 aircraft.

Kiss boss Paul Moss said: ‘Bristol Airport has always been an extremely important regional UK departure point. I am delighted that we will be able to start operating from this airport .’ The operator has already unveiled routes from Gatwick and Manchester to Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Tenerife and Sharm el Sheikh from the end of March.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Oh the irony. sat on the apron in BRS on LH4963 - because of snow at FRA... ho ho ho...

edit - needn't have worried. 25 minutes late to FRA, but the onward to GVA went tech, so in a way, life was righted...

[crackling jet]

One of my collegues was at Cwl over the weekend to service a Thomson long haul departure to Miami-Acapulco. where there was some sort of proceedural delay, speaking to one of the duty managers he was told that some US agency was seeking to have all US bound flights to operate from one of only five UK airports, theses being Heathrow,Gatwick,Manchester,Birmingham and Glasgow and he went on to say this will effect Bristol with its Continental and this summers Thomson long haul Florida and Caribean series.Have heard nothing about this but the Duty Manager at Cwl was adament this was to be, i can't see it, but has anyone heard of this or its supposed reason ?

[santito]

Absolute Rubbish!

For a start, why would it have any implications on Carribbean flights? The US has no juristiction in the Dominican Republic or anywhere else.

Secondly, I am sure the EU would step in pretty sharpish.

[Cloud1]

Funny this should be mentioned the other day there was a LBA-NQY-Miami flight and it had to go from Manchester due to 'licensing issues'. LBA pax were roaded to MAN and the NQY pax were put on a B738 and flown to MAN to connect on to their waiting 767

Interesting?

[cym]

US does have regulations over flights to Dom Rep and othe islands as they overfly US airspace and API info is required by them

[Farfield monitor]

I was passing through BRS the other day, despite all the Doom and Gloom merchants around at the moment, it was nice to see a positive outlook for place :D.

I noticed the Master Plan on display in the Old Terminal which looks very impressive, however one concern perhaps is the level of Landscaping which appears to be leaning more towards a nature reserve in places, trees shrubs, bird boxes, also a green roof whatever that is?

Well done BRS looks like you are bucking the trend.

FFM. :)

[Accurate]

Does anybody know what has happened to biagrouponline.co.uk ? They seem to have disappeared. :confused:

[MerchantVenturer]

Accurate,

They are going strong with numbers of members increasing regularly.

They played a big part in supporting the airport's hassle with the local authority over the western walkway general permitted development application.

I've PM'd you the contact. Not sure how PPRuNe views plugging other sites on here.

Farfield,

Entirely apposite for a rural airfield deep in the Wurzel countryside. ;)

[MerchantVenturer]

BRS is seeking people over 18 willing to give four hours or more each week to becoming goodwill ambassadors at the airport.

The work will include greeting inbound visitors to welcome them to the Southwest and generally ease the path of inbound and outbound visitors through the airport.

Uniform will be provided and training given.

Here comes the rub. The work will be entirely unpaid although volunteers will be given assistance with travel expenses and car parking, or free bus travel to/from the airport as well as a staff reduction at certain retail outlets within the airport.

The application forms suggest that some form of check will be made on volunteers as a CRB check is required as well as details of employment or past employment if retired.

I can understand this sort of thing happening with a charity but a commercial organisation getting people to work for them for nothing?

I believe that schemes similar to this exist at some US airports. Do any other UK airports do this sort of thing? I've never seen any obvious presence of such people at other airports around the country.

If it works the mind goes into overdrive at what could be next: volunteers to spruce up the front of the airport or mow the grass, or someone to tidy up the CEO's office or make the tea for Standard Noise and his pals?

[globetrotter79]

MerchantVenturer

As you say this kind of thing is not uncommon in the USA, although such the "recruitment" of such Ambassadors tends to be in joint venture between the airport authority and the local tourism authorities. This, in my mind, sends out much more clearly the right signals that the staff are literally there for the passengers only and specifically there to help them with stuff like local tourist information, local transport etc.

In other words, to augment rather than replace airport-employed customer service staff.

[airvanman]

How about putting real people on the information desk. Not just a phone!

...Or shifting t*ats who still park all over the place. Call them The Lulsgate Angels. "Hey buddy, shift your car or I'll blow your M*ther****ing brains out!"

What a load of old tosh! :*

[Severn]

This Summers schedule at CWL and BRS is rather interesting........
Seems that TOM will have more capacity and flights from BRS this summer and not CWL:

Aircraft:
CWL Based Aircraft: 1x 738, 1x 752
CWL have no W-patterns
BRS Based Aircraft: 2x 752, (1x 763 - Sat-Mon for Longhaul)
BRS have 2 W-Pattern flights this summer - from SZG and CFU

Flights per week: (1 = outbound+indound flights)

Longhaul destinations:
CUN- BRS: x1
SFB- BRS: x1

Shorthaul from both CWL and BRS
PMI- CWL: x3 / BRS: x4
DLM- CWL: x2 / BRS: x3
IBZ- CWL: x3 / BRS: x2
MAH- CWL: x1 / BRS: x2
AGP- CWL: x2 / BRS: x1
ALC- CWL: x2 / BRS: x1

ACE- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1
BJV- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1
BOJ- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1
CFU- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1 (W-Pattern)
EFL- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1
FAO- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1
HER- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1
LCA- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1
PFO- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1
REU- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1
RHO- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1
SSH- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1
TFS- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1
VRN- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1
ZTH- CWL: x1 / BRS: x1

KGS- CWL: x1
LPA- CWL: x1
GRO- CWL: x1

AYT-BRS: x1
FUE- BRS: x1
MIR- BRS: x1
NAP- BRS: x1
SKG- BRS: x1
SZG- BRS: x1(W-Pattern)

In total
CWL = 31 Flights
BRS = 36 Flights

[MerchantVenturer]

Blue Island have applied for a route licence to operate BRS-GCI, and say they will operate double daily, morning and evening.

Derek Coates, chairman Blue Island, said: "Bristol is an important city and one of the largest business centres in the south. This fits naturally within our philosophy to serve the business cities of Europe. ‘We also believe that the tourist and leisure market can be stimulated through this gateway to the west and south west of England."

link: IFC Feed - Guernsey - Blue Islands applies for Bristol route (http://www.ifcfeed.com/guernsey-articles/Blue-Islands-applies-for-Bristol-route.aspx)

Aurigny already operate this route, daily in summer and less frequently in winter with ATR 72 equipment.

Is there really enough traffic for 3 x daily to Guernsey?

[yeo valley]

Robert sinclair the bristol ceo. He was on the radio saying he had had a letter from the 2 local north somerset mp,s. The letter was asking that in this climate if the expansion plans were being looked at for down sizing. His reply was no because the plans were a long term thing. So i think lots of arguments coming about this.Having said that i can see a few tweeks with the plans here and there.

[MerchantVenturer]

A TimesOnLine report this weekend suggests that Macquarie is trying to offload major assets "in a desperate attempt to raise cash and pay down debts."

The report says the value of Macquarie shares has plummeted in recent months.

Amongst the major assets mentioned are Thames Water, the M6 toll road and Bristol Airport.

The airport is owned in a slightly complex way (see next paragraph which is copied from the BRS website) and the Times report doesn’t specify a particular Macquarie fund, although it may be referring to all Macquarie funds.

Bristol International Airport is 100% owned by South West Airports Limited (SWAL), a joint venture holding company owned by Bristol Airport (Bermuda) Limited (BABL) and Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund (MEIF). Both BABL and MEIF are managed by Macquarie Capital Funds (Europe) Limited (MCFEL), a subsidiary of Macquarie Group Limited.

Aussie funds to ditch UK assets - Times Online (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5864552.ece)

[Bristol_Traveller]

I'm reminded of a posting (http://www.pprune.org/airlines-airports-routes/281795-bristol-4-a-36.html#post4344224) I made back in August which seems strangely relevant now. Honestly, sometimes you'd think I knew what was going on.

I would assume that the cash that BRS is throwing off is not enough to service the underlying debts that Macquarie have racked up in various places, and they need to try realise the value of the airport and get the cash in to offset debt (some of which might be "toxic").

That might not be an altogether bad thing, depending on who buys the airport and how they finance it. I'm must admit, I'm a bit "off" private equity at the moment, and it might be a better idea (sharp in take of breath pending) if one of the UK transport groups took it on. Whether or not they would retain the commitment to upgrading and extending the facilities remains to be seen, as that means finding real cash right now, and that's extremely tough in this environment.

In the short term, I would guess that passenger volumes are keeping the BRS business profitable, which makes it attractive. But, just as I said back in August last year, it's a buyer's market.

[WATABENCH]

No BRS posts for 2 weeks, blimey must be very quiet out there, may be this that i nicked from the BHX thread may get us chatting again......

"Now the CAA stats are out it's possible to see just how well BHX did compared with other airports, particularly its nearest rivals.

Birmingham down 6.8%
Luton down 23.8%
East Midlands down 24.7%
Bristol down 25.9%
Manchester down 16.8%

Interestingly, BHX carried 40,253 more passengers than Luton last month.
Perhaps Paul Kehoe will reconsider his redundancy targets in the light of these results?"

[Bristol_Traveller]

*speechless* :eek:

25% down... comparing what to what?

If it's year on year, that's breathtaking. Whilst it's good to see that Bristol isn't getting hit any harder than other similar airports, it's an amazing statistic. (If it's comparing month on month, then the numbers are probably more volatile, so I'd be more cautious about making assumptions based on those).

I'm still travelling, albeit it on a reduced basis. I'm still trying to use Bristol, but it's hard work sometimes. I've had a couple of long-hauls recently - I've got one to SYD coming up, and nothing ex-BRS (on LH, KL or AF) gets close on price to what SQ and QF are offering out of LHR. For example, cheapest BRS-SYD I can find is well over £1,300 (in economy), compared to £700 on SQ (in A380s) ex-LHR. I can usually justify flying BRS on a variety of reasons, but spanning a 90% price difference is almost impossible to do.

[cyfarthfa]

From the info that I have seen, the figures compared Jan 09 with Jan 08. Overall the Brs figures for 2008 were up 2%+.

[WATABENCH]

I believe these were feb figures, i guess loss of XL unit and several EZY rotations dropped plus general economic downturn would pretty much explain it. :ouch:

[Bristol_Traveller]

According to BBC News, CO77 to EWR had to have a little rest at BHX, 25 minutes after leaving BRS, due to reported engine problems.

BBC NEWS | England | Flight to US in unscheduled stop (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7969815.stm)

Edit -156 pax on board. That doesn't seem too bad for an outbound on a Saturday morning in March.

[OltonPete]

Confirmed full emergency and I believe still parked up on the 80's
at bhx. Not sure what happened to the pax.

Pete

[MerchantVenturer]

The 25.9% drop in passenger figures were indeed those for February 2009 compared with February 2008.

As has been said, the main contributors were charter flights (down 37%) and sched (ie mainly easyJet who reduced many frequencies this winter).

Overall, atms were down just under 21% for the month.

The figures are clearly poor but not a huge surprise in the present economic situation.

There are also some 'extenuating circumstances', viz one less day in Feb 2009 than in Feb 2008 (which of course applies to all airports) and the snow and ice that closed BRS for nearly a whole day in Feb and for parts of other days in that month.

Putting matters into context, of the twenty largest UK airports measured by passenger numbers only four are in positive territory for the rolling 12-month period ending 28 Feb 09 - BHD up 11.6%, LCY up 6.4%, BHX up 3.6% and BRS up 1.3%.

The slump in passenger numbers came later at BRS than at many UK airports with monthly passenger increases occurring into early autumn 2008.

The year 2008 as a whole saw over 6.2 million passengers handled, up nearly 6% on 2007. Only five other 'top twenty' UK airports saw more passengers in 2008 than in 2007.

It's only since the winter programme commenced that the downturn has set in.

It might be hoped by 'supporters' that that this will mean the airport will be amongst the first to benefit when the economic recovery sets in.

[airhumberside]

The following is a concerning quote from LH's Head of Sales in the UK and Ireland, taken from the travel trade gazette

Sammann said Manchester and Birmingham continue to bring success to the airline, but admitted she was concerned about Bristol ... “Bristol is maybe too close to Heathrow. We will have to closely monitor the situation.”

[Bristol_Traveller]

I'm not sure that being too close to Heathrow is the problem - it doesn't seem to unnecessarily trouble KLM, SN Brussels, Air France or Easyjet.

However, trying to grow a route like BRS-FRA in very bad economic conditions, with airfares out of Heathrow getting very competitive, is going to be difficult. The gap between ex-BRS and ex-LHR fares is growing, because the ex-LHR fares are going down (and LH's YQ isn't - hint hint).

There's traffic there to be had, but it needs time to migrate or grow - whether or not that can be sustained when everyone is bleeding ink remains to be seen. Look at what BD's had to do with LBA, MME, JER, AMS, BRU, LAS, ORD on well established routes.

[cvt person]

By road Bristol Airport to Heathrow 113 miles, Birmingham Airport to Heathrow 107 miles so much for Bristol being too close to Heathrow, perhaps LH can come up with another reason.

[Vasto1M]

Found out today that LH will withdraw their service from Bristol at the end of the month.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Bump...

Just checked the LH website, and sure enough, no direct flights BRS-FRA from 1st May. <sigh>. (Helpfully it's offering an LH codeshare with SN Brussels through BRU).

That's really disappointing. I can understand why - a toxic combination of a recession and not-exactly-discount prices (YQ YQ YQ YQ). My business travel is down between 50% and 70% at the moment, and justifying the fare differentials between LH and other airlines was getting quite challenging. (That's not just LH from Bristol - it's LH from any UK airport. As an example, UK to SYD on LH, £1,500 - same on SQ in A380, £950....).

I hope the route trends were going in the right direction to see this as a pause, rather than a complete disappearance. I believe there is a viable business case for a Star Airline to provide a link into a Star hub, it's just that it might not be LH, and it clearly isn't now.

Meantime, I guess I'm back off down the M4, or over to SkyTeam (oh FFS..). And tomorrow I can look forward to rebooking people on the LH flight in May.

(And let's hope it's not another 17 years until *A come back!).

[santito]

After just a year they pull out?

Tried to book through to Johannesburg with LH a few times, but fares were always ridiculous compared to KLM/ AF.

[Bristol_Traveller]

I'm guessing that the *fare* for BRS-FRA-JNB was probably about the same as the *fare* for BRS-AMS-JNB. What's a growing problem for LH though is the size of their fuel surcharges (YQ), which are now apparently out of proportion with the market.

It's certainly been the killer for me on some bookings. I can span a couple of hundred quid difference, justifying it on my SEN/*G status perks, and the possibilities to uses miles to u/grade and so on. But when the difference is getting in the order of £300+ (largely out of YQ), I just can't credibly sign it off (particularly in the current environment). And C class travel is completely off-limits.

I sense something is up more generally, and the BRS suspension is only a symptom of that. There's been activity in Japan to get LH's YQs down, and now YQ for journeys originating in Japan is half that of those originating in Europe. If there's going to be a significant reduction in YQ, then great, but obviously that hits the cashflow, and probably doesn't make the BRS route look very good financially.

Sadly it leaves BRS disconnected from the largest airline alliance network (until CO join in November). SkyTeam are, IMHO, a straggly bunch of airlines around AF/KL. And of course, we've no OW since BA became London Heathrow Airlines.

[MerchantVenturer]

By road Bristol Airport to Heathrow 113 miles, Birmingham Airport to Heathrow 107 miles so much for Bristol being too close to Heathrow, perhaps LH can come up with another reason.

I can understand why LH are saying this.

The Bristol catchment, especially the business segment, is nowhere near as big as that that of Birmingham/West Midlands so any syphoning off of passengers to LHR will have a greater effect.

Furthermore, many Bristol area business people have become used to using LHR over the years; fares can be higher from BRS using LH as has already been pointed out; multinationals particularly often book their employees via LHR rather than use BRS via a European hub for onward travel.

My son, when working for a major US company, was routinely booked from LHR for US travel until I asked him why he didn't use the CO route to EWR from BRS. He wasn't aware of it and his company's booking agents either weren't or, if they were, ignored it.

He was in a reasonably senior position and was able to have his US journeys switched to the BRS-EWR route after that, but he had to be aware of its existence and to ask. Many business people would not be in that position.

I am concerned about the EWR route. Last year the previous BRS CEO publicly called on business people to use it or lose it. Passenger numbers are down by 20% for the first two months of this year although of course it's not possible for outsiders to determine how many business people still use it, or how many do so in the front cabin.

KLM seem to have reduced daily AMS rotations to three this summer when four has been the norm in previous summers.

Back to the LH route to FRA, I was surprised when the airline commenced this route with 100-seater aircraft, three times daily. Presumably they must have considered a switch to smaller aircraft, say their 50-seat CRJs, in the current climate and decided such a move would have been of no benefit.

It seems that LH have no real plans to come back to BRS, at least in the forseeable future. The local paper quotes their spokeswoman, "I will be very surprised if we see a change in demand for Bristol services in 2010."

After nearly two decades of near non-stop stellar progress this year will be, arguably, the most testing in the airport's history. How it comes out of the world economic downturn will be a significant pointer to its progress in the next ten years.

[crackling jet]

After the demise of Excel last year and the news that Teleticket are selling seats to fill the void left at Brs, who will be operating these flights. On another thread it says that Jet 2 will be doing it, anyone any idea who is doing Bristols

[Bristol_Traveller]

Furthermore, many Bristol area business people have become used to using LHR over the years;
[snip]
My son, when working for a major US company, was routinely booked from LHR for US travel until I asked him why he didn't use the CO route to EWR from BRS. He wasn't aware of it and his company's booking agents either weren't or, if they were, ignored it.

These are really good examples as to why it takes so long to establish a new route. Changing habitual behaviour, and educating people to new opportunities, takes years. Even now I find that many people in the West simply don't even think of BRS being a viable option for long-haul, and are incredulous that you could fly to EWR direct on a schedule airline. I would put that down to stellar route growth which outstrips peoples' ability to update their perceptions of BRS as an airport. That, I suspect, is compounded by Easyjet being the most prominently marketed airline at the airport, supporting the idea that BRS is a LCC airport, and not somewhere to start a business or long-haul trip from.

These problems are surmountable, but only with a prolonged commitment. Interestingly, I can't think of another UK airport with the same mix of traffic as BRS. Think LHR (Business), LGW (Leisure), STN (LCC), MAN (no LCC), BHX (little LCC), EDI (no LCC). It will take work to get people to understand BRS = Business + Leisure + LCC.

If you're already a committed KL/AF flyer ex-BRS, you probably have FB status, which adds inertia to changing to *A. More time needed to change people over.

If LH had been able to hang in for 3 years, I think they would have a winner on their hands. I can't believe that BRS can't sustain a gateway route into the world's largest airline alliance, particularly as it seems unlikely that OW would ever be a credible option from BRS (BRS-MAD??? BRS-LHR??? BRS-JFK??? BRS-HEL???)

[WATABENCH]

Shame to lose LH, but I guess there will be some casualties at BRS before things get better, I find it strange how BA made FRA work and LH can't, I would have thought using a smaller aircraft could of been worth a try as BA used a EMB 145 on the route.
However I wont miss the crew, in one word....Arrogant! But thats just my opinion.

[2J&D]

I have to agree with MV that I can't help but think that possibly a smaller aircraft should have been used, a la BACON...Something along the lines of a 50 seater.

Does anyone else also think that the way the local news promoted the demise of the route, due to the fact it was aimed at the 'business traveller' was not too helpful? I can't help but think that if that was the way they saw it, how did joe public see it?

Only a few weeks ago, I was made aware that LF was getting better and on some occasions a larger A319/737 was used, not sure when though. Certainly from a leisure traveller perspective, there was a big push going to be made in the SW area to promote the route even more.

It is shame they only gave it a year...I would have thought they may have tried to stick it out a bit longer even if it mean't a smaller a/craft. If BACON were able to operate the route without the benefit of connections, why did it not work with LH?

May be BMI posting a massive loss, just after LH made a purchase, could have been one of the reasons why the route could also have been chopped?...

I wonder if they are still thinking of operating the DUS-NYQ service this summer..

[santito]

I think it was due to BMI's losses.... either that or a falling out with BRS management.

It does not make sense to only run the route for a year and not even scale down to something smaller than a 100- seater aircraft if LF was poor. That's a lot of marketing money and administration costs lost by scrapping the BRS base.

[Bristol_Traveller]

However I wont miss the crew, in one word....Arrogant! But that's just my opinion.

Ah, not many German crews visit BRS I guess. They're just being... Germanic...

In respect of smaller a/craft, I don't know if that would have been feasible, or (if costs were the problem) a real cost saver. Remember that LH were overnighting two crews every night.

I understand there may be some fleet issues, which mean that smaller a/craft (or even the existing a/craft) wouldn't be available. And it certainly didn't warrant a 737-5, except on a few rare occasions.

One year wasn't long enough, and I doubt that was in anyone's plans to make a pull decision after a year. But something happened, which we'll never know the detail of.

[nivsy]

Really only posting here because I have used this (to be no longer) service 5 times in the past year.

Personally I thought the Eurowings (LH) cabin crew as good (and bad) as just about everyone else. I would say the majority of pax on teh flights I was on was predominately for leisure.

My biggest issue was that the LH booking system always made the fares to be excessive (especially with connections) and it ws easier and cheaper to fly from the big place london way.

Lufthansa has a history of flights being introduced from the regions and subsequently dropping them...going back a few years I remember fairly good loads on Glasgow-Dusseldorf and Glasgow-Frankfurt. Both were lost for one reason or another.

Price is a main driver and convenience is certainly a factor but in my opinion not the overall decision maker. I can never understand why flying from the regions costs more than from London. A prime example is using Continental ex Glasgow and most likely ex BRS. It costs more than flying from Heathrow.

Nivsy.

[Bristol_Traveller]

I always found LH's fares to be identical ex-BRS, ex-BHX, ex-LHR (with the exception of the small fiasco at the beginning where they hadn't properly loaded fares, and it was returning crazy prices). In almost every case, the cost was driven by the "other leg" (aka FRA-XXX), not the ex-BRS bit.

What was, and still is, painful is LH's YQ. At one point it was £32 per sector, and it's still in the high £20s now. And nearly all flights ex-BRS are 4 sector flights.

As an example, a BRS-FRA-INN flight on LH consisted of about £100 fare, and £176 in taxes, of which £128 was fuel surcharge. The fare + airport taxes made it a viable option over the EZY flight, but the fuel surcharge killed it. A similar problem with long-haul, although not quite as acute.

YQ is a horridly blunt tool, and many people complain that LH's is out of line with the market. It may be that they can command that where they are established, but it certainly hurt when trying to compete against KL/AF.

As for CO - the fares ex-BRS are identical to those ex-LHR. They may have more competition ex-LHR, so the lower fare buckets don't sell out as fast, but it's still a better deal flying from BRS. (I've got great fares for June).

[Ph1l1pncl]

Interestingly, I can't think of another UK airport with the same mix of traffic as BRS. Think LHR (Business), LGW (Leisure), STN (LCC), MAN (no LCC), BHX (little LCC), EDI (no LCC). It will take work to get people to understand BRS = Business + Leisure + LCC.


I think Newcastle is similar to Bristol with mix of traffice albeit to a smaller extent. Air France, KLM, Lufthansa, British Airways, Emirates for full service airlines (Business) Then Easyjet, Jet2 and Flybe (LCC) and then Thomson and Thomas Cook for Leisure with others mixed in.

Also Edinburgh has Ryanair and Jet2 and Easyjet and flyglobespan so that airport certainly has LCC

[simoncorbett]

Lufthansa are a masive airline group and at the end of the day they fly to & from where ever there is money to be made, the number of pax flown is only a part of the story- as i'm afraid these days its all about yield.... making money.
LH have tried several flights from regional airports in the last few years and if they don't make money they stop.
BHX my local airport they tried Hamburg (at very poor flight times) that lasted less than 1 season, also tried Cologne (with LH & German wings)
I do think Berlin to BHX would of been a route to try that would make money.........

so i'm afarid at the end of the day all airports are going to have flights that start & stop... if its not making an airline money why operate ?

[Bristol_Traveller]

if its not making an airline money why operate ?

You'd hope that LH had a reasonably astute knowledge of how to build a business. It takes time to establish a business, particularly against established competition. AFAIK, the route trends on BRS-FRA were in line with Year 1 expectations (remember, they'd only just *increased* the weekly rotations for summer 2009 about 5 weeks ago), so I don't think there was a structural problem with the strategy. It just looks like the funding for growth in the UK has been cut.

To illustrate my earlier point on YQs. I have to get to HAJ next month, and was on the verge of booking BRS-FRA-HAJ. I'm now looking at BRS-BRU-HAJ (but the connection times are very poor). The fare is £102, the 3rd party taxes are £76, and the fuel surcharge is... £107.60 (the most expensive component). Total, £286 (and not great flight times - 3/4 hour layovers in BRU).

So it looks like BD ex LHR is a viable option, at £237 and direct flights at the right times.

[Bristol_Traveller]

To give credit where credit is due. I called LH Reservations to do all the necessary rebookings, and the agent was properly briefed about the route suspension.

He efficiently and quickly processed all the re-routings, including the tricky one that ended up as a double-open-jaw (as SN don't like flying on Saturdays).

Still hoping that LH can tweak their long-haul fares to allow BRU as a routing....

[Alvechurch]

Bristol Airport to be Sold.

According to the Sunday Times, Macquarie has sounded out potential bidders including Fortis which recently bought Belfast George Best airport.

[Goldilocks95]

tommorow the inbound lourdes flight arriving at 1705 is showing on the arrivals screens as hv8228, but on the mayfly as ble 823. which do you think is correct? i know that blue line did the departing flights but if its the first flight number then does this mean Transavia is operating the flight?

[andrew1968]

There are 2 arrivals from Lourdes today:

HV8228 arr: 1705

BLE825 arr: 1815

Hope this answers your question!

[WATABENCH]

I think the HV is non ops as only 2 lde flights last week, 1 sat and 1 sunday, the return flight yesterday was ment to be in at 1725, actually arrived at 0240..... ouch:ouch:

[Bristol_Traveller]

Bristol Airport to be Sold.

According to the Sunday Times, Macquarie has sounded out potential bidders including Fortis which recently bought Belfast George Best airport.

Darn. I can't seem to find an emoticon for "not really very surprised at all".

I will be interesting to see how a new owner pursues the airport expansion plan.

[Standard Noise]

Can't see them getting what they think it's worth, whoever buys it will get a right bargain.

[MerchantVenturer]

This was alluded to in this thread in early March when Times Online first reported that Macquarie was anxious to offload some of its assets, with BRS stated to be a likely candidate.

The latest Times Online report suggests the price of the airport will have fallen for two main reasons: lots of assets being put onto the market at the moment and the dramatic fall in passenger numbers over the past few months.

Assuming the airport is sold, the new owner may be content to let the planning applications continue. They are likely to take a long time to be determined, with a public enquiry/appeals/legal challenges likely. If the final decison was in the airport's favour the world economic situation might be better in a couple of years' time.

The one small comfort for passengers is that the drop in numbers means there will be a little bit more room in the terminal this summer at the busy times, and it might be a year or two before numbers build again to a level where a terminal expansion is extremely desirable.

[flybar]

According to their web timetable, Teleticket's very limited seasons to Paphos, Lanzarote and Gran Canaria will be operated by bmi, and the more extensive Tenerife South programme by Air Europa.


Are Teleticket any good? Their website is way out of date. The timetables list flights that finished in March.

[HDP]

Bad news about LH pulling out - I've flown the route twice and the load factor was almost 100% each time.

[Bristol_Traveller]

10 days to go on the FRA route. I must admit, I've been on a couple of 100% flights, and even got bumped to C on one of them. But the majority I've been on have been in the 35-45 people range.

I sense that traffic wasn't the only reason for the route being suspended, and it seems as if there's some desire to bring it back on LH's part, although whether good sentiments are backed with action remains to be seen. I wonder if fleet availability also influenced the decision, and whether there simply weren't the right aircraft of the right type available? (Bearing in mind the LH have "borrowed" some A319's from BD to run Lufthansa Italia).