BRISTOL - 4

[WATABENCH]

BBC News - Bristol's Filton airport to close from end of 2012 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-13086783)

[BleadonHell]

According to the BRS website, passenger numbers fell 8.5% in March !.

[crackling jet]

What's this about Air Southwest ending the Bristol-Manchester route as reported on another another site ?, that's a shocker, always thought it was a well used service

[MerchantVenturer]

According to the BRS website, passenger numbers fell 8.5% in March !.
A contining trend for this winter period.

Nov was down 5%, Dec down 10% and Feb down nearly 6%. Jan saw a tiny percentage rise of 1.5 because January 2010 was severely snow affected.

Ryanair slashed its winter rotations in 10/11 markedly compared with 9/10 (I haven't got the figures immediately to hand but from memory it was around 35%-40% down) and the Continental effect plays a part in the March figures too.

At least April ought to show an increase, as it should at most airports, because of the volcanic ash closures of April 2010.

Beyond that we will have to wait and see though the Continental axing sees 80,000+ passengers lost this year for a start.

Bristol's annual figures have been in a range either side of 6 mppa for several years now.

What's this about Air Southwest ending the Bristol-Manchester route as reported on another another site ?, that's a shocker, always thought it was a well used service

It's part of Eastern's reorganisation of the Air Southwest network in an attempt to make it profitable.

It's not really a surprise because passenger figures on BRS-MAN have been falling steadily over recent years:

2010 17K 2009 22K 2008 29K 2007 32K

Since Cross Country took over from Virgin the north-south rail service through Bristol two or three years ago there is now a direct link to Manchester every hour which didn't used to be the case - it used to be necessary to change trains in the Midlands on many journeys.

The ASW BRS-LBA link remains at 2 x daily though passenger numbers have been falling at the same rate as the MAN route but from a slightly higher base. BRS-LBA also starts and finishes at ABZ and, from May, NQY/PLH alternately at the other end of this 'bus route'. Bristol-Leeds is also an hourly frequency by train albeit the journey takes a bit longer than the 3-hour Bristol Temple Meads/Bristol Parkway-Manchester Piccadilly service.

[Jamie2k9]

Most people going away for Easter last year would of went at the end of March where as this year it's April.

[anoraknophobia]

http://www.pprune.org/images/pdficon_small.gifI don't know where they get their money from but SBAE are once more trying to stop expansion at Bristol Airport.This press release was released on the 26th of this month.

Stop Bristol Airport Expansion (SBAE) is submitting a request for a Judicial Review to take our case to the high courts. Our lawyers are confident there is a strong case against the airport’s plans, which would see it nearly double in size with serious impacts for local communities and the environment.

[MerchantVenturer]

A judicial review is the procedure by which it is possible to seek to challenge the decision, action or failure to act of a public body such as a government department or a local authority or other body exercising a public law function.

The press statement of SBAE doesn't make it clear whose decision they want reviewed judicially. Is it the local authority's approval of the expansion plans or the secretary of state's decision not to 'call in' the local authority's decision for public enquiry? Presumably because he was satisfied that there was no need to interfere with the local authority's decision, ergo the sec of state couldn't have been concerned they were based on the flawed aviation policy of the previous government as SBAE alleges.

Claim forms for a judicial review must be filed promptly and in any event not later than three months after the grounds upon which the claim is based first arose.

The local authority granted planning permission nearly a year ago and the sec of state declined to call in the approval last September, both dates well outside the three months time limit.

A court has the power to extend the period for the lodging of an application for permission to apply for judicial review but will only do so where it is satisfied there are very good reasons for doing so.

I can't imagine what very good reasons there might be for extending the time limit. SBAE has followed the events every step of the way.

Do any lawyers know of any way that would enable SBAE to pursue a judicial review application? SBAE apparently thinks it can.

[MerchantVenturer]

Consultative Committee Meeting

The minutes of the recent meeting have been published.

The CEO said the airport was experiencing a resurgence in business travel and the outlook was more optimistic than it had been since the recession began in 2009. He believes that passenger numbers will pick up in the summer and the year as a whole will be busier than 2010.

2010 saw 5.72 million passengers passing through, up just under 2% on 2009. However, there is some way to go to reach the best ever year of 2008 when 6.23 million were handled, though BRS has ridden the recession better than many airports. My italics.

The CEO also said that 'positive enquiries' had been received from full-service airlines to fly from BRS next year and he envisaged an announcement in the next 3-6 months.

Bristol Airport Flyer

Six new vehicles have entered service this week, joining six similar vehicles that began to operate a year ago, meaning the 12-strong fleet is now entirely a Volvo Wright-bodied bus affair. The coaches have been withdrawn though one was operating today still, presumably replacing a tech bus.

The buses certainly speed up boarding at busy times with their luggage compartment inside the passenger saloon, which means the driver doesn't have to get out to supervise external luggage loading as was the case with the coaches.

[santito]

"Full Service Airline" you say?

I hope for a ME (But no one has suitable equipment as far as I know) or US carrier. I don't think it will be either of those.

I imagine it will be either SAS or a link to Germany from someone.

[MerchantVenturer]

The actual words used by the CEO as recorded in the recent consultative committee meeting minutes were, Positive enquiries had been received from full service carriers to fly from Bristol next year....................it was envisaged a positive announcement would be made in the next 3-6 months.

With the confirmation of a resurgence in business traffic together with the CEO's prediction that the airport will be busier than last year (which was slightly up on 2009), he seems confident about prospects going forward.

There is now a news item on the airport website saying that following the Routes Europe Conference in Sardinia this week there are 'new deals in the pipeline' and 'several new route announcements are expected in the coming months as a result'.

[PPRuNeUser0162]

Bit of news from the BEP website

BRISTOL Airport is to introduce charges for people who are dropping off and picking up passengers at Lulsgate. (http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/New-163-1-cost-airport-drop/article-3554862-detail/article.html)

The move to charge people dropping passengers off puts Bristol in the same category of world class airports as Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, East Midlands, Edinburgh and Liverpool :hmm:

Whilst I agree that promoting more sustainable travel to the airport is essential, this does seem like a highly cynical money grabbing move to me.

[BleadonHell]

Passenger number for April 485,382 up 33.24% ( ok, it was the Ash Cloud last year and this year includes all of Easter) but even taking that into account there must be some generic growth in that somewhere.

[thrubwell]

this was always going to happen from the time they shut off the forecourt for drop offs.
you have to pay for virtually everything else at bristol so there was no way they would miss out on the opportunity to generate more revenue.

[MerchantVenturer]

Passenger number for April 485,382 up 33.24% ( ok, it was the Ash Cloud last year and this year includes all of Easter) but even taking that into account there must be some generic growth in that somewhere.

The airport's own monthly figures are usually a few thousand down on the CAA provisional stats when they are published. I was told the difference is partly because the airport excludes transit passengers from its figures but so does the CAA seem to in its monthly provisional airport figures though not in the final figures published a month or two later.............bit of a mystery then.

Yet again this month BRS is not in the first batch of CAA provisional stats but when they do appear they will likely be around 490,000 which will equal the best ever April (2008) in the record-breaking year of 6.23 mppa, and about 17% up on April 2009 when Easter was only a week earlier than this year. That said, in 2008 Easter was in late March.

It's obviously accepted that this April's huge percentage rise in passenger numbers is a statistical freak because of the volcanic ash closure (and early Easter) of April 2010, but there are still signs that give cause for some optimism.

The airport does not record rolling 12-monthly passenger totals, only the current calendar year. The first four months of 2011 saw 1,547,043 passengers passing through the airport, up 4.49% on the same period last year but we have to take into account that ash closure in 2010.

"Full Service Airline" you say?

I hope for a ME (But no one has suitable equipment as far as I know) or US carrier. I don't think it will be either of those.

I imagine it will be either SAS or a link to Germany from someone.

A web site that specialises in aviation news suggests that the routes will be to Germany, Scandinavia and eastern Europe.

[santito]

Return of SAS on the cards then I wonder? Loads were always good I believe.

I would also not be surprised to see BMI Regional picking up DUS/ MUC.

[crackling jet]

MV, What is the other web site that specialises in aviation news ? Pray do tell

[bobsyerunlce]

Munich, hamburg and a Scandinavian capital city would be very nice indeed!

[MerchantVenturer]

crackling_jet

Check your PMs. Link forwarded.

[dwlpl]

Why is it a secret?

[MerchantVenturer]

For anyone else who might be interested the link is:

Bristol Airport expects new routes for 2012 : Bristol Airport News Stories (http://www.uk-airport-news.info/bristol-airport-news-150511.html)

[JTONeil]

Someone mentioned the £1 charge to drop people off, and the money making opportunity BRS has seen. Well, they have been kind enough to increase the drop off time to 20 minutes which is a great help - £1 for 20 minutes, or a several pounds for exceeding 10 minutes? Besides, there's a new 10 minute free drop off point nearby, apparently. All reported in my local newspaper, so could be wrong!

JT

[crackling jet]

MV,

Thanks for that, i was going to ask if you'd seen that as well.

Regards CJ

[WATABENCH]

Nice to see a couple of different visitors to BRS this weekend for the Rugby airlift, Blue Panorama B767 parked up all day on stand 26 and Aeronova metroliner on stand 10 parked up all day also, plus some extra FR's all from/to DUB

[Bristol_Traveller]

"Full Service Airline" you say?

I hope for a ME (But no one has suitable equipment as far as I know) or US carrier. I don't think it will be either of those.

I'm not too fussed about a 'full service airline' (and what's one of those these days anyway?), but I do think it's time to have an 'alliance affiliated' airline other than Skyteam.

I'm trying hard with SN to BRU, but BRU isn't a good hub and particularly not for long-haul.

If I was writing to Hr. Prock-Schauer at bmi, I'd be encouraging him to take his soon-to-be-returned-from-Lufthansa-Italia A319 and sending it off from BRS to useful places like ZRH, MUC, CPH or even FRA. That would even be in line with his recent comments about BD's future role delivering UK passengers to LH group hubs. Failing that, another jungle jet would do.

Twice weekly to ARN/OSL on SK (or a relocation of LH's Summer Saturdays NQY-DUS!) would be a disappointment.

[santito]

Yep I agree it is time to get someone other than Skyteam in at BRS, and yes, BD to BRU doesn't really count :)

I mentioned ME for purely selfish reasons, as I work a lot in ME and Asia and fly about once a fortnight to *somewhere far away* (Currently writing this from a hotel in Maldives! (Here for work though ))

As I said with BHX and LHR both only 100 miles away I don't think QR, EY, or EK would bring anything to BRS even if we had the rwy for the A330.

I still reckon it will be LH/ BMI to MUC/ DUS first to appear though (At least that gets a decent *A carrier with decent connections in though!)

[Jamie2k9]

Ryanair Welcomes 260M UK Passengers (http://www.ryanair.com/ie/news/ryanair-welcomes-260m-uk-passengers)

New route to Katowice and Knock dropped.

[Bristol_Traveller]

I still reckon it will be LH/ BMI to MUC/ DUS first to appear though

MUC, OK. DUS, errr.. I'm not sure even LH has worked out what it's doing with DUS, and it's certainly not a long-haul hub except for a few flights to the US East.

I've been using ZRH a lot more than FRA recently, so it would potentially pip FRA in a "which hub do you want?" race. In terms of short/mid/long haul options, it's better than MUC. And LX do some jolly reasonable intra-European fares too.

Wherever it is, please can we have flights that line up with the flight banks, not drop into the gaps between them? BRU consists either of 35 minute sprints down escalators, along travellators and up escalators again; 4 hour stopovers, or 10 hour stop overs (on Royal Wedding day) due to cocked up 35 minute connections.

[BleadonHell]

RAK seems to have gone too.....

[Bristol_Traveller]

RAK seems to have gone too.....

I believe the "Arab Spring" has led to arrogant, crass, potentially insane autocratic dictators who treat their subjects poorly being rather unwelcome across North Africa and the Middle East. ;)

[MerchantVenturer]

Winter 10/11 had 18 routes whilst 11/12 is shown as 17 routes.

Of last winter's routes Beziers, Bratislava, Knock, Marrakesh and Venice Treviso don't appear in the coming winter's timetable, whilst 'new' routes will be Rzeszow, Riga, Katowice and Bergamo.

In fact, they have all appeared before at one time or another as winter routes at BRS since the base opened in November 2007.

Rzeszow and Riga have been summer-only routes in recent years whilst Katowice was axed altogether in 2009. Bergamo was a year-round route until last winter when it was discontinued but remained in summer.

The full list of winter 11/12 routes is:

Alicante, Bergamo, Dublin, Faro, Girona, Gdansk, Gran Canaria, Katowice, Kaunas, Lanzarote, Malaga, Malta, Poznan, Riga, Rzeszow, Tenerife and Wroclaw.

[BleadonHell]

Do we know if Ryanair are satisfied with loads (and yields) they get from their BRS operation. Are there additional machines in the pipe ?

[MerchantVenturer]

I've no idea about the answer to those questions.

Ryanair has certainly wrung the changes since it opened the base in 2007.

Since then the following have all been tried at various times and for various periods but are not operating this summer or next winter:

Derry, Dinard, Grenoble, Salzburg, Scezecin, Shannon, Cagliari, Eindhoven, Pau, Perpignan, Montpellier, Toulon, Trieste, Bydgoszcz, Budapest, Bratislava, Rimini, Porto and Belfast City.

A lot of the routes were seasonal and some are now operated by other scheduled carriers (and charters in one or two cases).

On the face of it some of the axed routes did very well in terms of loads.

For example in summer 2009 from May to September Bratislava had monthly load factors respectively of 69%, 85%, 93%, 94% and 89% whilst Budapest's figures were 86%, 84%, 94%, 93% and 83%.

In the same period in summer 2010 Bratislava saw 88%, 88%, 92%, 94% and 88% and Budapest 91%, 93%, 93%, 93% and 87%.

These figures are based on all timetabled rotations operating.

Ryanair has also brought back routes it previously axed such as Gdansk and now Katowice.

This winter the emphasis is certainly on central Europe and winter sun destinations.

[margaux]

Rumour from Limoges is that the airport are so impressed with passenger numbers to and from Bristol they would like Ryanair to fly throughout the winter too.

[andrew1968]

What is the score with SBAE High Court challenge, does anyone have any update on how long this is going to drag on? :ugh:

Andrew

[WATABENCH]

Have heard on the grapevine that Air Berlin are being tapped up to try and fill some of the Germany void, fingers crossed as would be nice to see a different tail in BRS

[santito]

Sounds good :ok: Let's hope it turns out to be the case :)

[MerchantVenturer]

Expansion legal challenge

What is the score with SBAE High Court challenge, does anyone have any update on how long this is going to drag on?

Everything seems to have gone very quiet.

On 26 April this year the StopBristolAirportExpansion people said they were to apply for a judicial review of the local authority's decision to approve the expansion plans.

I still don't know how this is is possible because the legislation states clearly that applications for judicial reviews must be made within three months of the decision being challenged which, in this case, was in May 2010. They were even well out of time to challenge the sec of state's decison not to call in the application which was announced in September 2010.

Recently the local press pointed out that opponents of the Bristol City Council's decision to only part register the site of the new Bristol City FC ground as a town green had only three months in which to apply for a judicial review.

Yet in all the reports about SBAE's belated judicial review application the three-month rule hasn't been mentioned in the local press so far as I'm aware.

In exceptional cases (may not be the precise legal term) a judge can extend the three month limit but it's difficult to see how that could apply with the expansion approval which was announced publicly at the time. In any case it's the local authority being challenged, not the airport, and council tax payers will be picking up the tab, unless the applicants are made to at the end of the day.

Profit for last year

Recently the Bristol Evening Post reported that 'last year' the airport had made a profit of £23.6 million on a turnover of £57.6 million. No further details were given.

Recent Airport Experience

Last month Mrs MV and I used the airport to and from Geneva with easyJet.

Security was a breeze during the very busy Saturday lunchtime period with six or seven stations open and we were through in three or four minutes. There also appeared to be more public seating in the departure areas compared with last year, though we used one of the food outlet areas for lunch.

We used the western apron walkway for the first time to depart, from gate 15 the penultimate gate of this 400-metre corridor. Having read a number of complaints about its length and stairs in various trip report sites we couldn't understand what the fuss was about, and neither of us is in the first flush of youth. On the return journey we parked at the aircraft stand at the far end of the walkway and found the stroll to Immigration very pleasant after an hour and a half seated on the aircraft, especially with the views from the first floor level windows of the western apron and beautiful countryside beyond.

We were one of six 150-seat plus aircraft to land in a twenty-minute period yet the queues at Immigration were not long at all with about six Border Agency desks open. In fact, we have new e-passports and there was a member of staff on hand to assist those unfamiliar with the readers so we were able to bypass what queue there was.

Having criticised the airport in the past for long security queues and inadequate levels of departure area seating our recent experiences have suggested that lessons have been learned and remedial action taken. In April we passed through security in a Monday morning rush period and again were through in three or four minutes.

[tpm]

We used the western apron walkway for the first time to depart, from gate 15 the penultimate gate of this 400-metre corridor. Having read a number of complaints about its length and stairs in various trip report sites we couldn't understand what the fuss was about, and neither of us is in the first flush of youth. On the return journey we parked at the aircraft stand at the far end of the walkway and found the stroll to Immigration very pleasant after an hour and a half seated on the aircraft, especially with the views from the first floor level windows of the western apron and beautiful countryside beyond.

What bugs me most about it is that they tend to call you to the (far away) gate way too early, and then you end up standing another 10-20 minutes in the gate area, with no seating available anywhere (part of the planning approval conditions I believe, but still). I find it merely annoying, but for many people, esp. elderly people, it's a real problem, or at least an inconvenience. This happens both with LoCos and full-service airlines like KLM/Air France btw.

And while distances are of course no greater than at other airports, there are no moving walkways, and they didn't leave enough space so they can put some in later either (from the looks of it).

What saddens me most is that they've done the walkway on the cheap. It radiates the charme of the plumbing section in a B&Q store. And it wouldn't even cost that much more to fix it: improve the lighting, put in a few more windows, put up some pictures, put in some vertical ceiling panels to hide the pipes and cables. I just hope that's not a sign of what the rest of the airport expansion will look like.

Does anyone know when work on that will start by the way?

[bravoromeosierra]

The walkway is only supposed to be a temporary structure which in many regards makes it quite good for what it's purpose is. Unfortunately it is not ideal (like you say, limited due to planning contraints) and I believe the issues will be remedied when the masterplan kicks in.

[Standard Noise]

Some people are just never happy. If the walkway hadn't been built, it would be 'the terminal's too small, it can't cope'. :ugh:

[tpm]

Some people are just never happy. If the walkway hadn't been built, it would be 'the terminal's too small, it can't cope'.

Well, that's true in any case, but that's not something the airport has (had) much control over (but they've done a great job coping with it), while they did have control over what the walkway would end up like. I didn't know it was supposed to only be a temporary structure though (and I'm still not sure whether I fully believe it, as it shows up in the expansion renders/videos more or less exactly the way it's now). Anyway, I guess this is not really the right forum for whining about this, and it was only supposed to be a note on the side, my apologies.

[WATABENCH]

From BBC Bristol

Passenger forces Marrakesh to Bristol flight diversion

A flight from Marrakesh to Bristol was diverted after a passenger became disruptive.

Bristol Airport confirmed the airplane was diverted to Brest airport in France but did not give details of what happened on board.

The flight, which took off from Morocco at 2055 BST on Tuesday, was delayed by more than an hour and arrived in Bristol at 0045.

The passenger was arrested and is in the custody of French authorities.

Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said the passenger was "removed from the aircraft by police".

"Ryanair apologises to passengers for this diversion and the knock-on delay which resulted from this highly unusual incident.

"Ryanair will support and co-operate with any prosecution brought against this disruptive passenger."

[TSR2]

"Ryanair will support and co-operate with any prosecution brought against this disruptive passenger."

Every credit to Ryanair but I do hope they did not allow this passenger to board if he/she was intoxicated prior to boarding.

[FR-]

RAK does seem to have alot of these problems, police had to meet the EMA-RAK last week and female crew were pushed over by pax.

[frfly]

And if RAK opens as a base.....god help the crew!

[FR-]

Be as popular as Olso ;)

[bristolflyer]

MV, you're correct that SBAE has 3 months in which to mount a challenge. The whole situation is strange. The Administrative Court can extend the time period in exceptional circumstances, but they have to be truly exceptional. The three month time period runs from the date of knowledge of the action which an individual wants reviewed. They can only challenge the decision of a public body and not the actions of the airport itself, as it is a private business. Now unless they have recently discovered an irregularity with the planning process, that all parties are keeping quiet about, I would say their application is dead in the water.

[WATABENCH]

Latest on the RAK incident :D

BBC News - Bristol-bound Ryanair flight passenger sits on 'violent' man (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-14060119)

Well done that man!

[Jamie2k9]

easyJet provides more flights from Bristol for summer rush | Bristol24-7 (http://www.bristol247.com/2011/07/07/easyjet-provides-more-flights-from-bristol-for-summer-rush-15088/)

extra 10,000 seats.

[andrew1968]

Had a very quick look so not that in depth, but its looks as if the additional flight capacity will run through til the end of September.

Routes that I could see additional flights are:

Bodrum, Ibiza, Geneva, Dalaman, Heraklion, Faro, Split, Pisa, Murcia, Marseille, Palma which is 11 out of the 15 supposed increases.

When I get more time I will look again to identify the others!

Good new for Bristol though! :D

It will be interesting to see what the 11th aircraft is considering from next week BRS has 8 x A319's and 2 x A320's.

Would be good if it was a third A320!!!!!!!

Andrew

[dwlpl]

Strange that they have a spare aircraft just knocking around at BRS though in the peak season.

[WATABENCH]

There isnt a spare knocking around at BRS for defo, must be coming in from another base, after the slot 1's depart theres definatly no other Easy on stand, the last few times that there has been a major tech issue on the slot 1's they've brought in another a/c from either STN or LGW

[dwlpl]

There isnt a spare knocking around at BRS for defo

Quote from EZY spokeswoman -

we are retaining an additional aircraft in Bristol throughout the summer

[MerchantVenturer]

easyJet additional capacity

WATABENCH is correct. There is no spare aircraft at BRS.

The base has ten allocated throughout the year - 9 A319s and one A320 - which goes up to eleven in peak summer from around mid July until mid September.

This summer it appears the additional aircraft will be retained until the end of September. This is certainly what the Bristol Evening Post believes as it included this paragraph in its report on the subject today: The airline bases ten aircraft at Bristol Airport throughout the year, with an eleventh operating during the peak summer season. But that has been extended due to demand.

The confusion seems to have arisen with the loose interpretation of 'summer' which was clearly meant to refer to the peak summer period.

Expansion judicial review

MV, you're correct that SBAE has 3 months in which to mount a challenge. The whole situation is strange. ..............................Now unless they have recently discovered an irregularity with the planning process, that all parties are keeping quiet about, I would say their application is dead in the water.


bristolflyer,

SBAE's website suggests it is relying on the current government's consultation document on its own airports policy, published in the spring of this year, which criticised the previous government's airports policy as being fundamentally flawed, and SBAE contend the expansion approval was based on the latter government's premise.

I suppose that's how they think they can get around the 3-month rule as they will argue this is an exceptional circumstance.

One wonders what they would do if the current government's consultation document was to be published next spring and the expansion work was already under way.

[andrew1968]

we are retaining an additional aircraft in Bristol throughout the summer

As in previous summer's easjet brings in an additional aircraft over the busy summer holiday period. As for where this comes from I don't know, but it definately isn't hanging around at BRS before this!

Brs normally has 10 based aircraft, 9 A319's and 1 A320!

Additional aircraft normally arrives in July, although this year I think it is a week later but I think it is staying longer til the end of September.

As I posted earlier, next week BRS has 8 x A319's & 2 x A320's, there is no news on what the 11th aircraft will be!

Interesting stand space must be at a premuim at BRS overnight with easyjet x 11, Ryanair x 5, Thomson x 2, Thomas Cook x 2, Air France, KLM and BMI (Brussels Airlines) x 1 each. (23 in total) I think only 25 available in total, I know there is a plan to extend the western apron again, I would of thought they need to get on with it!

Andrew

[speedbird_481_papa]

Brs normally has 10 based aircraft, 9 A319's and 1 A320!

BRS have had 2 A320s already for about 3 weeks already, and 8 A319s. We currently have G-EZTW And G-EZUK based at BRS. the 11th based a/c that will be coming in will be a third A320. And there is deffinately no spare aircraft at BRS at the moment.

And with the 11th aircraft to be based at BRS this summer, they always do bring another aircraft in for the peak summer season, they certainly have done the past few summers anyway. So it's normal and the extra aircraft normally goes back to LGW or wherever in sep anyway

[WATABENCH]

Bit more info on that RAK-BRS Ryanair incident


This is Bristol | Aggressive passenger met his match (http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Aggressive-passenger-met-match/story-12913653-detail/story.html)

[TSR2]

So Ryanair allowed him to board even though he had consumed half a litre of spirits (bought from the duty free shop) prior to boarding.

A expensive error of judgement.

[FR-]

Hang on a minute, cabin crew do not go to the boarding gate in RAK, so the first time crew would of seen him is when he got on. And the pax said he was fine for the first half of the flight, so please give me a reason why the cabin crew should of stopped him getting on board?

fr-

[TSR2]

Hold on, I never mentioned Cabin Crew. I said Ryanair allowed him to board having previously consumed half a bottle of sprits to which I mean a representative of the airline, and I'm sure that anyone who consumes that amount of spirits in such a short time would be noticed. It certainly was by the guy who was interviewed.

As I say, an expensive oversight by someone.

[andrew1968]

Bristol Airport has joined the ranks on the social network!

@OfficialBRS

I emailed the marketing dept sometime last year about joining the social networking sites to raise the profile of the airport, but no reply at the time!

Maybe they just took a while to action it! :D

Andrew

[Bristol_Traveller]

Sad news (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-14154909) today that AirSouthWest is to cease operations this September.

Best wishes to the crews, who have always been great when I've been tootling between BRS-MAN/LBA.

[speedbird_481_papa]

Aye very sad news indeed. A friend of mine works as senior cabin crew with WOW and not long been promoted either.

If there are any WOW readers here best wishes for the future all! Thoughts are with yourselves.

On another note, on sunday to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Aer Lingus begining operations, with the first flight from Dublin to Bristol, there will be a de Haviland 84 Dragon flying in to Bristol to celebrate Aer Lingus's milestone. Not sure about timing but will try and find out later and let you all know :ok:

[OltonPete]

Per the CAA - 572764 -3.1%

I do try to keep up with things going on in Bristol but I was surprised
at the level of decrease.

I am sure MV will be able to help in explaining the differences between
June 2010 & June 2011.

I am sure the likes of Goldtrail missing this year would not have helped,
perhaps longer sector flights by FR & EZY reducing the overall number
of sectors and of course Continental which would be another 8000-8500 pax?

Pete

[MerchantVenturer]

Hello Pete,

The airport's own stats give a more comprehensive breakdown and show that the 18,000 fewer passengers seen in June 2011 vis-a-vis June 2010 are entirely the result of fewer charter and scheduled domestic customers.

There were 12.42% fewer charter punters though charter flights were down by 17.33%, and 6.25% fewer scheduled domestic customers with this type of flight down by 13.98%. Conversely, scheduled international passenger numbers were up by just under 1% though flights in this sector were up by 5.44%.

The CAA stats show that overall there were 4.6% fewer flights across the board in June 2011 with, as you say, a 3.1% drop in passenger numbers.

BRS's passenger numbers are still up by 2.48% (according to the airport's figures) for the first six months of this year compared with the same period last year though atms are down by a similar amount which is usually the best way round, though of course available seats are the real guide and it looks from Mayfly (not a completely accurate tool) that available seats for much of July may have been down by around 3-6% against last year. If that is the case BRS will do well to be only one or two points to the bad in this month's passenger figures.

Although BRS came through the recession better than most regional airports it's actually been stuck on a bit if a plateau in passenger numbers for the past five years, following its meteoric climb in the first five years of this century.

2006 saw 5.71 mppa, 2007 5.88, 2008 6.23, 2009 5.61, 2010 5.72. This year may finish broadly the same as 2010.

There have been optimistic public noises emanating from senior management, including the CEO, that 2012 will see an upturn and the arrival of new airlines has been forecast, though perhaps not based airlines. Maybe the commencement of the major expansion might be a catalyst for substantial upward movement, assuming the last-minute attempt by the objectors to derail it is thwarted.

[WATABENCH]

Extra Ezy unit arriving 29th July until end of september I believe, not sure if it will be A319 or A320 though i'm afraid

[Flight99]

Any news on the performance of Blue Islands new service, JER-BRS? I note Blue Islands are advertising heavily on JER-BRS and JER-LCY at the moment.

[MerchantVenturer]

Test bookings for October and November on the Eastern website show the route between Bristol and Aberdeen will continue, with two of the daily rotations operated by a Dash 8-300, and the third on selected days each week by a Jetstream.

The Dash 8-300 rotations in each direction are shown with one en-route stop, presumably LBA, whilst the Jetstream remains a non-stop service.

Now all this is the same as at present with the Air Southwest Dash 8s operating the BRS-LBA-ABZ sectors but starting and finishing at PLH/NQY.

From October it looks from the timings that a Dash 8-300 will be based at BRS.

The first northbound journey leaves BRS at 0730 and the first southbound journey arrives at 1005 with the aircraft passing each other en route (as now).

There then appears to be no work for the Dash 8 from BRS until it departs at 1700 with the last northbound journey, passing the last southbound that arrives at 1945, stays overnight, before working the 0730 north the following morning.

I stress all this is based on the timetable but does confirm rumours of a BRS Dash 8 base (or at least overnighting) I've heard from a couple of separate sources.

As things stands though a Dash 8 would be parked each day at BRS from 1005 until 1700.

[MerchantVenturer]

This is Bristol | Fears tax change may drive flyers to Cardiff (http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Fears-tax-change-drive-flyers-Cardiff/story-13016444-detail/story.html)

Bristol Airport management says that moves to hand control of air passenger duty to the Wales Assembly Government could have a 'devastating effect' on business at BRS.

Devolution of air passenger duty was recommended by the Calman Commission on Scottish devolution, which formed the basis of the Scotland Bill currently going through Parliament.

A UK Treasury spokesman was quoted: "No final decisions have been taken. We're looking at consultation responses and will publish our response in the autumn. Devolution could have potentially wide-ranging effects which is why it is important that we gain a full understanding of impacts before any final decisions are taken."

I suppose the two English airports that would be most affected are Bristol and Newcastle.

[LGS6753]

Methinks some journalistic hype here, MV.

My (average saloon) car costs 15p per mile in petrol alone (total costs nearer 40p), and the current APD is £12.00. So the breakeven on fuel alone is 80 miles, i.e. 40 miles each way, with one person on board, twice that with 2 people and so on. And that's assuming APD is £12 at BRS and £0 at CWL (unlikely). The distance, according to Google maps from BRS to CWL by road is 63 miles.

I'm afraid that would not be enough to tempt me to Cardiff, all other things being equal.

[GAXLN]

Yes, but suppose it was four of you travelling in which case the APD is £48 or that you were going to the States in which case the APD would be £240 for the four of you?

If Wales and Scotland get devolution powers they will use it to undermine English airports and it raise very serious issues about the United Kingdom. The best solution for this Government would be to recognise now that APD is a tax which has had its day and that it is costing jobs and UK competitiveness in the world market and it should go. The revenue foregone can be replaced, in part, by ETS and taxes from greater economic activity and lower unemployment benefits. APD is potentially a "poll tax on wings" and if I were in Government I would be worried, very worried.

[WATABENCH]

The passengers will fly from which ever airport has the flights they need.... The situation at CWL is very dire in respect to that, it would take a huge shift from a big loco player to make any difference to this, in other words its got to be an airline to move over the bridge before the passengers do.

[MerchantVenturer]

I'm not sure it's journalistic hype entirely.

If it were to happen and CWL had a nil apd and English airports had a £12 per short haul apd (it could well be more than that if rumours are true) then it would be a very tempting prospect for, say, Ryanair and/or easyJet if they could charge £12 less per each departure fare with little financial loss to themselves.

In the Severnside scenario the respective catchment sizes would have a bearing as well, and because of the imbalance in numbers and make-up (business and leisure) more people would have to be tempted from the English side to travel from CWL than currently happens in reverse, though numbers of Wales emanating or destined passengers using BRS are substantial – around 750,000 a year according to the last CAA survey in 2008.

The owners of those English airports that would be most seriously affected would certainly have a lot to say if they perceived the value of their investment decreasing owing to government action not evenly spread across all UK airports - this press report may be the opening shot from the BRS management.

[crackling jet]

All gone a bit quiet lately,better let people know Bristol is still open !!, these promised announcements within the next few months after the Caglari routes conferrence from the three or four major full service airlines must be on finals soon, any bets on who/where ?

[bobsyerunlce]

I'm still hoping for a new carrier with German and Scandinavian routes (air Berlin recently rumoured although I don't know where that rumour started).

Also, do u think Ryanair and Easyjet will ever announce any new routes from BRS? It just seems that they have pulled routes for a long while now even though they still have large bases here.

One final thing, I recently flew Wizz Air and I was pleasantly surprised with them. It's a shame that Wizz never got off the ground at BRS (excuse the pun). They have an interesting route network to some decent destinations

[j636]

Ostfriesische Lufttransport are dropping BRS on 31 October as they are closing all routes from Bremen

[bobsyerunlce]

So no German routes left now except for Berlin on easyjet?

[MerchantVenturer]

It used to operate from Filton to Hamburg and Bremen as a sort of inhouse aviation industry charter but was moved to BRS some years ago to try to pick up some fare-paying members of the public as well.

The Hamburg leg went west a couple of years ago and loads have been pretty dire. I assumed it was kept going by some sort of financial support from the aviation industry.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Given that whenever I looked at booking BRS-BRE/HAM it cost about £700 return, I had rather assumed the shift towards making it appear to be a scheduled passenger service had something to do with reducing tax liabilities rather than attempting to run a viable commercial aircraft service.

I know I harp on about this, but Germany has a population of 89m people, it's one of our largest trading partners in the EU, and there is a large ex-pat German community in Bristol. So why on earth can't it sustain a scheduled airline service on an aligned carrier?

I wrote to Hr. Prock-Schauer at bmi a few weeks ago, noting their publicised strategic shift to serving LH hubs from British airports, and inviting him to base one of their aircraft at Bristol. (I even wrote in my bestest German so it couldn't get fobbed off to the usual customer service team).

[nef]

I even wrote in my bestest German so it couldn't get fobbed off to the usual customer service team

Haha I like it - good thinking!:D

There has been a fair bit said by BD over the last year or so about using BD (regional in particular) to increasingly link UK regionals to LH groups hubs, but there doesn't seem to have been any actual action towards that end! They have launched ABZ-FRA, but that is apparently with LH E190s.

[MerchantVenturer]

Hello B_T

Re OLT to Bremen and originally Hamburg, from what I heard there was no real hope that the route would become a viable commercial service; it was more the thought that if some members of the public travelled as well as the aviation industry people it would at least help with some of the costs.

It seems that from October OLT is closing all its Bremen routes with Copenhagen, Zurich, Toulouse and the seasonal Heringsdorf all facing the axe in addition to Bristol.

More generally you will know probably better than anyone in this forum that the Lufthansa service to Frankfurt that operated from April 2008 until April 2009 had all sorts of teething propblems with its booking system with abnormally high fares often shown in the early days and even months. Nevertheless within the first six months of the route LH had announced that BRS-emanating pax had used every one of the airline's ongoing routes from FRA. 98,000 people used the route in the 13 months of its existence.

3 x daily (21 per week) Eurowings Bae 146-300 equipment did look a bit optimistic for such a new route for LH and I believe that even larger aircraft sometimes featured. The winter saw a reduced schedule. Monthly load factors were in a fairly constant range of 50-60%.

Prior to that BA, variously as Brymon, BACitiexpress and BAConnect, operated ERJ-145s to FRA (and MUC) year-round from the late 1990s until Flybe assumed control of BACon in 2007. Dusseldorf had been added to the portfolio about a year before BACon ceased flying and all the German routes were either daily or 6 x weekly. Monthly load factors seemed to vary between 50% and 80% and, depending to whom you spoke, the routes were either profitable or loss-making. FRA and MUC did operate for over seven years though and if they were loss-making why was DUS added and at the same time a fifth ERJ 145 added to the BRS base?

easyJet tried Hamburg from late 2005 though summer 2006 before axing it. Monthly load factors weren't brilliant with the best month around 70%.

Berlin (SXF) has been operating for over seven years and load factors have been good, usually into the 80s% most months and sometimes higher.

I suppose, Berlin apart, the picture is mixed vis-a-vis Germany which is perhaps the reason why such an obvious destination to punters may be viewed more cautiously by the operators who have to actually risk their dosh.

There was certainly hope that BRS and Germany might see more of each other when the LH Group announced they were looking to use bmi to link more UK and German airports. It was thought by some, including me I have to admit, that the current bmiRegional ERJ145 service to BRU on behalf of Brussels Airlines would be joined by at least one similar route to Germany on behalf of LH.

It might still happen, or something like it.

Before anyone points it out, I know load factors are not the definitive mark of a successful route but they do at least indicate the presence, or lack of it, of a potential market.

[MerchantVenturer]

The minutes of the recent airport consultative committee meeting refer to SBAE's application for a judicial review into North Somerset Council's decision to grant outline planning consent for the airport's major expansion.

Robert Sinclair, BRS CEO, told the meeting that a judgement has been given on written submissions that there were no grounds for a judicial review to proceed.

The applicants have now asked for an oral hearing but a date has yet to be set for this.

[mikkie4]

southend went through the same thing,lets hope you get the same result as southend

[Bristol_Traveller]

Obviously my letter to Herr Prock-Schauer of BMI had the intended effect, as they've just launched a 3x daily to FRA using an ERJ.... from EMA.

:mad:

[santito]

So I flew out of BRS on the early BRU flight- first time I have used BRS in quite a while.(Last time was before the new walkway with additional gates was open)

Firstly, it was absolutely rammed in the terminal- no seats anywhere, falling over people to get from A-B and the queue for security went right down the stairs and back to the Aer Lingus checkin desks. Not often in the past was it that busy.

Next thing is, the flight to BRU seemed completely full. First time I have ever seen that and I used to do Brussels every single week. My ticket was £530 (booked last week), which is significantly more than I used to pay, but I think I must have gotten the last seat in Economy. I wonder if the Avro will return to the Bristol route any time soon?

I am not a fan of the Embraer 145's- far too small, so hope the load factors get Brussels Airlines to get something a bit more roomy back down to Lulsgate and BMI put the Embraer on BRS- FRA :E

[JSCL]

£530!? I remember booking MAN-BRU 48 hrs in Advance on an RJ that was mind and it was 100% full, it was only £300 return for peak business times also.

You guys down in Bristol are getting charged considerably more!

[santito]

Yep and that was cheapo Economy- right at the back. :mad::mad::mad:

[Bristol_Traveller]

There's a robust discussion ongoing about whether BD can make a hubbing strategy (ala KLM->AMS and AF->CDG) profitable.

The big weakness is that their fleet consists of either ERJs or 319s. So either very small or a bit too big. "Too small" drives crazy fares to maintain yields, "too big" means finding (stealing) volume in the market that may not be there.

The Avros are on their way out generally - LH, LX are moving off them, and I should imagine SN will be too. They're quite thirsty for what they do.

Unfortunately, I can match your experience of fares, but counter it with examples of being one of 12 people on the BRS-BRU mid-morning flight.

[MerchantVenturer]

Loads have increased substantially since Brussels Airlines started using bmiRegional ERJ 145s on the route in January 2010 in place of their own ARJ 85s.

In 2010 over 38,000 people used the route which was an increase of 23% on 2009. In the first seven months of this year passenger figures have increased by over 14% on the same period in 2010.

The 3 x daily ERJ features slightly fewer seats overall than the 2 x daily SN ARJ did so the increased passenger loads suggest the greater flexibility is having a positive effect.

Still a long way to go though to reach the 99,000 passengers who flew the route in 1999, and as recently as 2006 there were 63,000 but the route was once 4 x daily ARJs.

[WATABENCH]

Intresting reading...............

BBC News - Hammond Heathrow £500m rail link plan consideration (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-14784527)

[Bristol_Traveller]

I think the BRU route could be improving for a number of reasons:

3x daily, with an early departure ex-UK works. 2x daily with a mid-morning departure from BRS emphatically does not.
SN is now part of Star Alliance, so interlining between SN/LX/LH/OS/SK within Europe is possible. Most people don't seem to realise you can book a ticket with CO to fly from BRS to the USA, via BRU. (Connects nicely into CO60/CO61 at BRU).
The Embys drive high fares and good yields, even if there's a small demand (total seats per week is only ~850 each way).


The Avros are the right size plane, IMHO, for a hubbing op out of BRS, but LH were saddled with problems:

Avros aren't the cheapest per seat kilometre to run. Having some E190s or Dash-8 on fleet would help. C-series are still some way off.
They were overnighting 8 people every night at the Marriott, plus transport to/from Lulsgate. They also had a dedicated station manager (who was great incidentally).
KL hit them with a fare war, they screwed up their own fare loads, they got hit at a period of weak demand generally, BD got thrust on them, and their LHR flights were yielding low. Killing BRS was the softest cut.


Talk of reducing the travel time to Heathrow must make people even more wary of BRS. If you're an airline exec looking at a map, BRS already looks periously close to LHR - probably only SOU and NWI are closer. Whilst a "shuttle train" from Reading to Heathrow looks appealing, I doubt it will really reduce journey times by train, and it surely won't help you get to LHR for the 07:00 to ZRH or the 06:25 to VIE or FRA, or even the 07:15 to ORD.

[crackling jet]

Is the Banjul-Cape Verde series going to happen this year after last years Hamberg Airways collapse leaving no one to operate this service, ever since its inaugeration some years ago it was always a popular destination untill it was left high and dry last year. If so who will be operating it ?

[WATABENCH]

I believe that Thomson are doing weekly Cape Verde, however no sign of Banjul

[Severn]

Looking at the Thomson Timetable, this winter is looking pretty sparse in comparison to last winter.
The timetable only shows sun flights, not any of the ski flights.
There seems to be only 1 x based aircraft (assuming B757) where as there was 2 x based last year although on each Monday starting late December there is the need for 2 x based but only on a Monday.
Also Cape Verde seems to have disappeared from the timetable and what is more shocking...... a few selected weeks seems to show that Cardiff have more flights per week (of course not including the ski flights)?! This surely can't be true?! ;)
Anyone have any more information?

[MerchantVenturer]

Jamesc909,

Looking at a week towards the end of last January, the TOM programme was thus, all on B 757s:

Monday
Sharm el Sheikh
Las Palmas

Tuesday
Tenerife

Wenesday
Fuerteventura
Luxor

Thursday
Arrecife
Sharm el Sheikh

Friday
Sharm el Sheikh
Tenerife

Saturday
Geneva (ski)
Chambery (ski)
Salzburg (ski) - middle of a 'w' scheduling
Verona (ski)
Sofia (ski)

Sunday
Toulouse (ski)
Turin (ski)
Malaga

I've not looked at the coming winter. What's missing from last winter - mainly Egypt flights?

I tend not to look in detail at forthcoming seasons (whether charter or scheduled) until they are about to start because carriers and tour companies can't always be relied on to operate everything they originally announced, therefore I don't know how the 2011-2012 ski season is shaping up, whether TOM or others.

Last winter there were 16 weekly ski charters - all at the weekend - with Thomson operating 7, Thomas Cook 4, Flybe 2, Balkan, Titan and Small Planet one each. Add in easyJet's 31 weekly ski destination rotations and, as in previous winters, the ski programme was exceptionally strong for an airport of Bristol's catchment size.

I suppose it illustrates the wealth and make-up of its leisure catchment though I would be surprised to see the coming winter quite as strong as last, having regard to the continuing pressures on pockets.

[BleadonHell]

Jet2 (looked to be a 757) landed at BRS at around 23.10 last night. Any idea what thats all about?.

U2 had a torrid time with their outbound Madrid on Sunday, scheduled 17.45, departed 23.30. The flight was eventually operated by a MAD based machine. Pressumably the Bristol 319 went tech?.

I was on the inbound from MAD which landed on time at BRS.

[santito]

Any news on these 'new airlines' mgmt were talking about yet? :bored::bored::bored:

[MerchantVenturer]

Hello santito

BRS CEO Robert Sinclair gave an interview to a local media organisation recently in which he said the airport would be focusing on key markets at the Routes Conference in Berlin next month, and he mentioned Germany, Scandinavia and the Middle East.

You will recall that after the Sardinia Routes Europe Conference in the spring the airport put out a press release saying they were confident of being in a position to make several significant announcements (re new carrier(s)) 'over the coming months'.

Around that time the CEO told the airport consultative committee that 'positive' enquiries' had come from full service airlines and he envisaged an announcement within the next 3-6 months, which takes us up to the end of next month.

In his recent media interview there is no mention of the announcements previously promised. If this is because what was thought to be in the bag no longer is or whether the CEO simply chose to play his cards close to his chest is anyone's guess.

An easyJet director said last week that there would be 'a host of new destinations from our UK bases in 2012' announced in the coming weeks. Maybe BRS will feature with some of them.

Incidentally, a look at the easyJet timetable for next summer shows an apparent need for eleven aircraft in early May, as opposed to the ten in summer 2011 with the eleventh appearing only for the peak season this year.

And this is before any new routes that might be announced.

[Bristol_Traveller]

If this is because what was thought to be in the bag no longer is

That would be my guess. Looking at the potential "full service airlines", it's very unlikely to be AF/KL and equally unlikely to be B "we've forgotten what the B stands for " A, which leaves Star affiliates like SN, BD, LH. Given that whatever strategy LH had for BD seems to be in a bad place at the moment, I would assume that they're not in a position to commit to anything.

I have some sympathy for Bristol Airport. There are some yawning holes on the European short-haul coverage, and they have tried to keep the opportunities for "full service" airlines open, but ultimately if those airlines don't see the opportunity, then I should imagine EZY would be interested in serving those routes, given their BRS base. That would probably close off the "full service" opportunity.

[speedbird_481_papa]

Remember back in April all I said look out for Jet2 from BRS this winter? It is a dead cert from BRS as of this winter with a weekly charter I reckon to either BJL or Chambery. Keep an eyey out! I reckon the Jet2 B757 may have had something to do with that :ok:

[MerchantVenturer]

Winter 2008/2009 saw a weekly Jet2 Monday rotation from Bristol to Sharm el Sheikh using a B 757.

The airline also did a weekly Sunday rotation that winter with a B 733 to Chambery during the ski season.

[speedbird_481_papa]

I think the same is going to be happening again this winter, merchant. I don't know what destinations Jet2 will be serving, but they will DEFFINATELY be back this winter!

[Powerjet1]

Easy three times a week to Naples from 12 May.

[Ranger 1]

The Jet 2 aircraft was a 733 tech stoping for fuel en route back to LBA, it was nice to hear the Channex call sign again though :)

[derelicte]

Did my eyes deceive me or did I see an A380 come out of Bristol about an hour ago?

[ericlday]

Spectators Balcony (Spotters Corner) has a thread on this subject...only it was Filton

[birdscarer]

Yes - twice no less! :cool:

[WATABENCH]

Have heard that the clearance of the old hangers and land at the end of the western apron is to begin shortly to make new stands and possibility of the walkway being extended even further.
Anybody have any more info on this?
Also anybody any ideas of when this hotel is ment to start being built?

[MerchantVenturer]

Hotel

In a recent local media interview CEO Robert Sinclair said the hotel 'was going through the final planning stages and we are hopeful that construction will start in the next few months'.

The airport is talking with hotel operators and hopes to open the 250-room hotel by spring 2013.

Planning permission was given by the local authority at the beginning of this year so it seems the planning stages mentioned relates to final design.

I seem to remember the hotel planning application was separate from the major expansion planning application.

Last year the local authority gave outline planning consent for the major expansion but within this are specific or reserved matters that must be applied for individually when specific detail has been decided on.

But before all that the judicial review application into the local authority's grant of outline planning permission has to be decided.

The last I heard was that the judge had rejected the written JR submission as showing no grounds for it to proceed, but the applicants then asked for an oral application. I don't know how that is progressing.

A 380

The 380 currently visiting Filton certainly did a flypast of BRS this afternoon - I saw it. It's done this sort of thing before when in the area on Filton visits.

birdscarer seems to be suggesting it did two flypasts today.

[andrew1968]

Have heard that the clearance of the old hangers and land at the end of the western apron is to begin shortly to make new stands and possibility of the walkway being extended even further.
Anybody have any more info on this?
Also anybody any ideas of when this hotel is ment to start being built?

WATABENCH

I tend to look at the North Somerset Planning portal to keep upto date with the planning applications the airport has in place at present!

Regarding the Western Apron extension the airport has advised the council they plan to do this is two phases, so 3 new west facing nose in stands, opposite the current stands 31 to 33 with a taxiway in between! There were some environmental issues which I believe have been resolved, so I think its just a case of the council giving it the rubber stamp! Phase 2 I believe will be 3 new north facing nose in stands behind the new west facing ones! I don't think at this stage there is any mention of extending the Western Walkway as I believe this is part of the long awaited judicial review outcome on the airports expansions plans!

Regarding the Hotel, the airport has been making some material changes to the Hotel which have to approved by the council before work can commence, but I don't think it will be too long before this takes place!

andrew1968

[pez1]

Hi James,

I can confirm that TOM will have two 757's based at BRS again this winter.

The second aircraft will be on the ground a bit more this winter than last, but still enough flying to warrant both; particularly around Christmas/ ski season periods.

Regards,
Pez.

[Jamie2k9]

Aer Lingus DUB - BRS drops back to mostly 2 daily from end of Oct. Evening flight lost most days. Won't make any difference to connections to US.

[jaycee10]

BMI Baby are coming to Bristol. This winter they will be operating a series of ski flights. Suspected of being twice a day to where and the actual dates I do not currently know.

Work the the ramp extension now seems to be imminent, three new stands at the far end of the western apron should be completed early next year.

[jaycee10]

BMI Baby are coming to Bristol, they are due to operate a series of ski flights this winter. Exact details are not known but I believe there are two flights a week timings and destinations unknown.

The work on extending the ramp is imminent. This will provide three new stands at the far end of the western apron. Work should be completed well in time for next summer.by ea

[fanrailuk]

Can we assume that the bmibaby flights are on behalf of another company as ski charters? Only because I really can't imagine they'd survive if they go it alone at BRS against the big boys (i.e. FR & EZY) along with a number of other ski operators through the winter!

PP :ok:

[MerchantVenturer]

I had the same thought fanrail, but I wonder which carrier(s) baby would replace.

Last winter BRS had the following weekly ski charter flights throughout the season:

Saturdays
Thomas Cook A320 Salzburg
Thomson B 757 Salzburg
Balkan Holidays A320 Sofia
Titan Boeing 733 Chambery
Thomson Boeing 757 Geneva
Thomson Boeing 757 Chambery
Thomas Cook A320 Grenoble
Thomson Boeing 757 Verona
Thomson Boeing 757 Sofia

Sundays
Thomas Cook A320 Turin
Thomson Boeing 757 Turin
Thomson Boeing 757 Toulouse
Small Planet Boeing 733 Chambery
Flybe Embraer 195 Toulouse
Flybe Embraer 195 Geneva
Thomas Cook A320 Kittila

In addition there was a total 31 weekly rotations by easyJet to Geneva, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Lyon, Grenoble and Toulouse, with Ryanair also serving Girona at 3 x weekly that also gives access to some ski resorts.

easyJet appears to have maintained its schedule for the coming winter which again includes 18 x weekly to Geneva (4 x daily on both Sats and Suns). However, Ryanair has axed its route to Girona this winter.

There is a new ski destination from BRS this winter with Flybe operating weekly to the new Spanish airport of Lleida-Alguaire which serves the Pyrenees.

BRS has had an exceptionally strong winter ski programme for an airport of its size going back many years but it does seem unlikely that there would be room to add a great deal of capacity to this at the moment having regard to these straitened times.

[bobsyerunlce]

I see the airport tweeted today that it was their busiest September ever. Encouraging.

[OltonPete]

Source: CAA

September 2011 617821 +1.5% Rolling year 5764996 +0.1%.


BMI Baby

The scheduled BHX - GVA on a Saturday operates a "W" pattern and per one
online booking site WW7701/2 GVA-BRS-GVA at 11.20 in 11.50 out.

So at least one flight.

Also to confirm what MV has stated about Lleida-Alguaire BE9912/3 ILD-BRS-ILD in 13.15 out 14.15.

Now which airport has a ILD operating a "W" pattern on a Sunday.....BHX!

Not sure of the aircraft type.


Pete

[bobsyerunlce]

Nothing on BRS website or BMIBaby website about this. Where did this rumour come from?

Also, didn't someone recently, very confidently announce that Jet2 would definitely be back this winter??? No news about that either.

[OltonPete]

bobsyerunlce

The Geneva was not a rumour at the time of posting it was fact taken from a live website. I did not post the link as it is a commercial site and I know the mods frown upon this kind of thing.

I am not saying it will operate as it is a charter and these can get cancelled and airlines replaced but the aircraft appears to a BHX based unit.

It will never appear on the baby site as it is a charter. They don't offer it as part of their ski deals by the look of it but I have found it in Inghams with the same flight number.


Pete

[andrew1968]

The other bmibaby flight that has been mentioned is a charter flight to Chambery in France.

Sundays,

WW7901 Dep BRS @ 12.40
WW7902 Arr BRS @ 11.55

I found this on the Skitotal website!

On the Inghams website I have found this one to Innsbruck:

Austrian Airlines

OS9364 Dep BRS @ 10.25
OS9363 Arr BRS @ 08:50

Andrew

[INKJET]

It's a charter flight boys and girl,so no it won't be on the baby website, will operate Sat & Sun both are W patterns GVA & Chambery

The fact that the return is before the departure shows it's a W not a night stopper

But great to see some more winter flying over er the winter?

TLS also new or ski from EMA

[bobsyerunlce]

Cheerio SBAE...

Campaigners have been refused permission to bring a High Court challenge over plans for a major expansion at Bristol International Airport.
A judge told the Stop Bristol Airport Expansion Campaign, which fears a huge increase in flights and a doubling of carbon emissions, that they did not have a legally arguable case.
Nathalie Lieven QC, appearing for the group, had contended that North Somerset District Council's decision to give the expansion plans the go-ahead earlier this year was legally flawed.
Councillors considering the planning application were advised by council officers that climate change "was not a material consideration" to be taken into account by local planners as they were bound by Government policy as set out in the 2003 Air Transport White Paper (ATWP).
Ms Lieven argued the ATWP was now out of date. She said climate change was a local, as well as national and international issue, and therefore relevant to airport expansion.
Rejecting her argument, Mr Justice Collins ruled at London's High Court the advice given by the officers was not wrong.
He said: "The Government, for good or ill, has maintained the ATWP for the time being as the relevant policy document. It seems to me it cannot be an error of law for advice to be given to follow that policy."
Later campaign spokeswoman Hilary Burn said: "It is a very disappointing result by Mr Justice Collins that the ATWP of 2003 still stands.
"The Government now needs to review that document in the light of up-to-date information on climate change.
"It also needs to recognise that it is essential that local authorities taking decisions of this kind need to take take climate change into account."

[andrew1968]

bobsyeruncle where have you seen this or were you there?

I can't find it anywhere!

Many thanks

Andrew

[MerchantVenturer]

The judge's rejection of the application for a judicial review was reported on both the local Bristol tv news channels (BBC and ITV) today early evening.

A spokeswoman for SBAE (no prizes for guessing who - she's always prominent as a member of the airport consultative committee) told the BBC they were reviewing the decision but at least they had delayed any expansion for several years and the recession meant airport passenger numbers are down anyway.

No immediate suggestion that they might try to pursue the matter further legally - I'm not sure how much further they could realistically take this without leaving themselves liable for a huge amount of money if things continued to turn against them.

[ConstantFlyer]

I've just taken a look at the Stop Bristol Airport Expansion website. Imagine my surprise to find NOWHERE on the site where you can leave comments IN FAVOUR of the airport expansion.

What a complete load of spurious arguments they peddle, too. Hilarious how they think that stopping expansion at Bristol Airport will somehow save the planet. Perhaps them ceasing to spew hot air continuously on the subject, and stopping driving all over the South West to campaign meetings would help reduce CO2 emissions.

On a serious note, I would welcome expansion at Bristol, particularly to other regional destinations across Europe. The only thing I would add is a local public transport hub at the airport.

[nivsy]

I would add a motorway to the airfield! Still a nightmare having to drive through Bristol from east to west and then up the hill etc. Takes for ever.

Apart from that not having used the airfield for a year I do like the new boarding gates. It would be nice if the long term car park could be smoothed over - despite some of the charges one still parks over stones!

Nivsy

[MerchantVenturer]

An SBAE spokeswoman has been telling the local media that they cannot see a way to continue blocking the expansion plans.

Instead they will be monitoring each phase of the expansion, which they think will be built much more slowly than was envisaged pre-recession, to ensure the planning consents are closely followed. They will also be a voice to campaign for aviation to be made to recognise its climate change obligations.

So from being a local single-issue activist group they seem intent on taking on aviation nationally.

[WATABENCH]

Thomas cook doing Skiathos next summer, just checked their website from the link on brs website and its all there, friday flights departing 7 am, nice to see return of this route and with a brs based aircraft. :ok:

[MerchantVenturer]

This one seems to come and go down the years.

Viking and Kiss tried it in summer 2010 with a joint route to Salonika which fizzled out when Kiss went bust in high summer that year and Viking all but disappeared from BRS at the same time. A shame to see the TOM route to Salonika axed this summer after many years.

I remember InterEuropean doing Skiathos from BRS in 1993. There was then a gap until 2002 when an airline called Nordic Air Link did the route that summer - I'm not sure who for.

The next three summers saw a joint route to Skiathos and Volos, in 2003 by an airline called Azzurria that had an A320 based at BRS that year and then the XL Group took it on, replacing Volos with Kavalla in 2006. XL last did it in 2007 but it was a single destination by then.

Salonika, Volos, Kavalla, Santorini, Chania (Crete), all Greek charter routes operated from BRS in the past ten years but no longer.

Let's hope that Thomas Cook can make a go of it.

Incidentally, I presume it will replace either Mahon or Tenerife, both of which have been TCX Friday morning departures in recent summers.

[bobsyerunlce]

Just announced Helvetic to fly Zurich 3x weekly from 5 December.

[mathers_wales_uk]

That's correct all look like they will be operating Zurich-Bristol-Cardiff-Zurich

[WATABENCH]

Great route to have from BRS, hopefully tie in with the Swiss network ex ZRH which is pretty vast I believe as well as serving ski market. Bit worrying for CWL as they have had flight all summer, but now sharing with BRS must be bit of kick in the teeth, but guess it all boils down to yeilds in the end

[andrew1968]

That's correct all look like they will be operating Zurich-Bristol-Cardiff-Zurich

Looking at the Helvetic website, I actually only checked a Monday but the flight operates ZRH-BRS-CWL-BRS-ZRH

Arrival @ 0830 into BRS
Arrival @ 0925 into CWL
Depart @ 1000 from CWL
Depart @ 1055 from BRS

Only the CWL flights does it state the flight operates via BRS in both directions! Flights to and from BRS are direct!

Strange way of doing it though!

Andrew

[Westlakejawa]

Bristol-Zurich leg not bookable beyond March. Have not checked Cardiff.

[AirLCY]

Uh oh, poor CWL, how long until they axe the CWL part as BRS will way outperform it!

[Bristol_Traveller]

Well. Interesting.

"Yay" for a direct route to ZRH, where I seem to be spending a lot of time recently. "Boo" that it's not a *A carrier, so can't use ZRH as a hub. "Huh?" for the decision to operate onto CWL and back again (I mean, seriously? I know LX do GVA-ZRH as a route in Switzerland, but that's hardly the same. Part of me is wondering if the Welsh Assembly dangled a subsidy carrot at them), and "Hmmm" to see if they offer it as a codeshare with LX, which some Helvetic routes are operated under.

Guess my offer to BD to come operate from BRS has gone to the wall. :bored:

[crackling jet]

Yes, once BA get hold of BMI, that will be as per recent history, and they will cut operations from regionals as with Brymon.But take heart, the airports big announcement re full service airlines must be soon as they have said !!!!!

[Bristol_Traveller]

the airports big announcement re full service airlines must be soon as they have said !!!!!

Unless Helvetic was it.

Having look at the schedule, it's going to require some very creative scheduling of meetings to make it fit into business. And it seems to be only scheduled until 23-MAR?

I've flown Helvetic aircraft on SWISS flight numbers, but it turns out that 4 of their 6 F100's are on wet lease to SWISS, and the other 2 on "leisure" routes. So certainly no LX codeshares there. (I remember when the Sabena flight to BRU was codeshared with Swissair - both of whom went bust).

[airhumberside]

bmi regional have applied for Summer 2012 slots at FRA for a BRS service. Some of their requests haven't been cleared, and others have been cleared at vastly different times to what they applied for.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Oh boy.

Just as BD do something useful, they get sold to BA.

Three outcomes:

It's BD mainline, will be sold to BA, and they'll dump the route because it's not LHR-XXX
It's BD mainline, will be sold to BA, and then won't be able to interline/codeshare with FRA-based airlines
It's BD regional, will be sold to independent venture, who will not have a codeshare/interline agreement with any of the FRA-based airlines.


It looks like it was scheduled out of BRS at 04:30, if they wanted an 07:10 slot at FRA for inbound. Early, but good for connecting into FRA hubbed flights to the rest of Europe.

[2J&D]

0430!:eek: It is hard enough to get customers to check in for a 0630-0700 flight so even with the possibility of connections I think AF/KL will do better with their flights a few hours later...!

[WATABENCH]

Probably 0430Z so 0530 local time at a guess, which isnt so bad

[Bristol_Traveller]

Good point. I just realised that it's 0710Z in the summertime, so 0810 CEST, which means 0530 BST from BRS. I'd do that, particularly if it meant arriving at my European destination before 10:00.

Largely an irrelevant question now though. :ugh:

[airhumberside]

Re the slot times. EMA originally got cleared for some awful times, but in the end bmi regional worked out a decent schedule

And one other scenario is that bmi regional applied for the slots under LH instructions, and that LH will 'retain' any allocated FRA slots when they sell bmi regional, in order to start BRS-FRA using one of their regional airlines

[Bristol_Traveller]

Looking for the silver lining, it's possible that the new BD-R owners (BusinessAir?) might continue to operate wetlease flights on behalf of LH (and SN). LH said they had a strategy to increase flights from the regions to LH Hubs, so maybe this is their way of executing that strategy?

We'd be in the same boat as EMA.

[santito]

I cannot imagine BMI would be going to all the expense and trouble of starting this one up if they did not think it was ever going to get off the ground (in the literal sense).

I would imagine:

A) Either LH or a subsidiary over the route when BMI is sold

OR

B) BD Regional is not purchased by BA but a third party who maintain a relationship with *A and the BD Regional brand, flights, etc.

[mathers_wales_uk]

"Boo" that it's not a *A carrier, so can't use ZRH as a hub. "Huh?" for the decision to operate onto CWL and back again (I mean, seriously? I know LX do GVA-ZRH as a route in Switzerland, but that's hardly the same. Part of me is wondering if the Welsh Assembly dangled a subsidy carrot at them),


BRS-CWL-BRS sector is not bookable as a destination. Helvetic has been operating to/from Cardiff since the beginning of the Summer. It is possible that forward bookings for the winter are not as well as previously forcasted. I have heard from several sources that Helvetic loves Wales as a destination and possibly this maybe a way to secure the future of the Cardiff route throughout the winter and into Summer 2012.

Helvetic is a good airline, punctual on the whole even with their small fleet of 6 x Fokker 100 aircraft.

[OltonPete]

Source: CAA

October 2011 532532 -3.1% rolling year 5747993 -0.5%

ATM's 4713 -5.6% rolling year 53054 -2%

These like BHX seem disappointing and again I assume IT related
rather than any downturn in schedules?

BHX had a few Bristol diverts yesterday and the two easy's that came in
at around 5.30-6pm didn't seem to have any flights to do afterwards
per the BRS departure although the same could be said for the FR divert.

There were other easy departures (EDI, GLA & NCL) but it looked
fairly quiet but I guess Wednesday's in winter are never great.

Pete

[MerchantVenturer]

In today's Autumn Statement the Chancellor announced government funding to assist with the construction of the South Bristol Link Road from the A370 at Long Ashton to the A38 at Bedminster Down. Without such government funding the road would not be built though the local authorities have to find their share of the costs, something they seem confident of achieving.

The road would remove the tiresome journey through the congested suburbs of Ashton and Bedminster for those travelling to the airport via the motorways/Avonmouth/A4 Portway.

It would also open up far easier access to the neglected outer suburbs of south Bristol, the city's Achilles heel in an otherwise vibrant economic scene, which could also benefit the airport if companies move into this area.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Excellent news. I wager the house prices in Barrow Gurney have just jumped 20%..

WWW

[Aero Mad]

vibrant economic scene

Haha, good one :)

[MerchantVenturer]

Aero Mad,

Oh dear, proof reading was never my strong point.

I had intended to type 'relatively vibrant' to distinguish the performance of much of the city region as a whole from the economic blackspot that is the vast housing estates lying under the slopes of Dundry Hill on the southern outskirts, where poor road links have proved a significant barrier to companies setting up in the area.

The point I was suggesting was that improved road links might overcome this to an extent - it's something the local authority is keen on - and easier access to the airport would be an additional attraction.

[nonemmet]

What, a Lib Dem council supporting new road building? That's got to be a first. Or is it going to be a bus lane?

[MerchantVenturer]

It does seem implausible doesn't it and better access to the airport is not the primary reason in the mind of the Lib Dem led Bristol City Council that formally objected to the airport's expansion planning application last year: fortunately for the airport it's situated in the area of the North Somerset unitary authority who disagreed.

The South Bristol Link Road will be for general traffic though not a dual carriageway. Already the environmentalists are up in arms about the green land it will be built over.

The grandiosely named Bristol Rapid Transport system that will feed into the link road from the main central railway station is intended solely for buses on a guided busway and may feature the Airport Flyer. The city really wanted a tram system but lost that chance years ago when the local authorities that make up the conurbation failed to agree on routes so the promised central funding for that was withdrawn.

[WATABENCH]

Latest Transport news in Bath - News Stories & Events | This is Bath (http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/transport)


:D

[speedbird_481_papa]

Can't applaud the flight deck enough for that landing! My ex next door neighbour was on board and he told me that the landing he experienced only further encouraged him to fly with easyJet again because of the professionalism shown by the Flight Deck during this tricky approach. They were warned on board by the flight deck to expect a tricky landing but still landed the aircraft with such professionalism.

I know some on here will argue that yes the captain should probably have executed a go-around and tried again but when faced with all the options and probably a last second gust of wind and faced with those problems at an instant, I really do applaud the flight deck! :D :D :D

Easyjet if you are reading this, give those guys a bonus please! :ok:

[Deano777]

I love the sensationalisation of the media - "as they tried to land in 100mph winds". What nonsense. They wouldn't be operating if the wind was that strong. I flew to Scotland too on Thursday and the wind at Edinburgh airport never got over 65kts (75mph). There would also be company & airframe limitations for operating in high winds. We all had it bad on Thursday, but we just got on with it, it's what we are trained to do.

[NorthernCounties]

Any one got any references which state Riga is seizing and Bratislava is now year round? Required for a pain in the A$$ pedant. Cheers.

[MerchantVenturer]

There are no Bristol-Riga flights in the Ryanair booking engine after 9 January 2012.

Bristol-Bratislava has operated year round since the winter of 2007/2008 (following the opening of the Bristol base in November 2007) until summer 2011 when it was axed.

However, it was brought back for this winter and is currently bookable for summer 2012.

[santito]

Also is there any more known about this supposed BMI FRA route that was going to start?

[MerchantVenturer]

BRS-FRA

santito,

It was never more than a rumour or perhaps conjecture based on the airport's statement earlier in the year that some new routes would be announced, was it?

Expansion

Reports today in the trade press carry announcements that Bristol Airport is seeking 12 contractors to carry out the planned £150 million expansion at the airport.

Apart from the work to expand the existing terminal building, and such things as constructing new walkways, piers and two multi-storey car parks, the airport is looking to expand its use of renewable energy to heat the new facility using wind turbines and a biomass facility.

The expansion will be built in phases. It's cleared all planning hurdles including an attempt by opponents for a judicial review that was rejected by a judge.

[Severn]

I got a bit of a shock when I clicked on destinations from BRS on the flybe website to see Paris CDG appear!
It actually turns out that they will be code-sharing on all the AF 3x Daily flights from BRS-CDG. I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere or has it only just happened?

I'm not sure if this will have an effect on Flybe's 1x Daily CDG route from CWL (which actually shares loads with GLA, it flies GLA-CWL-CDG-CWL-GLA), but then again maybe not.

[merchant sailors]

the flybe / air france code share on the BRS service has been in place since November 2010

[Severn]

In that case I apologise, but this is definitely the first time it has appeared on the flybe timetable and booking engine.

[speedbird_481_papa]

Happy Christmas one and all!

[MerchantVenturer]

Jamie,

I've just checked the web timetable for August and at present it seems that the five based aircraft are pretty well taken care of next summer.

There is a need for five early starts each day* and for five evening returns with one or two possible gaps (* on Wednesdays and Sundays the current timetable shows six early starts).

Having checked the BRS Ryanair timetables in past years this is no surprise. In some years there has been an apparent need for seven based aircraft in early versions of their timetable and in my experience there are invariably several versions before the final one is settled - involving changes of timings, sometimes changes of days and occasionally routes axed and others added.

Currently there will be 109 weekly rotations (two or three down on last summer), including seven Dublin, seven Faro and two Alicante operated by non-based aircraft according to the timings.

Changes from last summer include the axing of Marrakesh, Riga and Seville and the reinstatement of Katowice and Bratislava.

Malta is 4 x weekly (3 last summer), Treviso also 4 x weekly (from 3) whilst Alicante is 6 x weekly (including the two worked by non-based aircraft) which is down from 8 x weekly last summer.

There have been rumours that destinations such as Chania, Rhodes, Corfu, Kos, Murcia, Lodz, Biarritz and Dinard might appear in summer 2012.

It doesn't now look likely unless there is either a major redrawing of the timetable as it currently stands or an additional aircraft is added to the base.

[MerchantVenturer]

Ryanair announced this morning that routes would operate from Budapest to Bristol, Birminghham, Stansted, Dublin and Bologna from March 2012.

BUD was last operated from BRS by Ryanair in 2010. It was certainly very popular in terms of load factors.

It seems that BRS will be 2 x weekly.

[pee]

...and Bristol - Lodz. Or, more precisely Łódź :8.

[bobsyerunlce]

and Dinard is back again

[MerchantVenturer]

Dinard last operated in 2008 - one of several routes that were discarded by FR at BRS in the past but brought back in more recent times - Bratislava, Katowice, Gdansk and Budapest being others.

There have been rumours that destinations such as Chania, Rhodes, Corfu, Kos, Murcia, Lodz, Biarritz and Dinard might appear in summer 2012.

I posted the above in December. Lodz and Dinard have materialised. I wonder if any of the others will.

[BleadonHell]

Is aircaft No 6 on the cards ?

[MerchantVenturer]

I checked the main summer 2012 timetable a couple of weeks ago and, though fairly full, did show some gaps that might be filled by the BUD, DNR and LCJ routes announced today with a little re-jigging - assuming none is more than 2 x weekly. I can find no details of timings or frequency yet - the routes go on sale tomorrow.

Lodz is interesting. It's one of Poland's largest cities but has a tiny airport in passenger number terms - around half a million passengers a year.

Ryanair already operates to five other Polish cities from BRS (Gdansk, Katowice, Poznan, Rzeszow and Wroclaw), and easyJet goes to Krakow.

[Jamie2k9]

Budapest will be 2 weekly on Tues and Sat
Lodz will be 2 weekly on Mon and Fri
Dinard will be 3 weekly on Tues, Thur and Sat

[MerchantVenturer]

Bristol Airport named 'Best UK Airport' at Business Travel Awards - Bristol Airport (http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/news-and-press/latest-news/2012/01/bristol-wins-business-travel-award.aspx)

Well done to all concerned and it's pleasing that this is a business travel award as one of the whinges from the objectors to the expansion plans is that the airport is nothing more than a holiday airport.

This shows it has some business travel credentials and is working hard to improve them.

Dinard will be 3 weekly on Tues, Thur and Sat

Thanks Jamie, though at present the Ryanair booking engine and timetable are both showing Dinard at 4 x weekly - Mon, Tues, Thurs and Sat.

[PPRuNeUser0176]

Aer Lingus reducing DUB from 3 daily to 2 daily for next summer. Afternoon flights cancelled.

[WATABENCH]

Helvetic remains for summer, 3 times weekly i believe, still on direct service from BRS and via BRS for CWL pax. Great news to keep the ZRH route. :ok:

[MerchantVenturer]

I'm pleased that Helvetic has given this route more time.

The Switzerland-originating traffic to CWL during last summer was reported as being quite good whereas the Wales-emanating passenger numbers were poor meaning the route as a whole struggled, with average monthly loads on the F100 as follows from May through to September: 18, 21, 33, 22 and 17 respectively (CAA stats).

Helvetic added the BRS stop in both directions in early December with about three weeks notice and with little advertising other than on the BRS and Helvetic websites. I'm told that BRS is now advertising the route more widely including on city buses.

Mid-winter is never the best time to begin such a route, or insert additonal stops, so it must be presumed that Helvetic saw something to encourage the idea of continuing the double-drop operation through the summer despite the additional costs that such routings usually bring.

It's like the old days when airlines often operated routes via BRS and CWL.

[MerchantVenturer]

Infrastructure

At the recent airport consultative committee meeting Robert Sinclair, the CEO, told members that the construction of three new aircraft stands (on the western apron) was due for completion in April.

He also said that work on the expanded passenger security search area was proceeding.

There will also be a new immigration channel to provide additional capacity.

It had previously been reported that enhancements will be made to gate 10, one of the pre-boarding gates along the western walkway, to provide an area to meet the needs of business travellers, including seating and wifi. Previously the western walkway was limited in facilities that could be provided as it had been constructed under General Permitted Development, but the major planning consents obtained last year have removed these restrictions.

The trade press has reported this week that a locally-based engineering consultancy has been awarded the civil and structural engineering contract for the first stage of the major expansion; this contract relates to the western extension of the existing terminal building. The expansion plans call for an eventual doubling of the current terminal's size together with other major infrastructure enhancements such as multi-story car parks, walkways and piers, public transport interchange and an office block, as well as an airport hotel.

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

Airport Flyer

The airport announced this week that the timetable for the Bristol Airport Flyer is to be expanded to provide a 24-hour service. The 12-strong fleet of specially adapted and liveried Volvo buses is operated by First Bristol on behalf of the airport and runs between the airport and the main rail station at Temple Meads, central area hotels and the country bus and coach station. It currently carries about ten per cent of the airport's passenger numbers and features through ticketing with the rail companies, National Express and local area buses.

The present timetable provides a ten-minute frequency in both directions from around 0600 until 2030 with 20-minute frequencies between 2030 and midnight. There is no service between 0050 and 0305 at the moment but from April there will be 11 journeys leaving the airport between midnight and 0600 and a broadly similar number in the reverse direction.

Passenger numbers

At the recent airport consultative committee meeting the airport CEO said he anticipates a rise of 2-3 per cent in passenger numbers in 2012. He pointed out the increasing seasonality of passenger traffic patterns at the airport with September 2011 being the best ever September whereas November's passenger figures were similar to those in November 2004.

The 318,000 passengers in January 2012 means numbers were down 3.5 per cent on the previous January.

After its impressive rise in passenger numbers from 2.124 mppa in 2000 to 6.229 mppa in 2008, the airport regressed to 5.615 in 2009 followed by small rises in the following two years to 5.723 in 2010 and 5.768 in 2011.

That said, it has fared better than many regional airports in holding on to the bulk of its passenger numbers through the recession.

The airport's 5.768 million passenger total in 2011 was achieved using over 20 per cent fewer flights than were needed to handle 5.710 million passengers in 2006.

[anoraknophobia]

Following on from M.V. post,with the three new parking stands nearly completed and construction to start shortly on the extension to the terminal,where exactly is the new traffic coming from ? Easy Jet and Ryanair seem to have run out of steam,apart from introducing, withdrawing,then reintroducing some of their destinations, from year to year,always looking for maximum yield.Thompson,Thomas Cook appear to be in period of consolidation at the moment so I can't see any growth there for a while.I know that the terminal is packed first thing in the morning,but it's not exactlty bursting at the seams the rest of the day.As M.V stated in his post a lot of the recent increase in passenger numbers has been acheived without an increase in aircraft movements.

[CabinCrewe]

Thompson.... aaaarrgh:*

[MerchantVenturer]

In the short term there isn't going to be a lot of growth, as suggested by the CEO's forecast of 2-3 per cent for 2012 which may even turn out to be optimistic.

Like most airports BRS is in thrall to the vicissitudes of the economy and no-one knows for sure which way it will turn; furthermore, there are many other potential national and international concerns that could have a major bearing on air travel.

As I said previously, BRS has so far ridden out the recession better, or perhaps less badly might be a more accurate term, than many regional airports which shows the strength of the underlying catchment. A look back at the stats also shows it was one of the last regional airports to be negatively affected by the national and world downturn.

The management and owners have a realistic belief that BRS will be one of the first to recover when the economy shows signs of sustained and substantial growth which, I suspect, is why they are pushing ahead with their infrastructure expansion plans.

Rumour has it, with some basis, that the airport was close to securing a number of carriers for 2012 and would have done in a more favourable economic climate; that is likely to apply to other airports as well.

When I mentioned last year's passenger numbers being carried on fewer flights than a similar number a few years ago I was suggesting a positive from an economic perspective - larger aircraft and/or higher loads.

[bristolflyer]

The airport is going to look at the long term picture. They must be sure that the expenditure will bring a return. No business would invest if they did not hold this view. I remember when the new terminal opened and there was a massive amount of space. It was designed to handled 2 million passengers and look where we are 12 years later. They will quite rightly look beyond the current climate to 10-15 years in the future. It is hard to see how much further Easyjet and Ryanair can expand, but one would assume higher frequency and larger aircraft. Germany has always been weak. There could be growth with the 787 coming on line. Thomson may look to expand to other holiday destinations, Goa for example. I've often wondered if Ryanair may have a crack at a lo-cost transatlantic airline from cheaper regional airports. They have hinted in the past, but you never know whether it is MOL looking for some quick press coverage. The middle eastern carriers will look to expand and they have money to burn. Etihad has 41 787's on order and Qatar has 30, so they might be an option a few years down the road. I can't see an American carrier back in a hurry.

[WATABENCH]

Airport website has a questionaire for local business people to fill out with regard to the following destinations.... Copenhagen, Dusseldorf, Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg & Istanbul, guess trying to build strong case for the routes to show potential airlines.
Not sure if posted before, but noticed BRS-NOC was back on Ryanair website.

[MerchantVenturer]

Business questionnaire

DUS, FRA and MUC were all served by BAConnect until Flybe took over BACon in 2007. DUS and MUC were daily and FRA double-daily all with ERJ145s.

Lufthansa (Eurowings) then did FRA for 13 months until April 2009, axing it as the recession began to bite.

It was operated by Bae 146-300 aircraft, initially 3 x daily 7 days a week, and carrried over 98,000 passengers during its lifetime. Maybe the aircraft were too big and/or frequency too great, at least to begin with - frequency was reduced during the winter of the operation.

easyJet operated Copenhagen in 2003-2004 and it was attracting very good loads but was axed when the Danish government imposed a £7 per passenger tax.

Hamburg was tried by easyJet in 2005-2006 and was one of the very few Orange failures at BRS in terms of loads, though they were nowhere near dire.

HAM was also operated by the German airline OLT (Saab340 and 2000 aircraft) as a niche route for the aviation industry double-dropping with Bremen. HAM ceased but Bremen carried on till last year.

Istanbul has never been tried from BRS, not even regular charters so far as I can recall.

Incidentally, as well as the route questionnaire the airport website is also inviting business travellers to take part in a general in-depth survey.

Ryanair - Knock

Looks as though this may become a summer-only route. I wondered whether it would re-appear at all when it was dropped for the current winter. It's been in the summer 12 timetable for a while so let's hope a few more people use it this year.

Eastern

I'm told that the two remaining former Air Southwest Dash 8-300s will leave the fleet within the next two months and that BRS will then have a based Saab 2000.

The Eastern BRS-LBA-ABZ summer timetable shows two Saab 2000 rotations most days and in addition a Jetstream 41 rotation on selected days each week.

Flybe BRS-Isle of Man

There was a post in the Isle of Man thread recently stating that BRS-IOM is to cease.

I'm told on good authority that this is not the case.

It's available for booking this summer and BRS has a car park promotion in connection with this route.

[OltonPete]

I am sure Bristol management would or maybe already have contacted Turkish Airlines considering it is an airline similar to Emirates when it comes to ambitious plans.

Their UK expansion somewhat stalled after the BHX route started but this did commence at an unfortunate time in terms of the economy. However they have stuck with it and loads have spectacularly improved (no idea of yields).

Now Manchester, Birmingham and Gatwick are to see increases and Edinburgh is an intended new route. Turkish also don't seem to worry too much about how close other airports are and are more intent on feeding their two main banks at Istanbul Ataturk.

Their financials have dipped somewhat recently no doubt partly due to the expansion but I wouldn't be surprised to see a Bristol route in future.

Pete

[Bristol_Traveller]

TK are establishing themselves (and IST) as a very credible long-haul operation; I've had colleagues fly to BKK, KUL on them, and come back with good reports.

That said, it feels like a stretch to fill a 319/320 every day to IST from BRS.

I remain hopeful (BD bumps not withstanding) that LH or LX will pick up a FRA or ZRH route from BRS, on at least double daily. I've been trying my hardest to use BRS-BRU as a feeder, but the range and timing of connections at BRU is dreadful, the fares are ambitious, and the lack of Saturday and Sunday flights is surprisingly limiting when trying to fly to Asia (or even the US) for the beginning of the business week.

I was pleased to see the questionnaire asking questions about the importance (to business travellers) of FFPs. Put simply, I stick with my *A FFP because it turns Economy travel (company policy) into something approaching Business (when travelling short-haul), and I can use my FFP miles to upgrade myself to Business on Long-haul. Towards the end of the CO EWR route, I was often using my FFP to put me in the Business cabin on EWR-BRS. The value of FFPs to the frequent biz traveller who has an Economy-only policy at work can't be underestimated. (And Flying Blue is not a good programme, at all, IMHO).

[Pandy]

TK to IST would be great for connections to the Middle & Far East. Flown on them a few times and they're quite good. IST Terminal is not the best however it appears to work.

On another subject - LCC; BRS has 2 as does the UAE where I send most of my time Fly Dubai & Air Arabia. Have always tried to 'marry' 2 flights one from each end to get one way or the other, but they just don't match. The only possible junction in Athens with a 12 hour wait (& then not to BRS).

Appreciated LCC have different business models to normal scheduled airlines and maybe the need / requirements for destinations differ in Middle East (with more migrant labour) & Europe (with more leisure travel) markets, but isn't a trick being missed here by the LCCs. Wouldn't it be a opportunity to test the longer haul market by one LCC at each end having a loose arrangement on scheduling ? Fly Dubai has just announced Belgrade with a 737 but as usual no BRS carrier operates there

[bycrewlgw]

Sure its a printing mistake but just looking online at the thomson ski brochure for next winter and it is showing UA flights from BRS to EWR.

[Severn]

Interesting......
As 'bycrewlgw' stated in the TOM ski 2012/13 brochure it gives United Airlines scheduled departures to the USA from the following UK airports:
LHR
BRS
BHX
MAN
EDI
GLA

If it was a printing error then surely LGW would be in there too (as it was also operated previously by CO) or it would give a CO flight code?
I mean thats not just a copy and paste job from last years brochure as these flights haven't operated in the previous few years and have therefore not appeared in any of the brochures. What makes it more strange is the fact that it has UA flight codes which makes it very up to date as the CO code has recently ceased to exist!?!?

The timings in the TOM brochure give a 08:20 arrival into BRS from EWR and a departure of 10:25 back - are these the same or different to when CO operated before? does anyone remember?

[yeo valley]

these time are the same ones when co was running the route.

[MerchantVenturer]

Holiday company brochures are frequently up the creek.

For example, in the early edition's of this summer's Thomson Lakes and Mountains brochure the weekly Salzburg flight from BRS was shown operating as it has done for a couple of decades or more, though timings often vary from year to year, but the brochures always print 'last year's' timings even when they turn out to be incorrect for the year subject of the brochure.

Salzburg has now been axed altogether but there is an Innsbruck flight this summer with Inghams which didn't operate last summer and didn't feature in the early Inghams brochures for this summer either.

I'm looking to book from Bristol to the Isle of Man and one brochure I found contained details of inclusive holidays from several UK airports using various airlines including Flybe.

Flybe operates from BRS to IOM but didn't appear as an option. My wife went into a travel agent's shop this week who contacted the tour company to be told that BRS-IOM with Flybe is one of their routes even though it doesn't feature in their brochure.

You can see why I have little faith in holiday brochures.

I expect the BRS-EWR ski holiday has been copied in the brochure each winter from one year to the next from the time the route did operate.

[GayFriendly]

Have to agree with MV, holiday brochure flight info is often wrong, as they are printed so far ahead of the actual flight programmes happening. As a matter of fact, BRS never actually left the Continental Vacations brochure, I picked one up last year from the Holiday Show at the NEC: BRS was featured alongside all other UK dep points and this was a 2011-2012 brochure! Sadly I don't think its appearance in a Thmson brochure means you are getting your EWR flight back (for now)

[ub2]

anybody know why brs dnr has disappeared from the ryanair booking engine ? has it been axed before it even started ?

[santito]

So flew in on the late KLM flight yesterday, and we did something unusual:

After landing, the 'plane did a 180 degree turn on the runway and came off the runway approximately adjacent to the western walkway.

Just wondering why the top end was closed? I remember hearing that the turning circle at the 09 end was too tight (or narrow?) for a 787 so wondering if they are doing some work up there on that? Probably just something boring like resurfacing though :|

[stalling attitude]

Nothing exciting . They are closing the taxiway at night while they build the new stands at the end of the apron.

[Severn]

Works
Its been a little quiet on here lately, and with Summer 2012 just around the corner surely there must be plenty to talk about.
I'll try and get the ball rolling...
Anybody able to shed any light on when the new stands currently under construction will be finished? Are they going to be in use by this summer?
Is there any other works happening airside this year regarding the masterplan? What about the Royal Mail Facility - read somewhere that there will be a TNT 737 service starting on Sun 30th 2012, any more info on this?

Summer 2012
I believe the following will be based/overnighting in BRS for summer 12:
Easy: 10-11 based ? Anyone have any more info?
Ryanair: Schedule requires 5 aircraft, anyone able to confirm if thats the number to be based?
Thomson: B757 x2 (visiting B767 twice weekly)
Thomas Cook: A320 x2
Eastern: Saab 2000
Air France: ATR-72
Brussels Airlines: ERJ-145 (operated by BMI Regional) - is this staying all summer?
KLM: F100/F70/maybe the E190?

So thats 23-24 aircraft in total. Anybody able to confirm this or have I missed any off? I make the TCX A320 the only extra based aircraft arriving for the summer. All others on the list have already been based for the Winter - RYR have parked 5 aircraft for most of the winter already, although only needing 3 for the winter schedule. This total of course doesn't take into account if Easy decide to base another aircraft or two for the height of summer.

Anything else going on? Rumors?

[MerchantVenturer]

Hello James

At the last consultative committee meeting in January the CEO, Robert Sinclair, told members that the three stands under construction would be completed in April.

He also said that work on extending the passenger security search area was proceeding and it was proposed to develop a new immigration channel to provide additional capacity.

Since then it has been announced a contractor has been appointed as civil and structural designer for the extension of the terminal which will eventually be doubled in size. This contract relates to the western extension.

Unless there has been a hitch previous announcements have indicated that we might expect to see work starting on the airport hotel sometime this year.

So far as based/overnighting aircraft are concerned I think you've pretty well got the list correct - it's basically the same as last summer except for the Eastern Saab which replaces the Dash 8-300.

Ryanair's timetable for the summer requires five based aircraft, though there are one or two gaps where aircraft appear to be 'resting' as there were last summer. I'm assuming that easyJet will be as last summer too, 9 A319s and one A320 (that's what it's been during the winter, though not all were used all of the time, and what Mayfly is showing for next week, the first week of the summer scheduled timetable) with an additional A320 for part of the summer.

TOM ( two 757s and a visiting 767) and TCX (two 320s) are as last summer in terms of based aircraft, as are the overnighters.

I haven't heard anything about TNT.

The CEO told the consultative committee that he anticipated there would be passenger growth of 2-3% in 2012. This would build on the small increases in both 2010 and 2011.

That's about it as far as I'm aware - steady as she goes really.

[WATABENCH]

Very clever and well thought approach by Robert Sinclair, intresting reading.......

BBC News - Bristol 'opportunity not threat' to Cardiff Airport (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17571727)

[MerchantVenturer]

Hello W.

The BRS CEO was asked some questions for a radio broadcast on BBC Wales that explored the current predicament of CWL.

Clearly, he took the opportunity to try to give his airport a leg up - and why not? - though I doubt that his suggestions will find much favour within the corridors of the Senedd.

[santito]

With BMI going to BA and the probable scrapping of BD regional, I wonder what will happen to SN services from BRS? as they are serviced by a wet-lease BD E145.

Will SN put an Avro back on? or I wonder if they will just lease from someone else? (any ideas who?)

It would be good if they used it as an opportunity to put a slightly bigger aircraft on the route, as it's usually pretty much full every time I use it.

[MerchantVenturer]

There is a post from SBAE on the website of the village of Wrington, in whose parish BRS stands, saying that the organisation is 'closing its doors'. In fact, its website has already closed down but has been archived with Bristol Friends of the Earth.

There is no doubt that in its seven years of existence SBAE was a significant obstruction to the airport's desire to expand. The Guardian once described SBAE as one of the best organised of its type in the country.

The SBAE post on the Wrington website takes some parting shots at the airport.

It believes the airport will never reach its target of 10 mppa and cites the capricious (my adjective not SBAE's) DfT document issued last year that forecast little growth for BRS and many regional airports until 2020 followed by substantial growth in the ensuing decades.

As usual SBAE is selective in what it believes as it accepts the little growth until 2020 part but doubts the forecast growth after that.

SBAE thinks that what growth BRS has had is due in part to 'stealing passengers from Cardiff and Exeter airports'.

This is in line with past assertions that Heathrow is perfectly well able to cater for much of the Bristol area's needs and once more shows that SBAE doesn't really worry if people fly so long as it's not from BRS.

I've tried to point out to them that if Bristol had no airport people would still fly from somewhere and LHR aircraft or CWL aircraft or EXT aircraft would cause the emissions they say, taking the moral high ground, is one of the reasons for their fight.

They've also long questioned whether the expanion is necessary in terms of the numbers of passengers the airport is ever likely handle. I've suggested to them that if they really believe this there is no need for their organisation as the airport won't reach the size they apparently fear and the owners will have spent a huge sum of money in vain.

I've found it's impossible to argue sensibly with them as they are led by groups such as FoE and the Protection of Rural England people who trot out stereotypical dogma when challenged.

In its final press release last October, in response to Mr Justice Collins's rejection of the judicial review attempt, SBA said it 'will continue our vigilance to ensure that every one of the 70 conditions attached to the airport’s planning permission from North Somerset Council is properly fulfilled. We have always said we will fight to the end of the road to support local residents and the environment'.

It seems the end of the road popped up much sooner than they expected.

There are some locals who are members of SBAE or who support its aims. Many use the airport nonetheless and the best (or worst) example is the thriving twinning of Wrington with Villeneuve-les-Beziers that was started about three years ago purely on the basis that Ryanair operated and still operates a service between Bristol and Beziers that enables easy personal contact between both British and French members.

Without a thriving airport, no Ryanair and certainly no twinning on this model. Whilst I never wish to see any route cease I would certainly find myself with a wry smile if the BRS-BZR was axed.

[mikkie4]

the essex branch were active in trying to stop the expantion of southend,they gave up when they saw that they had no way of stopping the expantion,they lied about noise/take off/landing/night flights etc etc

[BAladdy]

With BMI going to BA and the probable scrapping of BD regional, I wonder what will happen to SN services from BRS? as they are serviced by a wet-lease BD E145.

Will SN put an Avro back on? or I wonder if they will just lease from someone else? (any ideas who?)

It would be good if they used it as an opportunity to put a slightly bigger aircraft on the route, as it's usually pretty much full every time I use it.


Details about the future of BMi Regional is expected around the 20th April. This is the date that IAG will officially takeover BMI from LH.

I don't think you will see the E145 being replaced by a RJ. I did recently hear that SN was in talks with BE to increase the number of of DH4 aircraft that they have on lease from 2 to 4.

[MerchantVenturer]

No return for New York flight - News - Weston Mercury (http://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/news/no_return_for_new_york_flight_1_1341267)

According to the above newspaper report BRS has ruled out re-introducing a NYC link.

It's been in contact with the Wales Assembly Government regarding more passengers from the Principality using BRS but has issued a statement saying:

In 2007 the Continental service between Bristol and Newark was performing in line with expectations and was profitable, carrying approximately 80,000 passengers a year.

“However, the service ceased in 2010 in the face of mounting losses as a result of rising oil prices, a fall in the value of the pound against the dollar, increases in air passenger duty and the worldwide economic recession.

“There is little prospect of the Bristol Airport catchment area supporting a return of a New York service in the immediate future and any such proposal for Cardiff Airport would require a massive tax payer subsidy.

This is surely a sensible grasp of reality. In its master plan that was published about seven years ago the airport management said then that it believed that only four long-haul scheduled routes would be viable from BRS: New York (which had just started in the form of Newark), Dubai and two other US destinations - from memory I think Washington and Atlanta.

Clearly the changing world circumstances have modified this view.

Wales in the form of the Assembly potentially has a huge amount of public money that it could lavish on a New York route - provided it could find a legal way of applying the cash - but would it ever be sustainable when the support ran out?

CWL has a smaller and generally less affluent catchment than BRS, and its business sector is not as large so the amount of cash involved would be considerable.

In recent months various sums have been thrown around from the £580,000 per year (for three years) suggested by the York study in 2007 to more recent speculation in excess of £1 million per year in regard to a Delta service to NYC.

It seems that BRS is giving Wales the green light that if it wants to splash the cash it won't find any opposition on the English side of the Severn estuary.

[WATABENCH]

Anyone else here the sonic boom at about 1800 over Bath, Radstock, Frome area? Typhoon jets scrambled to a helicopter emitting an emergency signal by all accounts, wandered what the hell it was!

BBC News - Typhoon sonic boom behind mysterious bang reports - MoD (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17697328)

[bristolflyer]

It is odd that two typhoons were launched to aid a civil helicopter. I can't imagine they would be much use if it was in distress....."Look Biggles there it is down there"..."Where?"..."Sh*t you missed it and now we're 80 miles away".

[thrubwell]

some people in peasedown and bath claim to have seen a mysterious silver object at a higher altitude than the helicopter.

[cornishsimon]

Seems BA made an unscheduled arrival at BRS on the 13th as due to fog at LHR the OSL-LHR service operated by A319 G-EUPB diverted to BRS before heading off to LHR once the fog cleared !

cs

[MerchantVenturer]

Ryanair

New route to Warsaw Modlin from 30 October 2012, 3 x weekly.

Thomson Boeing 787

BRS not among the airports announced today by Thomson that feature the B787 from May 2013 to Florida and Cancun.

The B787 will operate to these destinations from Gatwick, Manchester, Glasgow and East Midlands.

In July 2010 Chris Brown, Thomson MD, announced that the B787 would operate from these airports when it came into service with the company (then expected to be in early 2012), as well as from Edinburgh, Birmingham and Bristol - some reports at that time also included Newcastle.

[bobsyerunlce]

New route from Easyjet starting at the end of October to Copenhagen. 4 times weekly. Great news that a Scandinavian route is back on the map.

[WATABENCH]

Great news on new routes, had heard on the grapevine that new routes were coming, my money was on EZY SSH, CPH and WAW are great routes to return to BRS though.
I would guess that TOM are putting the 787 in the named bases due to runway lengths, running the aircraft in and seeing what info the performance reports come back with before popping them on the shorter strips at BRS/BHX.

[MerchantVenturer]

The return of easyJet on the Copenhagen route after an eight-year absence is excellent news, and a Scandinavian route again after SAS pulled out of the Stockholm and Oslo routes following their major downsizing around 2008.

In fact, the return of two 'old friends' has been welcomed within a day with Ryanair's announcement of Warsaw Modlin. easyJet used to operate to Warsaw Chopin.

Although the CAA provisional March stats for BRS have not yet been released the airport's own stats show a 3.77% increase in passenger numbers on March 2011, and the total passenger count for the first three months of 2012 is 1.64% up on the first three months of 2011.

Thus far then the steady though unspectacular progress of both 2010 and 2011 is being followed in 2012.

[Severn]

The schedules are showing that from Sunday 28th October 2012, Brussels Airlines will no longer be using a based BMI Regional E145 to operate their flights as they are switching to using their own RJ85's 3x Daily.

The weekday schedule in October using BMR E145's is:

BRS -06:25 - BRU -08:40
-BRU -09:35 - BRS -09:50
BRS -12:10 - BRU -14:20
-BRU -15:50 - BRS -16:00
BRS -16:30 - BRU -18:45
-BRU -20:05 - BRS -20:15

The weekday schedule in November using BEL RJ85's is:
BRS -06:20 - BRU -08:40
-BRU -09:35 - BRS -10:00
BRS -10:30 - BRU -12:50
-BRU -15:20 - BRS -15:45
BRS -16:15 - BRU -18:35
-BRU -20:50 - BRS -21:15

It looks like the current midday flight departing BRS will be moved to a mid-morning flight, and the evening flight from BRU to BRS has now moved 45min later, making it better to connect to from other cities or a more useful working day in Brussels for businessmen.

[MerchantVenturer]

Brussels

I wonder if the ARJ will be too large for 3 x daily. This pattern was tried before (some years ago it was 4 x daily with ARJs on weekdays) but gradually reduced to 2 x daily before being replaced by bmiRegional 145s at 3 x daily which has shown significantly increased passenger numbers over the past two years with approximately the same number of seats on offer as the 2 x daily ARJs.

easyJet

An article in the local paper today reported that easyJet is looking at adding more routes from BRS following the announcement a few days ago of Copenhagen from the autumn.

Ali Gayward, easyJet UK commercial manager said the airline has been 'looking at increasing our footprint within the business market' and cited Copenhagen as part of that strategy. She described Bristol as one of her airline's most important centres and said they are looking at 'building on that'.

The BRS management has been working hard lately to try to build its business market.

Now I'm not so naïve as to believe every word uttered by airline spokespeople as sometimes an element of puffery can enter the equation, especially when local airports are being discussed with the local press. Nevertheless, the tenor of the remarks is encouraging and is in line with previous easyJet statements re BRS, and the CPH announcement has given mere words some meaning. Copenhagen of course is also an attractive tourism destination as is the West Country for travellers from Denmark.

BRS currently has scheduled routes to eleven European capital cities with two more to come in the autumn:

Amsterdam (KLM and easyJet)
Berlin (easyJet)
Bratislava (Ryanair)
Brussels (Brussels Airlines, currently operated by bmiRegional)
Budapest (Ryanair)
Copenhagen (easyJet) - from October
Dublin (Aer Lingus Regional and Ryanair)
Lisbon (easyJet) - seasonal
Madrid (easyJet)
Paris (Air France and easyJet)
Prague (easyJet)
Rome (easyJet)
Warsaw (Ryanair) - from October

[bobsyerunlce]

Although you've missed belfast and edinburgh off that list, and I can't remember if Riga and Kaunas were there either, I can't think of many other important European capital cities that are missing from bristol's route network.
Whilst from a personal point of view I would love to see Tallinn added as well as Reykjavyk (seeing as the route from Luton is doing so well I am sure Easyjet will add other routes to KEF), it is great to see that both Ryanair and even moreso Easyjet regard BRS as such an important base. I hope it continues for a long time.
I wonder if any other LCCs will ever set up shop at Bristol? Wizz nearly did and flybe have dipped a toe but I look forward to other Easyjet routes in the near future

[chrisy08]

What aircraft is TOM using for its Antalya service this summer?

[MerchantVenturer]

Capital cities etc

I hadn't forgotten Edinburgh and Belfast but I was thinking of European capitals rather than UK national capitals.

Ryanair no longer operates Riga from BRS which is why it didn't appear on my list and Kaunas, though an important economic and cultural centre, is Lithuania's second city after the capital, Vilnius.

Despite Copenhagen being announced Scandinavia is still not well represented and Germany, except for Berlin, doesn't feature at all.

TOM to Antalya

I imagine it will be one of the two based B 757s.

[bobsyerunlce]

Of course! I need to brush up on my Lithuanian geography! Apologies!
And you're right MV. It would be nice to see Munich, Frankfurt or Hamburg on the departures board again!

[LGS6753]

There are a lot of pleas on PPRuNe for services to Germany, but few airports can sustain them. There are good reasons for this:

1. Germany is not a massive tourist destination
2. There is little VFR traffic
3. Whereas UK is very London-centric, Germany has a number of mid-sized cities (Munich, Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, etc), and Germany's economy is more geographically spread.
4. Internal transport in Germany is good, with free widespread autobahns and good fast rail.

[MerchantVenturer]

That's a good summary of the German situation, LGS6753.

There are English regional airports with more scheduled German connections than BRS's sole Berlin that overall handle fewer passengers - in one or two cases considerably fewer - though I realise there may be specific reasons why this is so.

It can be fairly argued that the German routes BRS has had in the past never stuck though some did for the best part of a decade - BA franchise to Frankfurt and Munich for example until BACon was bought by Flybe in 2007 - and the LH route to FRA in 2008 was building well (nearly 100,000 passengers in the 13 months of its existence at fares that were often expensive - there were complaints about the cost on PPRuNe and elswhere) until the recession brought it to an end.

Taking into account your entirely realistic description of Germany there are still grounds for optimism that the very able BRS management team will be able to achieve another German link in the near future unless of course the economy goes into reverse gear at high speed. They were very close to getting something for 2012.

[j636]

OLT Express start 2 weekly service to Bydgoszcz from October.

[planenut321]

Not the best times. Flights are cheap though.

23:30 BZG - 00:40 BRS

02:20 BRS - 05:30 BZG

Don't know what it does on the ground for 1:40 hours...

[bobsyerunlce]

This info isn't even on OLT Express' or BRS website yet!
2:20am departure from Bristol. Isnt this strange for anything other than a package holiday flight to the Costas?? The locals will love that!

[LGS6753]

OLT starting two LGW-Poland routes too.
This looks like a new departure for them, but will it last up against FR & WZZ. What economical equipment will they be using?

[WATABENCH]

They're also releasing BZG-NCL & LPL, testing the water for more uk expansion perhaps? very random times, maybe looking to fully utilise the aircraft they have as no point in them being sat about doing nothing at night i guess.

Will be intresting to see what happens with the routes, BRS has a huge polish community that utilise the FR and EZY routes, so as long as they arent put off by times then no reason it shouldnt do ok.

Flights are on sale on the OLT Express website. Great to see a new airline at BRS again.

I believe OLT express also operate alongside mainline OLT in germany, wandering if BRS will be trying to get some new german routes from them to complement the polish route.

I believe they operate 319s & 320s (extra orders for 6 & 5 respectfully to be delivered sept 2012)

[Severn]

OLT Express launched operations on 02 April 12, initially with 10 domestic routes within Poland. The airline is expanding its operation starting May 2012, and has announced the expansion to continental Europe starting 29 October 12 from 5 Polish bases (on-top of 23 domestic routes it will be serving by then);
Warsaw - 17 new European routes with 75 weekly flights all starting from 29 October 12
Gdansk - 13 new European routes with 57 weekly flights all starting from 29 October 12
Bydgoszcz - 12 new European routes with 25 weekly flights all starting from 29 October 12
Rzeszow - 7 new European routes with 18 weekly flights all starting from 29 October 12
Lodz - 5 new European routes with 8 weekly flights starting all starting from 29 October 12

The new routes to the UK & IRE will be:
BRS-BZG - 2x Weekly
LPL-BZG - 2x Weekly
NCL-BZG - 2x Weekly
LGW-BZG - 2x Weekly
LGW-GDN - 1x Daily
LGW-WAW - 1x Daily
ORK-BZG - 2x Weekly
EDI-LCJ - 1x Weekly
EDI-BZG - 2x Weekly

They seem to be pretty sorted, especially as it doesn't look like that they will be going head to head on many WZZ or RYR routes at all, and with cheap flights starting at 29.99 one way inclusive of 16kg baggage allowance and 8kg cabin baggage allowance. (also 50% discount applies for pax aged 2 to 18), then hopefully they will do very well.

[LGS6753]

This outfit looks well-equipped (who's paying???), and is being very adventurous in opening so many 'thin' routes at once. However, they will benefit from the massive number of Poles in the UK, and what looks like full utilization of aircraft (from some of the flight times).
I found the website a bit clunky, but I expect that will improve. Will they make money at £30 inc baggage?

[BAladdy]

This outfit looks well-equipped (who's paying???), and is being very adventurous in opening so many 'thin' routes at once. However, they will benefit from the massive number of Poles in the UK, and what looks like full utilization of aircraft (from some of the flight times).
I found the website a bit clunky, but I expect that will improve. Will they make money at £30 inc baggage?
OLT Express is the second new start up this year to announce a large number of routes in a short space of time the other was Volotea who will open 76 new routes before August,
This outfit looks well-equipped (who's paying???),
They certainly will be well equipped there seems to have been a lot of planning put into setting up OLT Express. For instance the carrier will launch 50+ new from late October but they are planning to have there whole fleet in place in late September. OLT currently a fleet 8 Airbus's (2 x A319's and 6 x A320's) by October this number will rise to 19 (8 x A319's & 11 x A320's).

[MerchantVenturer]

Airline boss hints at long-haul destinations from Bristol | This is Bristol (http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Airline-boss-hints-long-haul-destinations-Bristol/story-16039922-detail/story.html)

Piece in the local paper this week where easyJet's UK Director is suggesting that they are looking at more longer haul destinations from Bristol - currently the longest routes the airline flies from the airport are Bodrum, Dalaman, Paphos, Corfu, Heraklion, Fuerteventura and Tenerife, some of which are seasonal.

He also said they've been speaking to major employers in the area with a view to improving their share of the business market from BRS.

From next week easyJet will require eleven based aircraft to operate their schedule with Mayfly showing 9 319s and 2 320s. Last summer the eleventh aircraft (the second 320) only operated from the end of July to mid September.

easyJet's new (for BRS) Naples route commences today at 3 x weekly. Thomson has retained its summer charter service to Naples at 2 x weekly.

[bobsyerunlce]

Well Easyjet's longer routes include Sharm, Tel Aviv and Reykjavyk. I wonder if we might see any of those soon?

On a different note, I just saw a large billboard on the M32 advertising BHX to Singapore daily on Turkish Airlines. Surely Turkish are the sort of carrier BRS should be looking at enticing? They seem to be expanding at a decent pace and would open up Asia from Bristol. Just a thought as I drove past! I bet you don't see many billboards for Bristol Airport when in Birmingham.

[crewmeal]

I bet you don't see many billboards for Bristol Airport when in Birmingham.

You see Thomson long haul flights from EMA advertised in Birmingham city centre.

Reminds me of those Carling ads of the 90's. A giant poster advertising Brum's new city airport. Yes you guessed it the slogan said "I bet he drinks Carling Black Label'

[MerchantVenturer]

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/Boeing%20767-324%20G-OOBK%2005-12.pdf

The AAIB report into the incident at BRS on 3 October 2010 where Thomson Boeing 767-300, G-OOBK, sustained significant structural damage on landing on 09.

[WATABENCH]

Flybe dropping BHD from June, low figures blamed according to BBC

[Standard Noise]

Not surprised at that considering Flybe's prices. They don't do themselves any favours.

[MerchantVenturer]

The flight times didn't help the route - it was impossible to have a full day at either Bristol or Belfast with the morning service arriving at BRS at mid morning and back at Belfast late morning.

When Ryanair operated the route the first flight was early morning - like easyJet to BFS.

In April easyJet carried 19,380 passengers to BFS, up 35% on a year ago, whereas Flybe had 3,902 passengers on the BHD, down 1% on last year. Ryanair was handling up to 14,000 a month to BHD with easyJet the same sort of figure then to BFS.

BRS - where to from here?

Health warning: anyone put off by lists of figures will probably be asleep long before the end of this post.

I've been looking at past forecasts for Bristol Airport and they show just how hard it is to accurately assess how things will go in the future, and I have no doubt this does not apply just to BRS.

For example, I have in my possession literature published in 1993 with that most enthusiastic supporter and proponent of all things BRS, the late Les Wilson (then airport MD), clearly the guiding light. The airport wanted a new terminal building to cater for what they hoped would be a doubling of passenger numbers within ten years. The 1992 figure had been just over 1 mppa and they were looking to 2 mppa in 2003 which was considered quite a challenge.

Well, the finance was put in place when the airport was part-privatised in 1997 and the terminal was opened in 2000. By 2003 the airport had not doubled its passenger numbers, it had increased them nearly four-fold to 3.887 mppa, but of course no-one could have forecast the impact that low-cost airlines would make on previously rather sleepy regional airports- not even dear old Les who had been tragically killed in a car accident in 1995 - what would he have made of his airport handling 6 mppa within 15 years of his 1993 paper?

In 2006 BRS produced its amended master plan following widespread consultation on the draft plan which, unsurprisingly because of the airport's progress in the previous decade, envisaged continued growth though not at the outperformance rate of the previous ten years.

Forecast passenger figures from the 2005 figure of 5.199 mppa were: 2010 6.695; 2015 8.076; 2020 9.271; 2025 10.812; 2030 12.476.

Since 2005 the figures have actually been: 2006 5.710; 2007 5.883; 2008 6.229; 2009 5.615; 2010 5.723; 2011 5.768.

The airport has since recognised that the master plan's annual passenger figures will take longer to achieve than was believed to be the case in 2005/2006 and the planning consents for its major infrastructure expansion set a limit of 10 mppa anyway.

Something else the master plan didn't anticipate was the number of passengers per atm. In 2005 it was 86 and the master plan thought that 110 would not be reached until 2025. In 2011 the figure was 109, well above the 2020 forecast figure of 103. In fact, 104 had been reached by 2008.

The number of annual atms has decreased each year since 2006 when in in that year nearly 66,000 atms were needed to service 5.710 mppa, but in 2011 fewer than 53,000 were required for 5.768 mppa through a combination of larger aircraft and better load factors.

With all the variables currently out there (air passenger duty, the cost of fuel, the recession, the government's lack of an aviation policy and a sense of being lukewarm to the industry are just a few) it's impossible for anyone to accurately forecast what BRS will be doing in ten or twenty years time.

The Dft published passenger forecasts last year for all UK airports at various dates until 2050, but wasn't that a just a waste of public money which is likely to be no closer to what turns out to be reality than drawing numbers from a hat?

The BRS experience suggests that's probably the case.

[j636]

brussels airlines are increasing capacity on BRU route by almost 60% from start of winter.

[petey156]

what aircraft do brussels airline operate into BRS and what aircraft will they be uplifting to in order to uplift capacity on the route

[Accurate]

If you try to book a November flight on their web-site the aircraft is described as a RJ 85.

[MerchantVenturer]

Since January 2010 BRS-BRU has been operated for Brussels Airlines by bmiRegional using ERJ 145 aircraft at 3 x daily, fewer at weekends.

Prior to that Brussels Airlines and its predecessors operated the route using their own equipment (ARJs and 146s for many years), at one time up to 4 x daily.

At the time that bmiRegional took on the route for Brussels Airlines the latter had been using their own ARJ 85s at 2 x daily.

So the 3 x daily ERJ 145s provided approximately the same number of seats as the 2 x daily ARJs but with greater frequency.

In 2010 passenger numbers were up 23% to 38,334 and in 2011 up 11% to 42,659. In the first four months of 2012 passenger numbers are up again - by nearly 8%.

Following the recent news re bmiRegional, Brussels Airlines are advertising the route from the end of October with ARJ 85s at 3 x daily, again with fewer at weekends.

It seems they are encouraged by the increased passenger numbers the ERJs have brought with the additional rotations. It remains to be seen if the route can again justify 3 x daily ARJs.

Incidentally the NCL-BRU route was also switched to bmiRegional 145s in January 2010 and, like the BRS route, NCL-BRU will use ARJ 85s from the end of October.

[OltonPete]

Hi MV

Those are impressive figures in respect of % increases but I would throw caution on the RJ85 source.

It is from Routesonline/airlineroute.net and they just scour GDS on a daily basis, which of course is a live system and should be accurate (at that point of time and I too quote it for BHX services).

However on the BMIR thread it claims that they have been asked to tender again and the RJ85 fleet at Brussels Airlines is shrinking by the week. I think they have five left per one source and one of those has not flown since 19/05/12, another every other day but the remainder are worked hard. Of course there is still a significant fleet of 97 seat RJ100's though.

In GDS BHX has 2 x RJ85's and 3 x RJ100's in winter and I can't believe for one minute that will happen with the current frequency of 3 x Q400 (flybe and Tyrolean) and 2 x RJ100's unless the Q400 contact ends for some reason.

There have also been rumours of flybe providing more Q400's for SN although the BMI Baby situation might affect this as they are now tight on aircraft (EMA - AMS & CDG still not on sale) and BHX is now seeing almost daily cancellations (weekdays).



Pete

[tpm]

I really do wonder if the switch in aircraft is due to increased demand or simply because that's the smallest plane Brussels Airlines have available. I've been flying this route a lot in the last 3 months, usually out Monday mornings and back Friday evenings, and the loads seem quite good in general, at least at those times, but I've also had occasions (e.g. a bank holiday monday) where there were only a handful of people (all in business class, because b.light or b.flex was simply not bookable.. not sure if that was a glitch in the booking system or some sort of yield management).

MV: interesting numbers (re. "BRS - where from here?"). I've always wondered about where all those extra passengers mentioned in the expansion master plan are going to come from. Do you happen to know in which areas the airport expects (or expected) that growth to happen? LCCs? People flying into the sun twice as many times a year? More people flying into the sun? More business travellers? More connections to US/Middle East/Turkish hubs? People simply travelling more in general?

I was particularly surprised to see that "leakage" to Heathrow from the South West was only around 7% (IIRC), plus a few more to Gatwick and Luton/Stansted. So how much is that in total? Perhaps 5-6mppa? Most of those are surely international flights and short-haul business travel where going via AMS/CDG/BRU is not practical, so how much of that could Bristol realistically capture back, even with some more routes? Perhaps 1-2mmpa? Or perhaps the business community in the area is expected to grow considerably in the next 10 years?

So I find it hard to see where massive growth at the airport is supposed to come from, esp. with decent transport links (direct rail link; link to M5) not even on the agenda.

[MerchantVenturer]

BRS-BRU

Hello Pete and tpm,

I also wondered about the RJ85 being the type to be used from the end of the summer timetable. At present it is the smallest of Brussels Airlines' own fleet but according to Wiki (not always the definitive voice in any subject of course) the type is to be phased out of the airline by the end of this year.

Whether the RJ85 phasing out (assuming it's true) will be delayed if there is difficulty in sourcing other, perhaps more suitably-sized, aircraft remains to be seen.

BRS - where from here?

tpm,

Forgive me if you are already aware of much of the following but for completeness I've set it out thus.

The BRS master plan forecast

The master plan was the result of the then Labour government's 2003 white paper, 'The Future of Air Transport'.

The UK demand for air travel was expected to increase from the 2003 total of around 200 million passengers to between 400 million and 600 million by 2030. BRS, like other airports whose master plans evolved from the 2003 white paper, proceeded on the basis that they would share in the increase.

In BRS's case the belief was well founded given that its passenger numbers had enjoyed an average annual growth rate of nearly 14% over the ten years up to 2003 against the UK average of just under 6%.

The master plan envisaged much slower future annual growth rate towards its 2015 and 2030 target figures. In absolute terms passenger numbers had grown nearly four-fold in the decade up to 2003 and 2005-2015 would need only a 60% rise to meet the target.

In 2004/5 (when the master plan was being prepared) it was believed that increased air travel would be boosted by rising standards of living, rising GDP, people choosing to fly more often and more frequently from their local airports as more services became viable, with the hope that local business travel in particular would benefit.

BRS's master plan forecast put the bulk of the actual increase (as opposed to percentage increases in different sectors) down to increased short haul international scheduled passenger numbers which realistically means mainly the low-cost airlines. For example, this sector was forecast to increase from 2.5 million passengers in 2005 to 4.25 million in 2015. There was also forecast to be 450,000 more domestic route passengers and an additional 294,000 charter passengers during this period. Optimistically, as it's turned out, the airport also factored in 383,000 long haul scheduled passengers in 2015.

The charter market has decreased rather than increased which puts even more weight on the shoulders of scheduled carriers (mainly low-cost at BRS) to drive the airport forward. But BRS is not unique in this - far from it.

It seems the passenger number increase would be obtained through a mixture of new routes, higher frequencies and more people travelling.

Few people could have forecast the state the world's economy would get itself into during the years following 2005.

The BRS management has recognised that its master plan predictions won't follow the forecast timetable and continues with its policy to expand infrastructure, including an eventual doubling of the terminal size, incrementally as passenger numbers build. A contract has already been signed for the first part of the terminal expansion though I've not seen any timescale.

Leakage to London

The 2008 CAA survey showed that 6.7% of LHR's terminal passengers had an origin or destination in the South West, over twice as many as any other region of the UK apart from the South East. Broadly similar figures applied to Gatwick.

As you point out, this is around 5 million journeys and many could never be replicated from a South West airport, but some could certainly be captured.

Surface access

It's a constant complaint that BRS is difficult to reach and one wonders how it would fare if access was much easier. That said, it's done as well as most regional airports during the recession and far better than many others, including its neighbouring airports in the South West and South Wales.

I have no doubt that the Airport Flyer service - now running at 10-minute frequencies in each direction between city and airport from early morning to mid evening with lesser frequency in the late evening but with increased journeys through the night (compared to what went before) - has done much to overcome the lack of a rail connection.

With through ticketing availability via Temple Meads from across much of the UK rail network - the airport is listed as a 'station' in the First Great Western booking system and also appears on the railway station train arrivals board - and with National Express via the Bristol coach and country bus station, the Flyer service seems to gain in popularity every year handling about 10% of the passengers who fly in and out of the airport.

It's run by the airport though operated by First Bristol drivers and vehicles in a dedicated livery.

On Friday afternoon I saw several of the 37-seat Volvo Flyers pass through Bedminster in both directions very heavily loaded with standing passengers on some. Loads do vary enormously depending on the peaks and troughs of air travel but the great thing is that passengers always know a Flyer will be waiting or along very shortly. Such a frequent schedule could never be accomplished by a rail link which would be a spur or branch anyway (if anyone could find the money for the extensive civil engineering that would be needed to climb to the airport).

Greater Bristol is embarking on a £250 million upgrade of its passenger transport network including new roads, part funded by the DfT, which involves five new schemes at least two of which ought to ease access to the airport. One should remove the crawl around Ashton and Bedminster by traffic heading for the airport via the M5 at Avonmouth and the other may afford a new route for the Flyer partly on a guided busway.

Summary

Growth at BRS may remain slow for a while but when confidence returns to the economy it, like other regional airports, will see the benefit and in BRS's case the growth will become more substantial. Trouble is, no-one knows when this will be.

To reach 10 mppa (the current permitted maximum under planning permissions) an increase of around 65-70% will be needed from the present total. Compared with the 600% growth of the past 20 years perhaps this is not so daunting as it might seem.........but that economy must get its act going first.

[santito]

Emirates Says (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-21/emirates-says-whole-load-of-airlines-will-fail-in-fuel-squeeze.html)

"In the U.K., where Emirates serves London Heathrow, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne and Glasgow, there’s the possibility of it adding a further destination which “could be north of the border or further west,” he said."

Ignoring the runway issue, I think one would assume they are talking about BRS. However, given the short runway, BRS cannot handle any of EK's fleet (fully laden) without a stopover being needed (Even the A330s [ which I think they are looking to phase out anyway] on 27 with the wind blowing just right on a cold day).

Surely that only leaves Cardiff in the running? Could EK really still be looking at operations from there? I can't think where else 'west' could support services... LPL is too close to MAN, BFS seems like the only other possibility.

I expect BRS might just about be able to handle an A-330 (It's not an awful lot larger than the 767-300 ER's that frequent the airport and the 330 has excellent performance) if some cargo was forgone - (But I understand this is where the money is) as I would imagine EK would get good loads out of BRS in a mixed J/Y A/C... Perhaps the airport will offer EK good terms in order to make this 'flagship' route/ carrier viable for EK?

[MerchantVenturer]

Being discussed in the Emirates thread, though this is not a new report (March) and was debated at the time on aviation message baords including, I think on PPRuNe, though I can find no trace following just a brief search.

In my view BRS (or CWL) is unlikely given the proximity of BHX and LHR, and LGW is also an option at least for those in the West Country.

I believe that operational constraints at the airport would rule out BRS from a non-stop route.

[OltonPete]

brussels airlines Modifies Newcastle / Bristol W12 Operations | Airline Route (http://airlineroute.net/2012/06/08/sn-nclbrs-w12update2/)

Bristol night-stop flybe Q400 for winter 2012-13 (decent increase in seats)

0620 1000
1030 1545
1615 2115

No surprise here, whether this is an expansion of the agreement with flybe
or just the BHX moving I don't know. The BHX service is showing as SN RJ's
but another one would be required as Newcastle is changing to the flybe Q400 as well.

However again I throw caution due to the source quoted

Pete

[andrew1968]

However again I throw caution due to the source quoted

Pete,

Looked at Brussels Airlines booking engine, it shows both Bristol and Newcastle being operated by flyBE Dash 8's!

[Bristol_Traveller]

SN switched the wet lease contract to BE, so it's bye-bye to the pocket rocket, and hello to the Dash. I SAID, ITS... HELLO... TO... THE... DASH... YES, A BIT NOISY, ISN'T IT? :hmm:

People with more fingers and toes than I have worked out that half the BD-R fleet of Emby's is now unaccounted for come W2012. Either there's a cunning plan or a momumental cockup.

Related - any news of us getting some flights into hubs other than Skyteam?

[santito]

Would also like to know....

I eagerly await the return of LH or an airline like TK to pop up at BRS :)

[MerchantVenturer]

Airport expansion

Justine Greening, Secretary of State for Transport, officially opened the first phase of BRS's major development that will eventually enable the airport to handle 10 mppa in a ceremony to mark the completion of three new aircraft stands.

More than 30 projects will be involved in the development including the near doubling of the terminal size, a public transport interchange, additional aircraft stands and an on-site hotel.

Currently work is proceeding on an additional immigration facility that will open this summer and on an expanded security search area.

The airport is also making 'substantial contributions' to two major transport schemes that will improve surface access to the airport.

Transport Secretary opens Bristol Airport development – Bristol Airport (http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/media-centre/news-releases/2012/06/new-aircraft-stands.aspx)

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

Alitalia

Can anyone confirm that Alitalia will be operating weekly flights to BRS on Wednesdays from Rome Fiumicino commencing 4 July for 5-6 weeks?

It seems the flights may involve inbound tourism, possibly in some way connected with the Olympics which I realise don't start until the latter part of July.

easyJet already operates a daily rotation to Fiumicino.