Bristol-5

[Severn]

New Ryanair Route: Sofia, Bulgaria
Ryanair will operate BRS-SOF - 1x weekly (Saturdays) starting 22nd Dec

BRS-SOF will also be operated by 2x weekly by easyJet (Wed and Sat) starting 8th Dec

[Bristol_Traveller]

All the FIS in the terminal went down around 22:00 on Thursday 13SEP and are apparently still down now, 36 hours later.

Flight and gate info is being given by staff around the terminal and written on boards.

It seems like a very long down time, suggesting a fairly serious problem.

I travelled through on Friday, and disruption wasn't too bad.

[OltonPete]

All the FIS in the terminal went down around 22:00 on Thursday 13SEP and are apparently still down now, 36 hours later.

Flight and gate info is being given by staff around the terminal and written on boards.

It seems like a very long down time, suggesting a fairly serious problem.

I travelled through on Friday, and disruption wasn't too bad.

When IT things go wrong these days it seems to take longer to resolve whereas you would think with all the expertise it would be quicker. However moving on the airport has reported the August passenger figures.

August 2018 (https://www.bristolairport.co.uk/about-us/news-and-media/news-and-media-centre/2018/9/record-month-at-bristol-airport)

I know a bit of spin with the "near million" but still good stats.

Still no rumours of Turkish Airlines operating as this seems an obvious choice for going east especially with their aggressive expansion and now that Qatar have settled on Cardiff or maybe they are concerned it will dilute BHX which has taken a few years to get back to double daily (summer 19).

Pete

[yeo valley]

With the master plan being worked on by the airport and asking what people thinks about it has been ongoing for quite a while now. I did read that the airport is looking to expand the terminal next year rather than wait for the whole master plan to be passed by the council. The terminal expansion is in the master plan,so I wonder why the airport wants to expand terminal earlier.That tells me the pax numbers are to increase by at least 1 million,so the airport have got some thing up their sleeves that they have not released. Time will tell.

[marko1]

With the master plan being worked on by the airport and asking what people thinks about it has been ongoing for quite a while now. I did read that the airport is looking to expand the terminal next year rather than wait for the whole master plan to be passed by the council. The terminal expansion is in the master plan,so I wonder why the airport wants to expand terminal earlier.That tells me the pax numbers are to increase by at least 1 million,so the airport have got some thing up their sleeves that they have not released. Time will tell.

that could only be one thing surely ?

[MerchantVenturer]

When IT things go wrong these days it seems to take longer to resolve whereas you would think with all the expertise it would be quicker. However moving on the airport has reported the August passenger figures.

August 2018

I know a bit of spin with the "near million" but still good stats.

Still no rumours of Turkish Airlines operating as this seems an obvious choice for going east especially with their aggressive expansion and now that Qatar have settled on Cardiff or maybe they are concerned it will dilute BHX which has taken a few years to get back to double daily (summer 19).
Pete

Hello Pete. Haven't 'spoken' with you on here for a while. The IT problem with the information screens still seems unresolved nearly two days after problems surfaced.

Turkish might turn up one day. The new Istanbul airport will certainly give the airline a lot more room. I don’t think that Turkish has any Australasian connectivity though which would be a limiting factor for many potential travellers, including me.

As for the airport’s passenger figures, for many years they have consistently been under reported each month and at the end of each year when compared with those issued by the CAA (which I understand gets its figures from the airport in the first place). I’ve tried on several occasions down the years to find out why they do this. All they say is that they don’t count under 2s and some other types of passenger whereas the CAA does.

The airport’s website now carries this notice on its facts and figures section: Due to differences in the way some flights are recorded, Bristol Airport figures may contain small variances when compared to those reported by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

The small variances can be quite large in some people's eyes. For example, in July this year the airport showed 925,910 passengers whilst the CAA came in with 938,411 terminal passengers. In 2017 as a whole BRS’s figure was 8,136,738 with the CAA showing 8,234,086. August's CAA figures when published will doubtless be in the region of 965,000 which at least is about 13,000 closer to the one million than the airport's figure.

So on the one hand the airport is making a virtue of nearly one million in August but on the other it’s consistently under reporting its passenger numbers compared with those issued by the CAA.

With the master plan being worked on by the airport and asking what people thinks about it has been ongoing for quite a while now. I did read that the airport is looking to expand the terminal next year rather than wait for the whole master plan to be passed by the council. The terminal expansion is in the master plan,so I wonder why the airport wants to expand terminal earlier.That tells me the pax numbers are to increase by at least 1 million,so the airport have got some thing up their sleeves that they have not released. Time will tell.

The first part of the public consultation gave three possible options for a new terminal: expand the present one; build a new and bigger one on the north side; build a second complementary terminal on the south side. Following the second round of public consultation the airport is in the process of drawing up a new draft master plan which itself will be the subject of further public consultation, probably early next year. The airport has now settled on expanding the current terminal (which has been extended already a number of times since it opened in 2000) and its scoping report re the environmental impact assessment for future planning applications reflects this.

The airport will also apply to the local authority to have the current 10 mppa limit raised. It is projecting 10 mppa by 2021 and 12 mppa by 2025. It would certainly need to have the terminal further extended (from its current size) to accommodate 12 mppa.

The consultation documents state firmly that a runway extension does not form part of the new master plan. The owners seem content that their airport is a profitable mainly short-haul facility with a sprinkling of long-haul charter flights, as is the case at the moment. With LHR relatively close and the default airport for most long-haul scheduled passengers from the region they no doubt judge that the expense, both financial and environmental, is not justified given the small number of long-haul scheduled routes that the current master plan sees as potentially viable (it names four; one ME and three US, some of which might be possible from the current runway anyway).

[yeo valley]

nice post mv.i cant get into f4a as it says maintenance. With the master plan going to council next yearit does show that expansion to terminal is a separate issue as airport says we want to expand terminal in 2019.

[Rutan16]

F4a has new server you need to search in google and flush your cash

[MerchantVenturer]

BRS information screens now operating again. Airport says its systems were the victim of some sort of ransomeware attack.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/cyber-attack-bristol-airport-blamed-2009887

[Bristol_Traveller]

Given that the screens appear to have been running / are running Windows XP,' I'm not surprised they fell victim to an attack. It doesn't seem that hard to get physical access to the network either, if you were determined, and save all the social engineering needed to get someone to click a link in an email.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Limited FIS screens are now running, apparently on Windows 10. Return to a full service will be 'some time way'.

Did it take a ransomware attack which brought everything down to justify doing an upgrade to a newer, security maintained, operating system?

[shamrock7seal]

Airport masterplan 20m pax.

Is there space in the airport boundary to extend the runway length and add a starter strip? Surely this will assist in marketing the airport to the likes or Emirates or Etihad?

I could see BRS targeting the following carriers in the years to come:

FINNAIR Helsinki & connections
TURKISH AIRLINES Istanbul & connections
SWISS Zurich & connections
WOW Iceland & connections
ETIHAD Abu Dhabi & connections
EMIRATES Dubai & connections (subject to runway extension/starter-strip)

Will bmi regional still be around in 10-20 years time? What aircraft will they replace their ERJ-145's with?

[PDXCWL45]

I honestly don't see Bristols owners spending a lot of money for something not guarenteed. Etihad are in retreat and Emirates even with the 787 10 might not have the right aircraft not to mention that BRS has no cargo facilities. It's also quite possible that both airlines see Bristol as being covered by their Heathrow flights.
As for the airlines mentioned Turkish could be a possibility but they might also see Bristol as being covered by their Heathrow flights. WOW has been and gone and Finnair would be interesting to see. Swiss like Turkish could also be a possibility in the future.
As for flyBMI i think it's anyone's guess as to what'll happen to them!

[MerchantVenturer]

Airport masterplan 20m pax.

Is there space in the airport boundary to extend the runway length and add a starter strip? Surely this will assist in marketing the airport to the likes or Emirates or Etihad?

I could see BRS targeting the following carriers in the years to come:

FINNAIR Helsinki & connections
TURKISH AIRLINES Istanbul & connections
SWISS Zurich & connections
WOW Iceland & connections
ETIHAD Abu Dhabi & connections
EMIRATES Dubai & connections (subject to runway extension/starter-strip)

Will bmi regional still be around in 10-20 years time? What aircraft will they replace their ERJ-145's with?
The current master plan (published in 2006) set out five options for extending the runway, from the status quo ('do nothing' as the plan puts it) to extensions of various lengths. All were focused on the eastern end of the airfield next to the A38 road - the falling ground at the western end makes extending the runway there extremely difficult.

Most of the options would mean taking possession to a greater or lesser degree of part of a common which is also a designated local nature reserve, and dropping the A38 into a 150-metre long tunnel.

One of the options was the construction of a starter strip which the 2006 master plan deals with in this way.

Option 4 – extend the runway by 239m with a 150m starter strip
A starter strip is a length of aircraft pavement that can be used by aircraft at the start of their take off run, but not for landing purposes. This option would add 389m to the runway 27 take off run, but only about 150m to the runway 09 take off run. This therefore means that runway 09 has performance penalties compared with runway 27. However the need to encroach on to Felton Common is avoided.

In 2006 the airport decided: Our overall conclusion is that the improvement in performance that might be achieved by extending the runway is relatively small in comparison with the costs and the potential environmental impact. The 'do nothing' option was the one chosen then.

The matter was to be kept under review at future updates of the master plan. The airport is currently preparing a new draft master plan to be published probably early next year for further public consultation following two rounds of pre-draft master plan public consultation over the past eleven months. However, the airport has said categorically that a runway extension does not form part of the new master plan.

To get anywhere near 20 mppa will require a larger site which the airport recognises and is exploring ways of acquiring extra land - it already owns some outside the present airport boundary. Another problem is the airport being situated within the Green Belt although part of it is in a Green Belt inset and the airport hopes that more of the site can be so designated in future.

[speedbreak1]

PDXCWL45 I would say Turkish would be more worried about diluting pax on their BHX flight rather than LHR. LHR can easily absorb the loss of any pax originating from BRS whereas BHX may be less easy. I would look at it as *relieving* pressure from LHR.

[PDXCWL45]

PDXCWL45 I would say Turkish would be more worried about diluting pax on their BHX flight rather than LHR. LHR can easily absorb the loss of any pax originating from BRS whereas BHX may be less easy. I would look at it as *relieving* pressure from LHR.
I'm sure that if Turkish launched a BRS route they wouldn't be worried about BHX or relieving pressure on LHR.
What I'm saying is that they may feel that the South West and South Wales is covered by their Heathrow flights and maybe to a lesser extent BHX as well. They may feel the area is covered . I think it depends on what there strategy is for the UK. Whether in the future they want to expand and operate from the smaller airport's in in UK or that it's covered by the airports they operate to now.

[kfsimpson]

I'm sure that if Turkish launched a BRS route they wouldn't be worried about BHX or relieving pressure on LHR.
What I'm saying is that they may feel that the South West and South Wales is covered by their Heathrow flights and maybe to a lesser extent BHX as well. They may feel the area is covered . I think it depends on what there strategy is for the UK. Whether in the future they want to expand and operate from the smaller airport's in in UK or that it's covered by the airports they operate to now.

I suspect they have calculated that currently BHX and LHR offer adequate coverage for the SW and Wales. I fly Turkish several times a year, usually from BHX or from LHR if connections don't work. The BHX flights usually seem to be at 80%+ capacity in the back of the plane, but not consistently full. For BRS to offer passengers good connections they would need two rotations per day, and I'm not sure there's the potential for that. I'd love them to try, though! Perhaps once the new IST airport is open and capacity increases they may look at expansion, but given the current state of the Turkish economy, maybe not.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Possibly relevant, but BM have announced codeshares with TK on the HAM and DUS routes (and alledgedly on the CDG route, although that wasn't showing when I looked yesterday).

I haven't looked, but I'm sceptical that the connections will be useful unless CDG does come online. The HAM and DUS routes both fly in the evening, meaning the connections into/out of TK are probably similar.

[caaardiff]

I'm sceptical over how much use this will be to BM. Unless people are connecting to specific TK desintations in Turkey, I can't see many people wanting to transfer through Germany and Turkey and onwards again to another TK destination.

[fanrailuk]

BACF to cease their routes from BRS at the end of S18

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/280776/ba-cityflyer-removes-birmingham-bristol-schedule-in-s19/

[yeo valley]

BACF to cease their routes from BRS at the end of S18

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/280776/ba-cityflyer-removes-birmingham-bristol-schedule-in-s19/


the routes from BRS was known a week or so back.. Old news. It was discussed at length on other forums and on here I believe.
The summer 18 routes finished in September.

[PDXCWL45]

New baggage system for Bristol costs £18.7 million
​https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/business/bristol-airport-baggage-screening-system-2077526?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar​​​​​​

[toon22]

What’s up this evening. FCO in Cardiff, IOM off to BHX it looks like.u

[MerchantVenturer]

I guess it's mist/fog. It was forecast. The wind direction suggests that 09 is the active runway and it has no Cat3b capability, unlike 27. Thomas Cook from Antalya also shown as diverted to CWL. Several aircraft seem to have landed since the diversions so if fog is/was the culprit it is presumably capricious this evening.

Currently (2000 hours) three more aircraft holding (two Ryanair one easyJet) according to FR24.

[Bristol_Traveller]

I have given up using the automated passport gates, as I have virtually zero success getting my (late 2016 issue, immaculate condition) passport to be recognised. I use gates at lots of other airports around the world, and the BRS ones are the only ones I consistently have fails at. Every Border Force officer I've asked has said the passport is fine, and the chip/biometrics are readable.

Am I alone in this experiencing this? I'm wondering if replacing my passport with a newer issues might be worthwhile.

[Morrihell]

You're not alone, my partner's passport has had zero success getting back in this autumn, mine has however not had a problem, both mid 2016 issues. Staffing at the gates leaves a lot to be desired late evening as well, especially when all the based aircraft arrive back in one long stream.

Mention it to the the Uk border staff and you get shrugged shoulders and "it's the airport's problem", mention it to airport staff and the shrug is answered with "it's a Uk border agency problem" Ho hum, welcome back to Bristol...

[marko1]

Shannon now on sale for next summer

[Bristol_Traveller]

LHR T2 has similar automated passport barriers to BRS, and my passport couldn't be read by those gates recently. A Border Force officer at LHR confirmed that my passport is OK, but that there's a problem with their gates. I'm assuming it's either the location of the RFID antenna on the gate, or a bug in the software that can't open/validate the data from the RFID. I can't establish if there was a change in the manufacturing process (either physical location of the RFID/Antenna or the way the digital signature is applied) that would account for the problems. (I'm also assuming it's the RFID, not the machine legible part of the passport).

I've heard nothing from the aiport about my question / complaint to them about it.

[MerchantVenturer]

New route - Montpellier - commences 2 June 2019 on Sundays and Wednesdays.

[MerchantVenturer]

https://www.bristolairport.co.uk/about-us/news-and-media/news-and-media-centre/2018/12/planning-application

Bristol Airport has submitted a planning application to North Somerset Council seeking permission to increase capacity to handle up to 12 million passengers a year by the mid-2020s.

Currently the airport is restricted to 10 mppa by its planning consents but expects to exceed 9 mppa in 2019. It also wants rationalisation, though not a relaxation, of its night flight quotas.

Some of the matters in today's application include a further enlargement of the terminal, three multi-storey car parks, a pedestrianised forecourt with a canopy, new road layouts within the site, an extension to the Silver Zone car park on the south side and a new taxiway.

The past two decades since privatisation have seen numerous infrastructure work costing £160 million since 2010 and a similar amount before that. One local media report today reckons that if approved today's application would involve £275 million worth of work.

Currently several projects are ongoing: a new fire station; a new admin building (both on the south side); more aircraft stands to be open by next summer, this time on the former staff car park in front of the old terminal building which itself is due to be demolished in the near future to provide further stands; building new levels onto the first multi-storey car park that was opened earlier this year.

The airport is also due to publish a draft of its new master plan in the near future following two public consultation phases earlier this year. The draft will go out for further public consultation. It will look at how the airport might develop over the next quarter of a century when passenger throughput might reach 20 mppa by the 2040s. That would require an enlargement of the site partly into the Green Belt onto adjoining land some of which is already owned by the airport. The airport and local authorities are also investigating ways in which surface access can be improved, both for public and private transport.

[OltonPete]

787 ops from BRS (https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/282330/thomson-s19-new-757767787-markets-as-of-04jan19/)

I knew about the Dubrovnik, Cancun x 2 and Sanford but not the Larnaca or Dalaman.

Sal on the...………….I thought the 757 was not operating from BRS in 2019 or was that just rumour? I know the 738's can operate Gatwick to Cape Verde but Bristol?

Not a bad with 5 based aircraft some days.

Pete

[MerchantVenturer]

787 ops from BRS (https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/282330/thomson-s19-new-757767787-markets-as-of-04jan19/)

I knew about the Dubrovnik, Cancun x 2 and Sanford but not the Larnaca or Dalaman.

Sal on the...………….I thought the 757 was not operating from BRS in 2019 or was that just rumour? I know the 738's can operate Gatwick to Cape Verde but Bristol?

Not a bad with 5 based aircraft some days.

Pete
Larnaca and Dubrovnik on the 787 next summer were announced some time ago - it's only one of the TUI rotations each week to these destinations. The second Cancun rotation effectively replaces the Punta Cana rotation of summer 18, and Sanford remains at weekly as last summer.

The change seems to be Sal. It was originally assumed to be a 787 job - the type operated the route last summer - but the Sal 787 now appears to have been shifted to Dalaman.

It does seem that BRS's two based 757s will be gone by summer 19 apparently to be replaced by two 738s giving a base of 4 x 738 plus a 787-8 operating five days each week, so the 787 will be seen for an extra day each week compared with summer 2018. It must be presumed that Sal will be a 738 next summer - a huge drop in capacity from a 787 which saw high load factors last summer. If the 757s are going that will obviously amount to a loss of many thousands of seats next summer.

The airport management said recently that it still expects 2019 to pass through the 9 mppa barrier. 2018 is ikely to finish between 8.6 million and 8.7 million. Reaching 9 mppa would represent a smaller annual passenger increase than recent years have seen but with TUI's apparent drop in capacity and only middling increases by easyJet, the main supplier of growth at the airport, it's difficult to see where the extra passengers will come from to meet the airport's projection. However, the third Thomas Cook based aircraft will alternate between a 320 and a 321 in various parts of the summer according to another website. That would mean that at times the base would be 3 x 321s. If so that should add a few thousand extra seats but would not compensate entirely for the TUI drop.

I've read no official announcements that the 757s are going or that Thomas Cook will be upgrading its third aircraft at times next summer, but the TUI 757 'rumour' does seem to be generally accepted as being true.

[OltonPete]

I've read no official announcements that the 757s are going or that Thomas Cook will be upgrading its third aircraft at times next summer, but the TUI 757 'rumour' does seem to be generally accepted as being true.

Thank you MV and even if it was 4 x 738's it is still impressive schedule and at least the type of aircraft at each base is slowly creeping into the public domain with the MAX schedule posted on the same site yesterday.Have TUI maintained their planned winter schedule as BHX has seen some cuts for the next six weeks above and beyond the normal winter reductions and the Bristol midweek TUI flights look quite light at times in January.

Pete

[Asturias56]

Improved surface access as part of a Master plan??

Bristol needs an Mway round the east and south sides in any case

[MerchantVenturer]

Thank you MV and even if it was 4 x 738's it is still impressive schedule and at least the type of aircraft at each base is slowly creeping into the public domain with the MAX schedule posted on the same site yesterday.Have TUI maintained their planned winter schedule as BHX has seen some cuts for the next six weeks above and beyond the normal winter reductions and the Bristol midweek TUI flights look quite light at times in January.

Pete
Hello Pete

I think the only difference this January for TUI at BRS compared with last is the absence of Malaga. Otherwise, the flights are the same as last year, albeit one or two days have changed.

Recent years have seen a summer complement of 2 x 757s and 2 x 738s plus the 787-8 appearing several days each week, so lo see the 757s replaced by 738s is obviously a backward step.

[rog747]

My pal was a skipper at BRS for TOM (prev Air 2000 A320/321) on the Boeing 757/767 for many years and he just retired a couple of years ago.
He loved the 757 (and the Airbus)

He knew well before his retirement the Company's plans, much to his disappointment that the 757's were going for good around now and told me that the 738 and MAX were not the most ideal equipment to operate high density and HGW ops in and out of the airport (BRS) due to their lower crosswind limitations that the 757 could cope with plus higher approach speeds of the 738 combined with BRS's shortish runway.

Had he not retired early he mentioned he would go back on the A320 family that he flew after leaving the RAF

[MerchantVenturer]

I've read about 738s not being the most ideal aircraft for BRS before rog, although being a layman in this field I have no idea of the detailed technical reasons, albeit you have given a summary.

TUI has had 738s based at BRS alongside the 757s for the past few years. I have no idea what if any operational constraints have been thrown up. Ryanair also operates the type from BRS of course and has done so for many years.

On another subject the AAIB report has been published on the incident in December 2017 when a bmi regional (as it was then called) E145 left the runway after landing.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5c111497ed915d0b7f404150/EMB-145EP_G-CKAG_01-19.pdf

The report concludes that the accident arose "as a result of the inadvertent selection of the Emergency/Parking brake instead of the speed brake".

[oceanhawk]

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[MerchantVenturer]

Bristol Airport has been closed since around 2100 yesterday with the last dozen or so inbound flights of the day diverted to BHX and CWL. BRS remains closed following continuous snowfall overnight and all morning. Nearly all today's 86 airline departures have now been cancelled.

[Morrihell]

New route - Montpellier - commences 2 June 2019 on Sundays and Wednesdays.
I'd not seen you posting that...
Montpellier was one of the original Ryanair destinations from Bristol I think, finished in 2009?
Lovely city, well worth a visit.
MH.

[Morrihell]

Bristol Airport has been closed since around 2100 yesterday with the last dozen or so inbound flights of the day diverted to BHX and CWL. BRS remains closed following continuous snowfall overnight and all morning. Nearly all today's 86 airline departures have now been cancelled.
Saturday saw some additional flights from Ryanair, Friday's Alicante, Kaunas, Rzeszow and Venice flights were flown with aircraft from other bases..

Back in 2017 after G-CKAG had run off the runway, they did a similar thing the next day.
For an airline that has sh1t customer service and an airline that many posters are adamant that they wouldn't fly with, it's not been a bad response either time...
MH

[MerchantVenturer]

I'd not seen you posting that...
Montpellier was one of the original Ryanair destinations from Bristol I think, finished in 2009?
Lovely city, well worth a visit.
MH.
Montpellier was one of six destinations that Ryanair introduced from BRS in the summer of 2009 that were one-season not such wonders. They were:

Cagliari
Eindhoven
Montpellier
Perpignan
Toulon
Trieste

2009 was the last year that BRS saw a fall in overall annual passenger numbers and only the second time in the past 27 years. The recession was biting hard and, with hindsight, it might not have been an ideal time to introduce so many new destinations.

Of the above routes, only Cagliari has been tried since, for one summer season by bmi regional (as it then was) for a tour operator.

easyJet has eight other French routes from BRS, some seasonal, so it will be interesting to see how Montpellier performs with them.

[Severn]

New (old) route - Ryanair launches 2x weekly BRS-MXP

Ryanair has launched a new route to MXP from BRS that will depart mid-afternoon Wed and Sun, operated by a MXP based aircraft.
The first flight is on Sun 26th May, and it operates 2x weekly through till the end of October (we will have to wait for the winter schedule to be released to see if this will be a year-round route).

This new MXP route will compliment Ryanair's year-round 3x weekly BGY route which operates Tue, Thu & Sat.

[Bristol_Traveller]

flybmi have gone under this evening. All flights cancelled and aircraft repositioning to various UK points, and crews repatriated.

It's very sad. They were very useful for all my intra-European flying, and almost all the crews I had were superb.

I wonder what the airport will do to get connected back to Germany? Eurowings? I still think a sensible frequency to Frankfurt and/or Munich would be the most sustainable approach, rather than too many diverse and 'thin' routes.

[devon_guy]

I was due to fly with them to Frankfurt in May and then onwards to Singapore with Lufthansa. I assume I'll get routed via Heathrow now instead?

[bravoromeosierra]

I was due to fly with them to Frankfurt in May and then onwards to Singapore with Lufthansa. I assume I'll get routed via Heathrow now instead?

Or BHX depending on your location. It might be worth checking if taking a refund and rebooking yourself is cheaper.

Anyway, very sad news. In the scheme of things BM was a very small airline but it will leave a big hole in the BRS route map.

I wonder what if any of the BRS network was profitable and whether any airlines will fill the void?

[devon_guy]

Or BHX depending on your location. It might be worth checking if taking a refund and rebooking yourself is cheaper.

Anyway, very sad news. In the scheme of things BM was a very small airline but it will leave a big hole in the BRS route map.

I wonder what if any of the BRS network was profitable and whether any airlines will fill the void?

Thanks for the info. Very sad news indeed. I flew with them in May to Frankfurt and both flights were very good with lovely crew and a pretty full plane in both directions. I hope staff will be able to find alternative jobs very soon.

[Bristol_Traveller]

I've not spoken to Lufthansa (or Brussels) yet, as my next departures scheduled on BM are a few weeks away. Last time Lufthansa bailed out on BRS (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/7977919.stm) they offered me rebook from BHX, LHR or refund. They might offer re-route via BRU if it's after SN take over BRS-BRU again (29MAR).

[Bristol_Traveller]

Generally, the demise of BM brings up the question of connections into Germany from BRS.

LH operated a flight to Frankfurt from 2008 to 2009, puling it suddenly in the May (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/7977919.stm) after apparently taking fright at the unfolding financial crisis. I believe the anecdotal evidence was that the route was growing in advance of expectations. Ironically, I wrote a number of times to bmi (as was) during 2010-2012 to encourage them to consider BRS-Germany routes, given their relationship with LH at the time.

The existing BRS-SXF route that Easy operate is a primarily a leisure route. It's got erratic timings, there are no connection possibilities (because Easy don't do that, and SXF doesn't have any), and Berlin itself is not a major business or aviation centre in Germany. Similarly FR to CGN. But both those "low fare" routes support about 125 passengers per flight.

I can't believe that BRS can't support a well-considered route network to Germany. Whenever I travelled on BRS-FRA/MUC (which was often), load factors were in the 60-70%, and fares were in the £100s. I certainly know I paid noticeable premiums to start long-haul trips on LH from BRS using BM. When I travelled on HAM or DUS, loads were much lighter. (CAA stats bear this out - HAM and DUS each had a dreadful ~1,000 passengers in a month).

I think the BRU route is insightful. When SN operated it using an RJ, it used to be so full I could pretty much guarantee on an IDB offer (and compo) on the night flight from BRU-BRS. (KL fill 190s four or five times a day to AMS). After the introduction of the ERJs onto the route, capacity halved, fares shot up.

So I wonder if the problem with BM wasn't just the routes, but the aircraft AND the routes. ERJs are expensive per seat to run, so using them on places like MUC and FRA creates high fares. (Like, £600 return high). Using them on places like HAM and DUS seems very dangerous. And then there were all the complicated arrangements to maintain the MUC base, with its selection of curious routes (which no doubt LH were involved with selecting and underwriting).

Maybe BM needed to not own (or try to use) quite so many ERJs on thin routes in Europe. Maybe a different approach would have been a larger aircraft flying more consistently to a hub (which seems to be what SN have concluded, shifting the BRU route back to them and an Avro).

LH seem to be warming a bit more to the idea of regional flights feeding into the FRA/MUC hubs. Maybe it's time to re-approach them and put the case that a BRS-FRA/MUC route is sustainable if linked into the LH/*A network, operated with a bigger aircraft (CRJ900?) and with lower fares?

If not, maybe we can club together to lease two aircraft (not the bmi Embys!) and do it ourselves? Passenger power and all that.

[rog747]

EXT-LCY-FRA-SIN???

this is for Devon_Guy rerouting from BRS

[devon_guy]

EXT-LCY-FRA-SIN???

this is for Devon_Guy rerouting from BRS
Assuming Flybe are still in existence in May too!

[Wycombe]

Reported on the Loganair thread that they will pick up the ABZ-BRS route from 4th March.

[MerchantVenturer]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...els-flights-company-files-administration.html (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6712695/British-airline-FlyBMI-cancels-flights-company-files-administration.html)

This Daily Mail report contains a picture of a notice issued under the Civil Aviation Act by Bristol Airport at 2100 last night saying that E145 G-RJXM has been detained pending settlement of airport charges.

[ub2]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...els-flights-company-files-administration.html (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6712695/British-airline-FlyBMI-cancels-flights-company-files-administration.html)

This Daily Mail report contains a picture of a notice issued under the Civil Aviation Act by Bristol Airport at 2100 last night saying that E145 G-RJXM has been detained pending settlement of airport charges.

There is at least 8 bmi aircraft at bristol, all with the same notice

[MerchantVenturer]

New easyJet route from 2 June: Bristol-Rhodes on Wednesdays and Sundays.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Resumption of BRS-BRU flights, which was originally scheduled for 31MAR by SN, has been pushed back to 01MAY. They didn't give an explanation when I asked, but I assume it's connected to CityJet providing the aircraft to operate it.

I'm a bit concerned that 01MAY (a Wednesday) is just a placeholder date, and that it may change again.

I'm a bit annoyed, as I'm flying to the USA in April, and had planned to fly BRS-BRU-USA. Now I have to trek off to LHR (again) in the middle of the night.

I've also heard nothing about any plans to find an airline to fly to Germany (FRA, MUC, etc.).

[rog747]

Resumption of BRS-BRU flights, which was originally scheduled for 31MAR by SN, has been pushed back to 01MAY. They didn't give an explanation when I asked, but I assume it's connected to CityJet providing the aircraft to operate it.

I'm a bit concerned that 01MAY (a Wednesday) is just a placeholder date, and that it may change again.

I'm a bit annoyed, as I'm flying to the USA in April, and had planned to fly BRS-BRU-USA. Now I have to trek off to LHR (again) in the middle of the night.

I've also heard nothing about any plans to find an airline to fly to Germany (FRA, MUC, etc.).

Can you not go BRS-USA via DUB MAN or even AMS?

[cornishsimon]

On the face of it DUB would seem a good option ex BRS

however I suspect this is a lot about airline alliances for the OP


cs

[MerchantVenturer]

Resumption of BRS-BRU flights, which was originally scheduled for 31MAR by SN, has been pushed back to 01MAY. They didn't give an explanation when I asked, but I assume it's connected to CityJet providing the aircraft to operate it.

I'm a bit concerned that 01MAY (a Wednesday) is just a placeholder date, and that it may change again.

I'm a bit annoyed, as I'm flying to the USA in April, and had planned to fly BRS-BRU-USA. Now I have to trek off to LHR (again) in the middle of the night.

I've also heard nothing about any plans to find an airline to fly to Germany (FRA, MUC, etc.).

I've no doubt you are aware of some of this, B_T, but for the sake of completeness I'll run back over the timeline.

In early November last year the Brussels Airlines web booking engine showed they were taking back the BRS-BRU route from the flybmi code share from 31 March this year, with the same frequencies and virtually the same timings. The aircraft type was shown as RJ85, presumably CityJet. Unless they had a crystal ball they could not have known then that flybmi would cease operations in the middle of February.

On 19 February, three days after flybmi's closure, I checked the Brussels Airlines booking engine and found that flights on BRS-BRU were still bookable from 31 March with RJ85s. However, the website also contained a notice saying, Due to the ceased operations of our partner airline flybmi, all flights to and from Bristol are cancelled until further notice. This of course was at odds with the airline's booking engine.

On 26 February I asked Bristol Airport if they had any information about BRS-BRU. All they did was refer me to flybmi's press statement at the time that airline ceased to operate which was less than helpful.

By then the Brussels Airlines website had put back the start date for their RJ85 service to 1 May which is still the situation.

Just to complicate it further, a member of another forum which which I am associated contacted Brussels Airlines around 26 February and was informed, We are still looking for the best option on the long term. We'll communicate about Bristol and other routes soon. Sorry for any inconvenience. Yet then as now they were still showing flights from 1 May on their own website.

My enquiry was not just academic. I was looking to use the route in the late spring but I shan't take the risk that it will be put back further and have made other arrangements. As for FRA and MUC, it's a job to see which airline could operate these routes.

[mariofly12]

Why couldn't Easy or Ryan fly the brussels route? As for Germany, i really find it odd that LH hasn't flown MUC and FRA routes to BRS with their CRJs and E-jets..How come?

[Bristol_Traveller]

I think BRU, FRA and MUC only work as destinations if they're carrying connecting passengers (MUC maybe less so), including passengers connecting to long-haul. That tends to rule out Ryanair and Easyjet as operators, as I don't think they'd have the point-to-point volume to justify putting on a 737/319. I guess if that point to point traffic was there, they'd be operating them now - as Easyjet operate AMS alongside KLM.

It may be that the volumes on those three routes fall awkwardly outside the aircraft that LH Group has available to it, despite being potentially commercially sustainable with the right aircraft. Maybe bmi's 37/49 seat ERJs were too small (pushing up fares). KLM operates AMS with a 98 seat aircraft, Aer Lingus (admittedly competing head to head with Ryanair) uses 72 seat prop-aircraft on DUB. The 80-ish seat RJ 85's that SN were scheduling to operate BRS-BRU from May 2019 were withdrawn in 2016 because (as a 4 engine aircraft) they're really not economical to operate. SN operated BRS for many years (on a 3 x daily basis) using the RJ 85 - the move to bmi coincided with withdrawing the RJ's. LH did briefly operate BRS-FRA directly (using a wetleased RJ-100), but then pulled out.

I've emailed LH to ask them to look at options to get BRS back on their route map, but SN's apparent dithering over resuming BRS-BRU (which should be a reliable route, but maybe Brexit affected) suggests they don't have the right size aircraft to operate it, and LH may face the same problem.

[mariofly12]

I think BRU, FRA and MUC only work as destinations if they're carrying connecting passengers (MUC maybe less so), including passengers connecting to long-haul. That tends to rule out Ryanair and Easyjet as operators, as I don't think they'd have the point-to-point volume to justify putting on a 737/319. I guess if that point to point traffic was there, they'd be operating them now - as Easyjet operate AMS alongside KLM.

It may be that the volumes on those three routes fall awkwardly outside the aircraft that LH Group has available to it, despite being potentially commercially sustainable with the right aircraft. Maybe bmi's 37/49 seat ERJs were too small (pushing up fares). KLM operates AMS with a 98 seat aircraft, Aer Lingus (admittedly competing head to head with Ryanair) uses 72 seat prop-aircraft on DUB. The 80-ish seat RJ 85's that SN were scheduling to operate BRS-BRU from May 2019 were withdrawn in 2016 because (as a 4 engine aircraft) they're really not economical to operate. SN operated BRS for many years (on a 3 x daily basis) using the RJ 85 - the move to bmi coincided with withdrawing the RJ's. LH did briefly operate BRS-FRA directly (using a wetleased RJ-100), but then pulled out.

I've emailed LH to ask them to look at options to get BRS back on their route map, but SN's apparent dithering over resuming BRS-BRU (which should be a reliable route, but maybe Brexit affected) suggests they don't have the right size aircraft to operate it, and LH may face the same problem.
Strange considering their CRJ700/900 fleet..Even more strange if you think that Flybe operates CWL-MUC with E195 without the appeal of onward connections to a vast network like LHs.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Strange considering their CRJ700/900 fleet..Even more strange if you think that Flybe operates CWL-MUC with E195 without the appeal of onward connections to a vast network like LHs.

I think the problem is that thet LH Regional fleet of CRJs is fully committed, so where do the (2?) aircraft come from for BRS. (And it will mean overnighting crews).

I acknowledged that MUC *may* work P2P, but it needs the right aircraft size to make it economical (49 seat ERJ-145 versus 92 seat ERJ-175). Flybe only fly CWL-MUC direct twice a week (M,F) and that route is ending on 06SEP19.

[MerchantVenturer]

I think you have made an important and valid point about availability of appropriately-sized aircraft for FRA and MUC, B_T.

You alluded to LH operating BRS-FRA themselves which they did for 13 months from the end of March 2008. They used Eurowings Bae 146-300 aircraft at 3 x daily (21 x weekly), including a night stopper. In that time they carried just under 100,000 passengers before ending the route citing the recession that was at its height. 2009 is the only year this century that has seen a drop in BRS's overall annual passenger numbers.

3 x daily was very good for connectivity at FRA but at that frequency even the Bae 146-300 was probably too large. Whether it would have succeeded in more promising economic times is hard to gauge.

In 2013 bmi regional (as flybmi then was) set up a Bristol base and began a number of routes, with Germany seeing Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg and Hanover - the latter lasted only a year but Dusseldorf began in 2015.

With Frankfurt rising to 3 x daily on weekdays and Munich double-daily, annual passenger figures rose between 2013 and 2018 from 16,000 to 53,000 and from 10,000 to 48,000 respectively. The LH code shares undoubtedly played a significant part.

Prior to Eurowings, BA operated both FRA and MUC from the beginning of this century with small E-Jets, first as Citiexpress then as Connect. It was a single daily service on both although FRA increased to 2 x daily at one point. So far as I know both were P2P. In 2007 Flybe bought BAConnect and promptly closed the five-aircraft Bristol base and with that went FRA and MUC, plus DUS that had commenced the previous year, along with several non-German routes. With flybmi's situation it's almost like history repeating itself, except that the reasons are different.

So from having six German routes until the middle of February BRS now has only two, both year round - easyJet to Berlin SXF mainly daily in summer, slightly less in winter, and Ryanair to Cologne at mainly 4 x weekly.

Although in terms of BRS's overall numbers the loss of the flybmi passengers won't create a huge dent, the German routes were more important than the passenger numbers lost. BRS needs more hub connectivity, especially with BRU's immediate future still seemingly unclear albeit the route continues to remain available for booking from 1 May on the Brussels Airlines website, and of course Germany is a major European country with which most regional airports would want as much connectivity as possible.

[mariofly12]

Which more or less answers the question about Bristol's connectivity issues with the rest of Star Alliance hubs, mainly ZRH and VIE..And i am thinking that if it didnt happen when OS had the F70 and LX the AR8, is it ever gonna happen now that all companies moved to bigger regional aircraft? Could Cityjet/Nordica provide an interim solution for LH as they have done for SK,LO,OS etc..? It's still mind-blowing that an airport like BRS which has many direct routes all over Europe and serves such a big catchment area, with such a vibrant city of the SW, of an important economic role, has such trouble attracting LH,esp.when you see them flying to places like WRO,TSR,SBZ,POZ etc...(a little unfair for BRS)

[Bristol_Traveller]

Despite 8.5mppa, I think Bristol has a relatively small, and fragile, demand for business flying, mainly due to the relative proximity of BHX and LHR.

bmi had an awkward size fleet, of awkward sized expensive to operate aircraft. I believe most of their routes ex-BRS were commercially viable, and I tend to think it was their other endeavours (particularly operating routes ex-FRA and ex-MUC as LH *codeshares*, not wet leases) which dragged on them.

An example to illustrate the problem of aircraft size. Ex-LHR (ex-MAN, ex-BHX), LH operate 319/320 aircraft, and there's usually a decent availability in the K L T buckets, which are affordable flying. There's usually very good availability in V W S buckets, which is pricier, but still within range. You'd have to be unlucky to find an LH flight ex-UK with only Q H U M, because that's where it gets painful. If you end up with only Y B avails, forget it. You're better off walking.

bmi was almost never able to offer K L T. If you got lucky, you might find some W avails. More often than not, I'd be up in Q U. On a short-haul fare, that's about a £200 difference on a round trip. On a long-haul fare (UK-SFO) that's about £600-£800 difference on a round-trip. If you breathe very deeply, you can justify spending an extra £200 to fly ex-BRS over going to LHR. That is much much harder to do when it's £800. And even harder again when the difference is closer to £1,000 because if you're going to have to go to LHR, you have a wider choice of airlines, some (most) of whom will be cheaper than LH Group.

So if you can't find an aircraft that can offer decent inventory (which I'm guessing is about 90 seats, as KLM do well ex-BRS), your potential passengers will just go to LHR. I suspect that isn't true of some of the other regional destinations that the LH Regional fleet serves - it's their price or no price.

You're quite right to say it is anomalous that our only alliance/hub-carrier is KL (with a little nod to EI). It's possible that until economic ~90 seat aircraft come back in-vogue at LH Group (more CRJ900s? A220-100s?), we may be waiting another 5 years for connections to the world via anywhere other than AMS.

M_V - you've reminded me of the trips I took on BACon's MUC-BRS route, which was a weird MUC-BRS-GLA route. Everyone staying on-board for GLA, had to get off, bus to the terminal, walk through passport control, go back upstairs and through security, and re-board again. An absolute palaver.

[SWBKCB]

I believe most of their routes ex-BRS were commercially viable,

Seems odd then that LM have picked up many chunks of the old routes, but not these?

[GayFriendly]

I have been reading the last few posts with great interest as a mainly BHX but occasional BRS user.

BHX has multiple daily connections with LH, SN, LX, SK, AF, KL, EI plus of course TK, EK and QR. However, we have no non stop flights to Lisbon, Seville, Valencia, Gibraltar, Athens, indeed many other European cities that BRS boasts on its departure boards.

BRS meanwhile is entirely the opposite. It has flights to a much wider range of European cities than BHX but now only has KL and maybe SN from May for worldwide connections.

It seems like the airlines over the years have, aside from the operational issues for EK/QR, decided BHX is a 'legacy' airport and BRS a much better and more year round P2P city/leisure break destination airport?

Having said that I am surprises TK haven't started at BRS yet.

My own BRS usage happens when I can't fly non-stop from BHX or when price is so competitive it makes the longer journey to BRS worth my while. I know of a fair few people who do the same who live in Warwickshire and Worcestershire.

Perhaps LM will take up the slack but I read somewhere (I think on the NCL thread) they are not going to (or can't?) codeshare with *A which means these would be solely P2P routes and not therefore as viable? Just my thoughts.

[marko1]

Seems odd then that LM have picked up many chunks of the old routes, but not these?


i was thinking the same. They clearly can’t be interested. Personally unless Lufthansa is interested the best we can hope for is a daily easyJet to Munich and maybe Ryanair to Hamburg. Frankfurt and dusseldorf I can’t see returning

[Bristol_Traveller]

Perhaps LM will take up the slack but I read somewhere (I think on the NCL thread) they are not going to (or can't?) codeshare with *A which means these would be solely P2P routes and not therefore as viable? Just my thoughts.

I think this is where some politics and business will be involved. I can't believe that LH are feeling very cosy towards AIL (the parent of LM and BM) right now, having been dropped heavily in the lurch by them. They must be up for a ton of re-bookings, re-routings and of course, EU261 compo. I have a hunch LH brought this upon themselves by being far too demanding of BM, but BM should have resisted that pressure if it was making their business unstable. Who knows, it'll maybe come out in a few years. Either way, I'm sure the "curse of BRS" and "curse of BM" are now emotions at LH, and managers will be wary of "having another go", especially as it seems like a less robust case.

I have feeling that the airport will want to shape route development. I'm not sure they'd extend marketing and route support to FR or EZY to operate to BRU, FRA or MUC, knowing that it'd probably be fragile for them too, and almost certainly destroy the business case of operating hub routes to those destinations. I'd support them in that approach. I think I'd be important to reassure to LH Group, and find imaginative ways to find aircraft and support the routes.

On a small point of detail: the BM flights were LH codeshares, and outside of *A. (When BRU was operated by SN, it was inside *A). I think there is a case to say that a new operator needs to be either a wetlease provider to *A airline or a *A airline directly. There is a network benefit from being properly inside *A. (LH had to do all kinds of gymnastics with rule exceptions to allow their own Gold status passengers to get their usual benefits in respect of lounge entry, additional baggage allowance, through checking).

[devon_guy]

LH have rerouted me LHR-FRA-SIN instead of BRS-FRA-SIN after BMI's demise. Can I claim any sort of help towards the cost of getting to Heathrow instead of Bristol or is it just tough luck and be lucky they rerouted me?

[rog747]

LH have rerouted me LHR-FRA-SIN instead of BRS-FRA-SIN after BMI's demise. Can I claim any sort of help towards the cost of getting to Heathrow instead of Bristol or is it just tough luck and be lucky they rerouted me?

In essence the airline has now cancelled your booking from BRS and has rerouted you from LHR - I assume this notification is MORE than 14 days before your flight

If so then - What are my options?
your cancelled long-haul flight is covered by EU law, your airline must let you choose between two options:

1. Receive a refund
You can get your money back for all parts of the ticket you haven’t used. For instance, if you have booked a return flight and the outbound leg is cancelled, you can get the full cost of the return ticket back from your airline.

2. Choose an alternative flight
If you still want to travel, your airline must find you an alternative flight. It’s up to you whether to fly as soon as possible after the cancelled flight, or at a later date that suits you. Airlines often refer to this as being ‘rerouted’.

Although most airlines will book you onto another of their flights to the same destination, if an alternative airline is flying there significantly sooner then you may have the right to be booked onto that flight instead. You can discuss this with your airline.

Care and assistance
If you choose an alternative flight you are also entitled to care and assistance. This usually means food, drink, access to communication (this could be by refunding the reasonable cost of phone calls) and accommodation (if necessary).

So they should pay for transport to LHR and overnight and meals at LHR if the flight is too early for you to get there from BRS

If this cancellation advice is 14 days or less then you have the above rights plus compensation of 300-600e depending when your NEW departure and arrival is

[devon_guy]

Thanks. The change has happened many weeks out so I don't think there's any recourse.

[rog747]

Thanks. The change has happened many weeks out so I don't think there's any recourse.

In which case yes you are correct - no EU 361 compo is payable, BUT you can demand that LH finds you something out of BRS with a reroute on any carrier (they are obliged to offer this course of action if you demand it but they don't like it)
Or certainly they have to provide transport and/or accomm/meal costs to get you to LHR (keep any receipts)

Suggest you speak to LH asap.

[Severn]

Brussels Airlines
Something odd is going on, as BRS-BRU flights are not bookable until the end of August now... Temporary glitch or are we about to see an end to this service!

[Packer27L]

Suggest you speak to LH asap.
They were always going to be the first port of call, surely?

[Bristol_Traveller]

Brussels Airlines
Something odd is going on, as BRS-BRU flights are not bookable until the end of August now... Temporary glitch or are we about to see an end to this service!

The flights are in the system, but all availability has been zero'ed out until 01SEP. That suggests that SN/LH can't find an aircraft to operate the route. I'm not surprised, as bringing the ARJ-85s out of retirement feels almost as economically fragile as using ERJ-145s.

So we're a bit stuffed. Nobody wants to stick a 'big' (319/737) on fragile routes, nobody has got any 'small' gauge aircraft spare in fleet, wetleasing isn't providing any solutions. And I doubt LH Group will have any interest in doing business with Loganair.

Anyone else got any 80-ish seat aircraft they could wet-lease to LH/SN?

[BHX5DME]

BRS S19 now available on ACL site

[Enigma01]

And I doubt LH Group will have any interest in doing business with Loganair.

Fully correct, same owners as flybmi so not really trustworthy.

What about Cityjet????

[MerchantVenturer]

As has been mentioned in this forum recently, the change back to SN flight code (flybmi had operated latterly under BM as a code share with Brussels Airlines) with AR8 aircraft (which some presumed at that time to be CityJet) from 31 March was shown in the Brussels Airlines booking engine as far back as last November, although I don't think an official announcement was ever made.

Had flybmi not ceased to operate as an airline in mid-February it begs the question as to whether the BRS-BRU route would still have ceased after 30 March.

On the Monday following the weekend news of flybmi's cessation the BRS CEO was interviewed on the local ITV News about the situation. He made the expected comment about the airport working hard to find replacements for the lost routes and went on to say that he was confident that there would be news later that week of one of the routes being taken on by a European airline. It wasn't Loganair to ABZ because that had already been mentioned. One assumption was that the news would be a confirmation of what had been in the Brussels Airlines booking engine since November. If the BRS CEO was alluding to the BRU route then something obviously changed during that week.

[ifu05596]

Fully correct, same owners as flybmi so not really trustworthy.

What about Cityjet????
Out of interest what does having the same shareholder as flybmi have to do with the trustworthiness of Loganair?

[PDXCWL45]

Everyone is assuming that Loganair wants to take on those routes at BRS! For Loganair they may just be more hassle than they are worth.

[TartinTon]

Plus there would be a long certification process as Logan are neither IOSA or CARA cleared so you're looking at a minimum 18 months from start to finish assuming that they have adequately qualified personnel in place. LH won't touch them with a barge pole until they can pass these standards.

[santito]

I wonder if Virgin/ FlyBE would see any opportunities in the current BRS schedule? Problem is they won't interline with LH.

[Bristol_Traveller]

First post-bmi flight from BRS (on easyJet on a Friday lunchtime). Large drunk noisy stag group delaying boarding, and being generally annoying / borderline disruptive.

I think the trip to Heathrow is looking increasingly attractive.

[cornishsimon]

Hey BT

im curious where your ultimate destination is ? I seem to remember it’s not germany and that you wanting to access the LH long haul network ?


cs

[virginblue]

Make your pick - it must be Pisa, Basle, Rome, Athens or Prague.

Based on "noisy", "annoying", "loud", "drunk" and "stag group", I put my money on Prague, with Rome a distant number two.

[supermarine]

First post-bmi flight from BRS (on easyJet on a Friday lunchtime). Large drunk noisy stag group delaying boarding, and being generally annoying / borderline disruptive.

I think the trip to Heathrow is looking increasingly attractive.

My guess they are Welsh, we have loads of annoying disruptive buggers

[fanrailuk]

EasyJet are also starting Milan-Malpensa MXP from BRS (4 x weekly) from 1st July - Mon, Thu, Fri, Sun, in direct competiion with the recently added Ryanair service to MXP also.

Along with that

Brindisi BDS starts 3rd July (2 weekly) Wed and Sun
Biarritz BIQ starts 2nd July (2 weekly) Tue and Sat


Additionally, CDG will go twice daily from July (new a.m. rotation) allowing for day returns...

A 17th aircraft will be based at BRS to allow for the above routes to be operated, along with other increases on current routes.

[shamrock7seal]

How many based aircraft does BRS have in total from all operators in the summer season?

easyJet: 17
Ryanair: ?
Thomas Cook: ?
TUI: ?
Flybe: ?
Aer Lingus: ?
Any others: ?

[Severn]

BRS Based Aircraft = 29/30
easyJet: 17 - (7x A319, 10x A320)
Ryanair: 4 - (4x B738)
TUI: 4-5 - (4x B738*, 1x B787 based 5 days a week)* given the MAX issues, could be 2x B752 and 2x B738 this summer
Thomas Cook: 3 - (1x A320, 2x A321)* changes throughout the season to 2x A320s, 1x A321 at times
KLM: 1 - (1x E190)

[Sharklet_321]

Bristol is one of the UK’s best airports in terms of passenger performance. I mean the city of Bristol has 465,000 people yet the airport is quite possibly handling 10m pax this year into next. No other UK airport is performing like this when compared with population size (that I know of)

[BHX5DME]

Bristol is one of the UK’s best airports in terms of passenger performance. I mean the city of Bristol has 465,000 people yet the airport is quite possibly handling 10m pax this year into next. No other UK airport is performing like this when compared with population size (that I know of)



Manchester ?
If we are purely looking at city populations but lets don't start an argument about catchment areas, this is just an observation

London7.2 Million
Birmingham992000
Leeds720000
Glasgow560000
Sheffield512000
Bradford467000
Edinburgh450000
Liverpool440000
Manchester420000
Bristol380000

[PDXCWL45]

Bristol is one of the UK’s best airports in terms of passenger performance. I mean the city of Bristol has 465,000 people yet the airport is quite possibly handling 10m pax this year into next. No other UK airport is performing like this when compared with population size (that I know of)

You have to remember that with Bristol it's essentially the main airport for the entire south west of the island of Britain not just the city of Bristol

[MerchantVenturer]

Manchester ?
If we are purely looking at city populations but lets don't start an argument about catchment areas, this is just an observation

London7.2 Million
Birmingham992000
Leeds720000
Glasgow560000
Sheffield512000
Bradford467000
Edinburgh450000
Liverpool440000
Manchester420000
Bristol380000

380,000 is the Bristol municipal population figure at the last census - eight years ago. The municipal population is now estimated at 460,000.

https://www.bristol.gov.uk/statistics-census-information/the-population-of-bristol

The boundary of Bristol has not expanded since the early 60s - prior to then it would expand at regular intervals down the centuries as the urban area spread into neighbouring Somerset and Gloucestershire. The urban area has continued to spread incessantly beyond Bristol's municipal boundaries during the past 50 years particularly into what is now the unitary authority of South Gloucestershire. Bits of urban North Somerset and Bath & Northeast Somerset unitary authorities are also contiguous with municipal Bristol. All this means that the actual physical unbroken urban 'city' as opposed to the municipal one has a population of around 700,000. Had the borders continued to expand as they did until the early 60s this would now be the population of municipal Bristol.

Eurostat's concept of larger urban zones that measures a city and its commuting zones is probably a more realistic guide to metropolitan area populations.

The Bristol city region has one of the most successsful economies in the UK. Bristol is the only English city outside London to produce more money for the Treasury than it receives.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/liam-fox-held-first-board-622667

Its buoyant economy and physical location roughly between CWL and EXT are two pointers to the passenger numbers that use BRS. Another is the large number of older, often retired people who live in the West Country who have the means, time and desire to fly for leisure.

The only real surprise is that such a small, awkwardly situated, poorly connected site with challenging weather conditions at times owing to its 600 feet elevation punches so heavily. With a bigger, better placed site one wonders how many passengers it would now be handling. The airport owners/management still reckon that 20 mppa is feasible by the 2040s but they will have to get over the major hurdle of expanding into the Green Belt to achieve that.

[Buster15]

You have to remember that with Bristol it's essentially the main airport for the entire south west of the island of Britain not just the city of Bristol

Perfectly correct. It also attracts a sizeable number from South Wales who don't particularly like Cardiff airport or because of the fewer destinations it covers.

The growth in passenger numbers from Bristol is pretty amazing.

[PDXCWL45]

Perfectly correct. It also attracts a sizeable number from South Wales who don't particularly like Cardiff airport or because of the fewer destinations it covers.

The growth in passenger numbers from Bristol is pretty amazing.
Yes it does attract a lot of people from South Wales but I'd imagine that it's more likely down to the massive Easyjet base rather than any like or dislike of Cardiff. Being the bigger airport with the more destinations it has a big advantage over not just Cardiff but Exeter as well. The passenger number rise from most of the area is pretty good in general over the last 5 years and will no doubt continue.

[inOban]

Surely it may also attract PAX from points towards London, eg Swindon, because their nearest London airport lacks low cost flights?

[Severn]

BRS Based Aircraft = 29/30
easyJet: 17 - (7x A319, 10x A320)
Ryanair: 4 - (4x B738)
TUI: 4-5 - (4x B738*, 1x B787 based 5 days a week)* given the MAX issues, could be 2x B752 and 2x B738 this summer
Thomas Cook: 3 - (3x A321)* changes throughout the season to 1x A320, 2x A321s from mid-June to mid-August
KLM: 1 - (1x E190)

I do apologise, I got a little confused, have updated the based list for Summer 2019 to correct the TCX based units.

TCX will have 3x A321s based at BRS this summer expect for mid-June to mid-August where an A320 replaces an A321.
The base will be 2x TCX A321s and 1x SmartLynx A321 up to mid-June and from mid-August onwards.
The base will be 1x TCX A321, 1x SmartLynx A321 and 1x SmartLynx A320 from mid-June to mid-August.

[southside bobby]

EZY at Bristol has of course the origins in Go setting up it`s second base at BRS in 2001,the result of enthusiastic negotiations by the Bristol MD over 8 months.

For the second base but with strict criteria Go were "indifferent" in the early stages which airport...EMA/NCL/EDI/GLA/BRS were all options before settling on BRS.

To quote from Ms Cassani CEO of Go in her autobiography...

"While Ryanair had a token presence at Bristol the West Country was desperate to be plugged into the low cost craze.The catchment area was the long wealthy & populous Thames Valley corridor & the West Country was full of well-off older people with time to spare".

In the event Go carried 750,000 pax in the inaugural year at BRS more in fact than STN`s own inaugural year.

[SWBKCB]

For a number of years the EZY bases at BRS and NCL were similar in size and range of destinations - BRS has forged ahead and NCL has largely stagnated. Now, NCL is arguable the "better" airport in terms of airport infrastucture and surface access, but doesn't have the catchement area and, by far the most important factor, the level of local economic activity.

[MerchantVenturer]

For a number of years the EZY bases at BRS and NCL were similar in size and range of destinations - BRS has forged ahead and NCL has largely stagnated. Now, NCL is arguable the "better" airport in terms of airport infrastucture and surface access, but doesn't have the catchement area and, by far the most important factor, the level of local economic activity.
I used to fly-BRS-NCL-BRS quite often but haven't done so for a number of years. Although not a great fan of actually using airports any more - too much hassle these days in my view (others will no doubt differ in their view on this) although I still need to fly from time to time - I always found NCL one of the better airports to transit which is appropriate as the city and its region is such a great place to visit in my opinion.

With its Metro NCL certainly knocks spots off BRS's surface connectivity although BRS's main bus link, A1 Flyer, now does use a separate and dedicated busway for part of its journey. Bristol's elected mayor wants an underground system for Bristol and he said recently that the anchor route would be between city and airport, although that part would no doubt be above ground. Talk is always cheap with politicians. Nevertheless, the airport has contributed the lion's share for a £600,000 survey with the local authorities into finding ways of improving BRS's surface connectivity.

Infrastructure-wise BRS has been a building site for the past 20 years and so it continues. Well over £300 million has been spent on infrastructure in that time, with the terminal that opened in 2000 continually expanding and walkways/piers constructed. Currently a new admin building, a new aircrew building, an extension to the multi storey car park and two more aircraft parking stands are being built with a new fire station recently completed. The old terminal building is due to be demolished soon for more aircraft stands and another walkway/pier connection built.

Beyond that the airport currently has planning applications with the local authority for further expansion that would enable it to reach 12 mppa by the mid 2020s, and in the years after that it wants to increase the size of the site - but not lenghten the runway (it's clear on that) - which would mean taking some of the surrounding Green Belt. Part of the current airport site is already within a Green Belt Inset.

It won't be easy. There are already organsised groups opposed to the current application as there were (unsuccessfully then) when the airport received planning consent for what has enabled the major expansion since 2011 to go ahead, with some of that consent still to be built.

Typing this has whetted my appetite for another visit to Tyneside.

[LiamNCL]

Typing this has whetted my appetite for another visit to Tyneside.

Dont leave it too long :ok:

[highwideandugly]

I agree..NCL..is still one of the UKs best,calmest,easiest...and probably...quietest airports to transit through.

5.5 million passengers can’t be wrong.

Bristol has done amazingly and hats off to them!

[MerchantVenturer]

Surely it may also attract PAX from points towards London, eg Swindon, because their nearest London airport lacks low cost flights?
The last CAA passenger survey that included BRS was in 2015. As we know these surveys are really snapshots but this one broadly confirmed what other surveys have found going back over the past decade.

The 2015 survey found that 76.4% of BRS's originating/terminating passengers began or ended their journey in the South West, with 8% of that 76.4% having an origin or final destination in Wiltshire. it's not broken down any more than that but it might be surmised that some came from the Swindon area, although Wiltshire was the third lowest provider of all the counties in the South West, viz,

Bristol 32.5%
Somerset 24.5%
Devon 16.9%
Gloucestershire 9.6%
Wiltshire 8.0%
Cornwall 6%
Dorset 2.6%

The counties include unitary authorities within them and it is highly likely that much of the Somerset and Gloucestershire contributions came from the unitary authorities that abut Bristol.

In terms of the airport's overall passenger numbers 1.5% had origin or final destiation in the South East.

[Severn]

KLM upgrading 1 of 4 daily flights to a B737
KLM are upgrading their evening departure Mon-Fri to a B737 from Monday 24th June.
The B737-700 will arrive from AMS at 16:55 and depart BRS at 17:25 Mon-Fri.

From the 24th June, the schedule will be as follows:
Mon-Fri - 4x daily (1x B737-700, 3x E190)
Sat, Sun - 4x daily (1x E175, 3x E190)

The B737 will operate through to the start of the winter season (beginning of November), where it will revert to Cityhopper only (still 4x daily) - mostly E190s and some E175s.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Any whispers of resumptions of the Brussels and German routes? I see Loganair are back at EMA with BRU and INV.

SN told me they have no timetable for resumption. And LH have given me no response at all.

[marko1]

Any whispers of resumptions of the Brussels and German routes? I see Loganair are back at EMA with BRU and INV.

SN told me they have no timetable for resumption. And LH have given me no response at all.

Brussels airlines currently is selling its brs to Brussels flights starting sept and have been for a few months so denials seem strange.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Brussels airlines currently is selling its brs to Brussels flights starting sept and have been for a few months so denials seem strange.

SN have repeatedly pushed back that resumption date, so I shouldn't rely on it too much.

[MerchantVenturer]

Another new summer 2019 route from BRS - Lyon from 1 July, M and F. LYS has been operated by easyJet from BRS in the ski season for a number of years but this is the first LYS summer operation by the airline from the airport.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Any whispers of resumptions of the Brussels and German routes? I see Loganair are back at EMA with BRU and INV.

Reported by the BBC that bmi went under owing £38m, and that Bristol Airport are a creditor. (Apparently £3.8m was also due in EU261 compensation for passengers, which does tend to support my view that they were overstretched and messing up too often).

I would guess AIL won't be welcome back at BRS until the creditor situation is resolved.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Flight info system not updating on the website according to the airport's official Twitter account

https://twitter.com/BristolAirport/status/1131326575323041793?s=19

Did they forget to upgrade the webhosting from Windows Vista as well?

[MerchantVenturer]

There still appears to be a fallout from the cyber attack last September. The arrivals and departures website pages are never fully to be relied upon, as we've discussed in some detail in recent months on another aviation website to which I post, although I've been told that particular problem is unrelated.

Mayfly remains unpublished online and the airport website Facts and Figures section that publishes monthly passenger numbers and associated aircraft movements remains stuck at last December.

Until the most recent CAA stats (for March) the airport has consistently been one of the last to be pubished each month for the past six months, and March's CAA BRS passenger stats are obviously incomplete in a number of areas.

Changing subject, the fourth based TUI aircraft has arrived this morning and it's a B 757-200, the others being three B 737-800s and a part-based (five days per week) B 787-8 which is operating both long-haul and short-haul.

This morning's first group of TUI departures were:
0600 Dubrovnik B 787-8
0600 Ibiza B 737-800
0600 Thessaloniki B 737-800
0720 Kefalonia B 757-200
0730 Corfu B 737-800

With the departure of the airport's two TUI B 757s intended to be from this summer, it's good to see a 757 for at least part of another summer. I'm told (but cannot confirm) that the BRS 757 will be capped at the level of the 737-800 passenger numbers presumably to build in flexibility around the fleeet with the MAX problems still casting a shadow.

[danielsirrom]

A terrible experience arriving at Bristol Airport this morning. We landed from Kos at 5.38am (I know, terrible flight time!) were quickly through immigration and then waited for the bags to appear. The first bag appeared at 7am exactly. No one knew why this was, an airport rep told us that RMS (?) were reporting that swissport had confirmed the bags as delivered when they weren’t. The previous flight had landed at 5.09am and they were all gone on entering the baggage hall and no more flights landed until 7.50am. V poor.

[dboy]

SN have repeatedly pushed back that resumption date, so I shouldn't rely on it too much.

Perhaps performed by Cityjet on with their CRJ’s????

[PDXCWL45]

A terrible experience arriving at Bristol Airport this morning. We landed from Kos at 5.38am (I know, terrible flight time!) were quickly through immigration and then waited for the bags to appear. The first bag appeared at 7am exactly. No one knew why this was, an airport rep told us that RMS (?) were reporting that swissport had confirmed the bags as delivered when they weren’t. The previous flight had landed at 5.09am and they were all gone on entering the baggage hall and no more flights landed until 7.50am. V poor.
Could be down to the handlers dealing with the first wave of departures.

[MerchantVenturer]

Perhaps performed by Cityjet on with their CRJ’s????


As far back as last November the Brussels Airlines booking engine showed AR8 (RJ85) as the aircraft type on the route from 31 March this year with Brussels Airlines flight numbers. At the time flybmi (bmi regional) was operating the route as a code share with Brussels Airlines, using the former's ER4s with BM flight numbers, although prior to that BM had flown the route for Brussels Airlines using the latter's flight numbers.

The future change had been noted by BRS-watchers last November and the assumption was that the aircraft would be CityJet RJ85s. The frequency was the same as the flybmi service then operating. As far as I'm aware nothing was ever officially announced about the change, either by the airline or the airports involved.

This was three months before flybmi suddenly ceased operations in mid-February this year.

Shortly after flybmi's cessation as an airline Brussels Airlines' BRS-BRU booking engine removed the April flights but showed a new commencement date of 1 May. That was later altered to show that there was no flight availability until 1 September which is still the situation and has been for the past couple of months. The aircraft type is still shown as AR8 and the frequency similar to flybmi's.

[MerchantVenturer]

The Brussels Airlines booking engine has been updated in recent days.

It's still showing the resumption of the BRS-BRU route on 1 September but only at single daily (no Saturdays) using CRJ-900 aircraft.

Towards the end of October the aircraft type is switched to ARJ85 and from the first week in November the service becomes 2 x daily M-F and single daily on Sundays, all with ARJ85s.

[Bristol_Traveller]

The Brussels Airlines booking engine has been updated in recent days.

It's still showing the resumption of the BRS-BRU route on 1 September but only at single daily (no Saturdays) using CRJ-900 aircraft.

Towards the end of October the aircraft type is switched to ARJ85 and from the first week in November the service becomes 2 x daily M-F and single daily on Sundays, all with ARJ85s.

Limping back into existence, but not back to 3x M-F, and 1x SS. And I wonder who's going to be providing the equipment - CRJ900?!?

[Bristol_Traveller]

Related to the previous msg about BRU, LH have announced they're starting a 1x M-Sa MUC-NCL. It's a single middle-of-the-day ("what are we going to do with their aircraft") rotation using an A319.
At this point it feels a bit like BRS either aren't trying to (or not succeeding in) getting airlines in to operate business routes.

[PDXCWL45]

Related to the previous msg about BRU, LH have announced they're starting a 1x M-Sa MUC-NCL. It's a single middle-of-the-day ("what are we going to do with their aircraft") rotation using an A319.
At this point it feels a bit like BRS either aren't trying to (or not succeeding in) getting airlines in to operate business routes.
It does seem odd to me that they don't seem to be attracting at least daily flights on routes like Munich. It makes me wonder if they are hoping Easyjet will takeover the route and any transfer pax will use the likes of KLM.

[SWBKCB]

Related to the previous msg about BRU, LH have announced they're starting a 1x M-Sa MUC-NCL. It's a single middle-of-the-day ("what are we going to do with their aircraft")

Miaaaow! the middle of the day flight links in to LH's long haul morning arrivals and the late afternoon long haul departures as well as plenty of European destinations. First LH arrivals tomorrow morning are Mexico City, Hong Kong, Delhi, Shanghai, Mumbai, Singapore

[shamrock7seal]

For the first time ever (I think?) BRS handled more passengers in the month than BHX.

This is quite an achievement and shows the massive catchment area available at BRS.

April 2019 saw 44% year on year growth to over 1,013,000 beating BHX by 9,000 pax.

[marko1]

For the first time ever (I think?) BRS handled more passengers in the month than BHX.

This is quite an achievement and shows the massive catchment area available at BRS.

April 2019 saw 44% year on year growth to over 1,013,000 beating BHX by 9,000 pax.


theres enormous errors within the in the caa stats. Many figures are beyond the capacity that was available during the month. I would love it to be true but sadly it’s not - keep a look out for August - that could be the month that Bristol breaks the million mark.

[MerchantVenturer]

Limping back into existence, but not back to 3x M-F, and 1x SS. And I wonder who's going to be providing the equipment - CRJ900?!?

2 x daily ARJ85s will provide more seats than the previous 3 x daily E145s but obviously not the flexibility for passengers in terms of frequency.

Brussels Airlines' website booking engine shows CityJet operating the CRJ900 for them on the BRS-BRU from September. When the route switches to the ARJ85 in the autumn there is no indication as to the carrier, although prior to the recent web booking engine revamp it too was shown as CityJet.

[Severn]

Limping back into existence, but not back to 3x M-F, and 1x SS
It may only be 2x daily, but at least the timings are sensible for business travellers.

The schedule from the 4th November 2019 is:
Mo - Fr
BRS-BRU 0605-0820
BRU-BRS 1640-1650
BRS-BRU 1730-1945
BRU-BRS 2120-2135

Su
BRS-BRU 1730-1945
BRU-BRS 2120-2135

All flights are operated on RJ85 (95 seats)

*It's worth noting that Brussels Airlines operates 3x daily flights from BHX. The timings on the morning and evening flights are nearly identical to Bristols, however there is an additional flight Mo-Fr at 10am out of BRU, and a 11am departure out of BHX. Of course, these additional weekday flights would be another positive step, but at least BRS is getting the important morning and evening flights and not stuck with useless timings for business, leisure and of course connecting passengers.

[Severn]

July 2019
From the beginning of July, the easyJet Bristol base will increase to 17x aircraft - 7x A319s and 10x A320s.
This is an increase of 2x aircraft in comparison to July 2018 - an increase of 1x A319 and 1x A320.

July 2018 had 349/350x departures per week - operating to 58 destinations
July 2019 will have 386x departures per week - operating to 65 destinations

The increase of 37x departures each week are over the following routes:
EDI (+1x per week),
GLA (+2),
BFS (+3),
PMI (+2),
CDG (+7),
SXF (+1),
BOD (+2),
SVQ (+1),
DBV (+1),
ZTH (+1),

plus 7x new routes:
MXP (4x weekly),
LYS (2x weekly),
LCA (2x weekly),
RHO (2x weekly),
MPL (2x weekly),
BDS (2x weekly),
BIQ (2x weekly),

Below are the weekly route frequencies in July and the peak-Summer period from BRS.

25x weekly - EDI
21x weekly - GLA
20x weekly - BFS
19x weekly - PMI
16x weekly - AGP, FAO
14x weekly - ALC, BCN,CDG, NCL
12x weekly - AMS
10x weekly - GVA, NCE
7x weekly - BOD, FCO, INV, MAD, PSA, RMU, TLS
6x weekly - PRG, SXF
5x weekly - LIS, SPU, VCE
4x weekly - BSL, IBZ, KRK, MAH, MXP
3x weekly - BIO, BJV, CFU, CPH, DBV, DLM, GIB, MRS, NAP, NTE, OLB, OPO, PFO, SVQ, TFS
2x weekly - ACE, ARN, ATH, BDS, BIQ, CTA, EFL, FNC, FUE, GOA, HER, IOM, LCA, LRH, LYS, MPL, PUY, RHO, VIE, ZTH

*Increase
*New Route

[Seljuk22]

So 17 during peak summer season and afterwards back to 16 or 15 a/c?

[marko1]

I read somewhere that there is also a standby aircraft also based at Bristol I.e already 17 based. Is that true ?

[MerchantVenturer]

So 17 during peak summer season and afterwards back to 16 or 15 a/c?
It's currently 16 with number 17 arriving at the beginning of July.

In the past easyJet has tended to add an extra aircraft at BRS for peak summer which then returns the following summer with another arriving for peak summer that year, and so on. In that way the base has gradually built up over the years.

[Bristol_Traveller]

It's worth noting that Brussels Airlines operates 3x daily flights from BHX. The timings on the morning and evening flights are nearly identical to Bristols, however there is an additional flight Mo-Fr at 10am out of BRU, and a 11am departure out of BHX. Of course, these additional weekday flights would be another positive step, but at least BRS is getting the important morning and evening flights and not stuck with useless timings for business, leisure and of course connecting passengers.

The late-morning rotations from hubs (BRU, FRA, MUC) are really valuable for intercontinental passengers. Many intercontinental arrivals are into hubs pre-0900, so without that 10:00 flight to the spokes, you're left waiting potentially 10 hours at the hub. Similarly the 11:00 back into the hub is helpful if you want to fly to a destination the evening beforehand and not arrive at 23:00.

I'm very pleased to see SN edging back, but without that late morning rotation, it's not as useful as it could be.

It'll be interesting to see how LH's about-turn on the intended merger of SN and EW impacts the BRS schedule in the future.

[marko1]

New twice weekly hurghada starting end of October with easyjet

[MerchantVenturer]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-48910996

Driverless pods will begin operating at BRS on shared roads with cars, buses, cyclists and pedestrians between an airport car park and the terminal. It's part of a test to see how they interact with other road users.

[nivsy]

As an outsider and general LHR user I think BRS deserves credit on how the airport has developed over the years.

What still makes me choose LHR over BRS is the time it takes to reach the airport from around junction 15 of the M4. Especially getting through Bristol area and then up to the airport. As a BA gold card holder I have some perks in choosing LHR but have often thought on using the "orange" on certain routes. It's the travel time that proves to be the down side. Last attempt I was very close to missing my flight to INV and BRS security lines were not very good.

[MerchantVenturer]

It’s rather ironic that Bristol as a city region is readily accessible by surface transport from all parts of the country, being situated next to a major motorway crossroads (M4 and M5) and on a rail ‘crossroads’ (I was going to say ‘crossrail' but that name seems to have been taken) with regular direct services to most points of the compass - London, South Coast, South West, South Wales, Midlands, North and Scotland.

However, when it comes to reaching the airport, the last few miles are challenging. Given this, BRS's sometimes unco-operative weather, a small site over 600 feet AMSL and short runway all surrounded by Green Belt, and it’s remarkable how many people do manage to use the airport - approaching 9 mppa currently.

I sometimes have the reverse experience in reaching LHR from where I live on the south-eastern edge of Bristol, although peak hours and blocked motorways notwithstanding it’s not that much of a hindrance when travelling long haul which are the only occasions I fly from London nowadays.

[PDXCWL45]

I think Bristol shows that even if an airport has poor transport connectivity people will still use it as long as it has the airlines and routes in place to attract the passengers.

[nivsy]

I think Bristol shows that even if an airport has poor transport connectivity people will still use it as long as it has the airlines and routes in place to attract the passengers.
In a way that is my point in that Idon't use the airport because of the poor network especially for the trip through Bristol and up the hill and that it is often easier just to go to LHR including off airport parking. Blessed also with fast track and lure of champers in lounge...😆

[PDXCWL45]

In a way that is my point in that Idon't use the airport because of the poor network especially for the trip through Bristol and up the hill and that it is often easier just to go to LHR including off airport parking. Blessed also with fast track and lure of champers in lounge...😆
Doesn't stop 8.5 million other people.

[nivsy]

Doesn't stop 8.5 million other people.
Hey I am not criticising the airport particularly. On
​​​​​​first posted that I commend what the airport has done.Chill! Albeit with better connections though it could be 10 million! Thought of that?

[MerchantVenturer]

The airport already probably outperforms, especially given its physical and surface connectivity disadvantages, so it is reasonable to speculate how much busier it would be at a bigger and better connected site.

Currently £600,000 is being spent on a study into improving surface connectivity. The airport and the local authorities in the area recognise the poor connectivity, albeit the A1 Flyer bus from city to airport now uses a dedicated busway and a section of the new South Bristol Link Road for part of its journey, which at least gets it away from the worst of south Bristol traffic bottlenecks. Bristol's elected city mayor wants an underground system for the city and his anchor route would be to the airport, although that would probably be mainly above ground outside the city.

Before any of that could happen though the airport has the task of obtaining planning permission for its current 10 mppa limit to be raised, a not inconsiderable one in the face of current hostility generally and in the area locally to airport expansion.

[PDXCWL45]

Hey I am not criticising the airport particularly. On
​​​​​​first posted that I commend what the airport has done.Chill! Albeit with better connections though it could be 10 million! Thought of that?
Honestly I don't think it would be as it depends on the capacity the airlines put there. In general the airlines there have expanded year on year adding extra based aircraft new routes and extra frequencies on current routes and also larger aircraft. The transport infrastructure and the position of the airport doesn't seem to restrict them. It's the same for my local airport Cardiff. It's not exactly easy to get to yet the airlines have added extra aircraft and flights and new routes and people are using it. Good transport infrastructure is nice but not necessarily a neccesity if you have the airlines and flights to attract people.

[nonemmet]

The local transport infrastructure (such as it is) already cannot cope with the current passenger numbers. The planning application intended to allow 12mppa proposes some more tinkering with the A38 road junctions in Lulsgate Bottom but very little else apart from a generous portion of very wishful thinking around passenger use of public transport. It would be entirely wrong of North Somerset Council to agree to any further expansion unless railway and a dual carriageway links are built FIRST. This will entail a pause in any expansion but it’s the only sensible way forward. Enlargement of the green belt inset to the north of Downside Road is also probably going to be needed, because the ‘very special circumstances’ arguments required as justification for tarmacking the greenbelt south of the runway are wearing very thin indeed.

[caaardiff]

The local transport infrastructure (such as it is) already cannot cope with the current passenger numbers. The planning application intended to allow 12mppa proposes some more tinkering with the A38 road junctions in Lulsgate Bottom but very little else apart from a generous portion of very wishful thinking around passenger use of public transport. It would be entirely wrong of North Somerset Council to agree to any further expansion unless railway and a dual carriageway links are built FIRST. This will entail a pause in any expansion but it’s the only sensible way forward. Enlargement of the green belt inset to the north of Downside Road is also probably going to be needed, because the ‘very special circumstances’ arguments required as justification for tarmacking the greenbelt south of the runway are wearing very thin indeed.

Sadly I don't think any Airline expansion will be held back by surface connectivity. If Airlines can fill seats, they'll supply them. Getting to the Airport is the customers issue to deal with.
That being said, currently access to the Airport at peak times is on it's knees. Whilst the changes to the A38 on the outskirts of Bristol have been beneficial, the final stretch of A38 from Barrow Gurney up to the Airport can be a nightmare, with regular crawling traffic that is now spilling out over the peak times as more traffic tries to get to the Airport throughout the day.
It's also not Airport traffic alone that needs to be considered. Bearing in mind the Airports busiest time of day is generally 0300-0700 for first wave departures when all the based aircraft are leaving. Traffic then generally flows quite freely to the Airport on the A38 as there's a lot less local and commuter traffic. Airport traffic then becomes more spread out through the day but also then includes arriving passenger traffic heading the other way, but gets mixed in with commuter and local traffic. A solution is needed to encourage local and commuter traffic to use a different route to/from Bristol.

There are very few alternative options. Train access only gets you as far as the city, on to bus connections which have to deal with the road network stated above. Car/private bus transfers, and limited coach access on the Falcon from the Southwest or National Express from Cardiff/Newport.
I would say the majority of people using the Bristol Flyer bus are; A) those visiting the area, B) those without their own cars C) Those that live in the surrounding area accessing from Rail or Bristol City itself that choose to use the bus and leave the car at home, although I would say that counts for a very small percentage of usage. D) Staff at BRS

It will be very difficult to get people out of the cars to get to BRS. One solution would be to improve the A38 all the way up from Barrow Gurney to the Airport. The main pinch point are the lights at Lulsgate Bottom by the Airport Tavern. This causes no end of tailbacks stretching for miles. But if you fix the lights, the problem moves up to the roundabout entrance to the Airport. Unless there is direct, free flowing access into the Airport grounds, there will always be pinch points on this route. It may be possible to put dual lanes onto the roundabout with the left lane being a filter lane and having free flow to carry on the A38, as lets not forget the A38 is heavily used by commuters and residents too, and a lot of Airport users will be heading South Side to access Silverzone. It's all about traffic flow.
However it has been a rising problem for a number of years, and with the Airport expected to grow another 50% from 8m to 12m by 2025, it's going to be a big challenge. According to the masterplan, 62% of people using BRS come from the North of BRS - West of England(35%), South Wales (20%) & Gloucestershire. (7%)

[Asturias56]

What is needed is a SE ring motorway from Junction 20 of the M5 to thee A46 junction on the M4

This would relieve pressure on the M32/M5/M4 area - which is a zoo, and connect the airport properly.

Chance of it ever happening .... 0.0000001%

[Blackfriar]

Very Bristolian views on access to the airport. Many passengers actually live south of Bristol and certainly at the times I use it, (for 0700 dep/2200 arr) very easy to access by car (via A38 form the M5), but public transport is useless. I read that Bristol has more passengers than Birmingham and when I travel there are a lot welsh accents so travel time and access to the airport is clearly secondary to the quality and quantity of the schedule. I'm sure there are also a lot of Devon and Cornwall passengers, so Bristol actually has a huge catchment area.

As a former schedules planner, the schedule and pricing are what drives numbers. Many people now happy to arrive at 2200/2300 if the price is right. Parking at the airport is a joke with a monopoly and very high charges. The parking is often more expensive than the flight. Security has improved but I still purchase a priority ticket due to nearly missing a flight in the past due to awful queues. Maybe things will be more consistent if it has hit its planning limits and they can settle into a steady state routine.

[inOban]

If good motorway and rail access was crucial, then Birmingham would be the No1 airport outside London.

[MerchantVenturer]

I grew up in the 1950s living in a cottage next to the A38 at Redhill and I still visit the area regularly (2-3 times a week on average) mainly by bus but sometimes by car from my home on the south-eastern edge of Bristol. Apart from rush hour times and Friday afternoons (‘POETS Day’), I rarely encounter delays worth mentioning on the A38 between the edge of Bristol and the airport - unless there are road works. I usually travel on the A4 Bath Air Decker, sometimes the U2. The A4 is often a few minutes late when I pick it up on the A4 at Brislington or at Airport Road at Knowle, having encountered problems getting out of Bath and along the A4 to the edge of Bristol, but perhaps perversely given the perception of many it’s not uncommon to recover a bit of time between Knowle and the airport.

To me the major problem for people travelling to/from BRS by road from/to the north of the airport is Bristol itself which has to be either driven around or through. Bristol is one of the largest ancient English cities and a hilly one into the bargain. Its road network still follows the historic coach and waggon routes in many places and is difficult at times for even locals to navigate. The motorways and ring roads that surround and penetrate it are invariably gridlocked at rush hour times so I fail to see how dualing the A38 would make much difference at those times of the day which, from my regular observations, are by far the worst parts of the 24-hour cycle. The M4 and M25 around LHR are not beds of roses in the rush hours either.

A rail connection is difficult to contemplate. The nearest point is the Bristol-Devon/Cornwall line about four miles away and several hundred feet below the level of the airport so significant civil engineering would be needed, apart from the cost and environmental objections.

The A1 ‘Flyer’ bus that connects both the Bristol country bus and coach station as well as Temple Meads railway station with the airport at a ten-minute frequency for much of its 24/7 operation has through-booking connectivity with the rail network. The majority of its passengers board and alight at Temple Meads which might suggest that many already take advantage of this integrated connectivity.

When the current planning applications are determined by North Somerset Council planning committee it’s highly likely in my opinion that the new council voted into office following May’s local elections will reject them. The previous Conservative-dominated administration might have been more sympathetic, particularly in view of the airport’s status as a major employer (direct and indirect) in a small local authority.

In some ways rejection might be no bad thing because the airport would be able to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate if it felt so minded. A professional inspector would be appointed to conduct a rigorous, independent (in the sense that he or she would be free from local pressures) and dispassionate investigation into the pros and cons of the application before arriving at a determination.

Some people also question whether one local authority should have responsibility for deciding the future of an important facility for the entire region.

Incidentally, BRS is not busier than BHX as was suggested in an earlier post. BRS is currently 8.8 mppa and BHX 12.6 mppa.

For the record, BRS’s current public transport connectivity is thus, with some of the services operated on behalf of the airport:

A1 ‘Flyer’. Liveried double-deckers operated by First that run 24/7 at a ten-minute frequency for much of the time between the airport, Temple Meads railway station and Bristol coach and country bus station.

A2 ‘Connect’. Liveried double-deckers operated by First that run 24/7 at half-hour frequency apart from the early hours when they become hourly between the airport and city central area. This route fills in the gap through Bedminster operated by the previous A1 route but doesn't call at Temple Meads.

A3 ‘Weston Flyer’. Liveried single-deckers operated by First that run daily between 0305 and 0046 at an hourly frequency between the airport and Weston-super-Mare railway station.

A4 ‘Bath Air Decker’. Liveried double-deckers operated by Bath Bus Company that run daily between 0300 and 0049 at mainly half-hour frequency from the airport to outside Bath Spa railway station via south Bristol.

A5 ‘Village link’. Small single-deckers operated by Carmel that run daily except Sundays between 0745 and 1739 up to five times per day linking the airport with local villages.

‘Falcon’ Large liveried coaches operated by Stagecoach that run 24/7 with 19 return trips per 24-hours linking the airport with Taunton, Exeter and Plymouth.

216 National Express coaches that run daily with up to ten return trips per 24 hours linking the airport with Newport and Cardiff.

U2 Not an airport bus but it's a double-decker service that operates Monday-Friday between 0811 ans 1842 at an hourly frequency linking Queens Road, Clifton and the University of Bristol Vetinerary School at Langford a few miles south of the airport. It's a public service and recognises all bus stops along the A38 including the one at Lulsgate Bottom which is a useful alternative for those fit enough to walk the half mile to the airport terminal.

[nonemmet]

The airport is limited to 10mppa by the 2009/10 planning permission. At the current rate of expansion this limit is likely to be hit in 3 years, so no matter what they would like to sell, the airlines’ passenger capacity will be limited by this number.

The Bristol mayor has a dream of creating a mass transit system for the city which would include a railway (tram) connection to the airport, but I do agree with MA that the elevation difference will be a challenge. IMHO the airport clearly needs a proper road connection (dual carriageway) and this would need to be directly connected to the motorways in order to avoid Bristol and North Somerset’s awful roads.

I would also agree with MA that the new North Somerset Council is likely to reject the latest 12mppa application, I think this was going to happen even if the Conservatives had retained control. As it is, the Airport is now surrounded by wards controlled by Lib dems, Greens and Independents.....

If the planning inspectors do get involved then you’d hope that the various genuine planning problems that to date appear to have suffered from the Nelsonian eye treatment will receive proper scrutiny.

[BAladdy]

SN have confirmed they will resume flights to BRU from 1st September. Flights will initially operate 6 x weekly until the end of the Summer schedule. Frequency will increase to 12 x weekly from 3rd November. Details of planned schedule are shown below:

1st September to 25th October

SN2058 BRS 15:50 BRU 18:05 CR9 x6

SN2057 BRU 15:05 BRS 15:15 CR9 x6

Winter 2019

SN2060 BRS 06:05 BRU 08:20 CR9 x7 (from 28OCT19)
SN2058 BRS 17:45 BRU 20:00 CR9 x6 (from 03NOV19)

SN2057 BRU 16:55 BRS 17:05 CR9 x6 (from 27OCT19)
SN2059 BRU 21:05 BRS 21:20 CR9 x6 (from 03NOV19)


https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/285403/brussels-airlines-resumes-bristol-hannover-service-from-sep-2019/

[LGS6753]

As a former resident of Wrington (just south of the airport) who commuted into Bristol, it is my contention that the congestion Bristol suffers is caused by the river/docks in the city centre, and the lack of bridges. I now live north of Bristol, and when travelling to the airport will always try to approach it from the south, usually by way of the M5 and A370 or via Yatton. Further, but quicker.
I hope that Bristol will get its 10 million pax cap removed as it is a popular local alternative to the crowded jungles of Heathrow and Gatwick.
The idea of a planning "cap" seems a rather Luddite approach to the increasing demand for air transport, imposed by backward-looking councils to emphasise their own importance.

[yeo valley]

Any body tell me when this airport pax numbers came into force. It effects every airport,and I cant remember airport pax capping many years back.

[SWBKCB]

Any body tell me when this airport pax numbers came into force. It effects every airport,and I cant remember airport pax capping many years back.

Not universal, but will depend on the planning conditions (if any) of each airport.

[MerchantVenturer]

Any body tell me when this airport pax numbers came into force. It effects every airport,and I cant remember airport pax capping many years back.
Imposed as part of the previous planning consents as mentioned by nonemmet in #403 above.

[MerchantVenturer]

The second daily Paris CDG rotation introduced this summer will now continue through the coming winter, except that Saturdays will be single daily.

One of the daily rotations will be operated by the A321neo as will some flights to Belfast International and Faro.

Courtesy Routesonline

TUI

In April next year the Cancun and Sanford, Florida routes will be operated by a B787-9 instead of the usual 8 series.

Courtesy Routesonline

[Flap Track 6]

One of the daily rotations will be operated by the A321neo as will some flights to Belfast International and Faro.

Saturday morning rotations to Murcia International (RMU) will also be A321 in W19 from November.

[marko1]

Saturday morning rotations to Murcia International (RMU) will also be A321 in W19 from November.

there will be two based a321 neo based from this winter - Tenerife , lanzarote, Barcelona , Malaga, Belfast and Glasgow are others on the schedule

[Bristol_Traveller]

The Airport's Facebook page is reporting the FIS is down again, back to manual boards and roaming assistants.

I wonder if it went down because they tried to fix the airline logos that have been missing since the last big outage? At least it seems to be running on Windows 10 now, not XP or Vista.

[Asturias56]

"The idea of a planning "cap" seems a rather Luddite approach to the increasing demand for air transport, imposed by backward-looking councils to emphasise their own importance."

Alternatively a democratic response to the concerns of their voters and taxpayers who have to suffer noise and congestion so you can avoid the "jungles of LHR & LGW"

That's the problem - no-one wants any development near them - I'm sure you'd be the same if they decided to build a new motorway 400 yards from your rose covered cottage N of Bristol................... :ok:

[MerchantVenturer]

New ski season once weekly route to Turin announced yesterday. This will compete with easyJet and TUI. It's yet another route where Ryanair will go head to head with easyJet. Several additional Ryanair/easyJet routes have been announced in the past couple of years.

The Airport's Facebook page is reporting the FIS is down again, back to manual boards and roaming assistants.

I wonder if it went down because they tried to fix the airline logos that have been missing since the last big outage? At least it seems to be running on Windows 10 now, not XP or Vista.
Tomorrow is the first anniversary of Dave Lees becoming CEO. He's had a few problems to oversea: the cyber attack; flybmi suddenly ceasing to operate resulting in the closure of the 5/6 aircraft BRS base; increasing vocal opposition to the latest expansion plans with climate change now firmly in the national psyche.

"The idea of a planning "cap" seems a rather Luddite approach to the increasing demand for air transport, imposed by backward-looking councils to emphasise their own importance."

Alternatively a democratic response to the concerns of their voters and taxpayers who have to suffer noise and congestion so you can avoid the "jungles of LHR & LGW"

That's the problem - no-one wants any development near them - I'm sure you'd be the same if they decided to build a new motorway 400 yards from your rose covered cottage N of Bristol................... :ok:

As I'm replying to Asturias's post I want to make it clear that I was not the one who made the Luddite comment. Asturias is correct in that many people would be 'nimbys' if developments they did not like were proposed near them. Whether the majority of people living in North Somerset are against airport expansion I have no idea. Straw polls conducted by the local news media in the wider West Country invariably come out around a ratio of 70:30 in favour of the airport expansion. Broadly the same ratio applied when similar straw polls were held at the time of the previous major expansion planning applications approved by the local authority a decade ago.

This ratio never seems to be reflected in formal comments to the local authority though. Last time and on this occasion objections greatly outnumber support. I've not read the objections closely this time but last time I remember reading one from an Australian environmental group that probably had previously never heard of Bristol let alone Bristol Airport.

Reprising my comment in an earlier post, it might be no bad thing if the local authority planning committee rejects the application. The airport could then consider whether to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate where a wide-ranging enquiry could be carried out by a professional planning inspector free of local pressures. That's not to say that an inspector would necessarily ultimately overturn a local authority rejection decision, but at least it would have been thoroughly investigated by a professional well versed in government policy on the subject.

[Asturias56]

MV - thank you for a considered response

I can imagine that polls over a large area by local media (who rarely adopt very scientific methods) show a lot of people want expansion - but they're all a long way away

the people who hate the idea are largely local and concentrated in seats held be local Councillors.

If we had a National transport Plan it might be easier but its not something the UK seems to want

[derelicte]

I seem to recall the people of Bristol were much less in favour of airport expansion when the far more suitable site at Filton was proposed as an airport.

[MerchantVenturer]

MV - thank you for a considered response

I can imagine that polls over a large area by local media (who rarely adopt very scientific methods) show a lot of people want expansion - but they're all a long way away

the people who hate the idea are largely local and concentrated in seats held be local Councillors.

If we had a National transport Plan it might be easier but its not something the UK seems to want

They aren't scientific polls by any judgement which is why I call them 'straw polls'. BRS had its own poll earlier this year conducted by (I think) YouGov which perhaps unsurprisingly found a significant majority in favour of the expansion. Critics said the sample was low and unrepresentative. There can be a valid argument for considering the views of those who live in the wider West Country as the airport is a major facility for the entire region. There are some who believe that one local authority in whose area the airport happens to sit should not be the sole arbiter as to its future. We are back again to the idea of a planning inspector-led enquiry being the best vehicle to determine the planning applications.

Much of the opposition seems to emanate from residents in local villages although objectors are not confined to those areas by any means. I don't live in the North Somerset local authority area but I do live closer to the airport and to the flight path than many people who actually live in that unitary authority. On mornings when the easterly runway (09) is active the 30 airline departures between 0600 and 0800 nearly all overfly the vicinity of our house or the nearby area as they turn to the left or to the right. When I'm wake I hear them but they don't usually wake me up and I'm a light and generally poor sleeper. Inbounds to 27 I can see through my windows but rarely hear. Yet some residents of Bath which is ten miles or more further than my house from the airport complain bitterly about aircraft noise. I think it's down to individual perception. To some people any aircraft noise is intolerable; to others it's part of the background hubbub of everyday life.

There is an organisation that calls itself StopBristolAirportExpansion (SBAE) and they cite the usual objections: noise; road traffic congestion; anti-social parking; greenhouse gas emissions. Yet even they send out mixed messages at times. They believe that Cardiff Airport should expand rather than Bristol. Extra flights whether from Bristol or Cardiff would still cause the additional emissions to which they object. In reality some of this group don't want more flights in their back garden but aren't bothered about other airports. That's fair enough but I wish they would be honest about it rather than wave the climate change flag when they are only really concerned about emissions at BRS and not elsewhere.

No national transport plan, but in 2003 the then Labour government produced a White Paper The Future of Air Transport which took a relatively in-depth look at the the existing scene as it was then with projections and support (or lack of) re all the UK airports then in existence for the decades ahead. The DfT supported BRS expansion up to 12 mppa (the figure to which the airport is currently seeking to be allowed to reach) with a runway extension and a second terminal. The airport has since eschewed both and believes it can reach 12 mppa with the existing runway and one terminal which would nevertheless have to be expanded yet again.

I seem to recall the people of Bristol were much less in favour of airport expansion when the far more suitable site at Filton was proposed as an airport.

I wouldn't say that Bristol residents in general were against the idea of Filton becoming an airport. Most of Bristol is unaffected by airport noise whether from Filton when it was operational or from BRS. Many of those living in the built up-areas next to Filton certainly weren't enthusiastic about BAE's mid-1990s application to turn Filton into a city airport, and when in 2006/2007 the BRS runway was closed each night during winter for resurfacing (a story in itself!) the two nightly Royal Mail aircraft that were left at BRS were switched to Filton for that winter. Judged by the complaints from Filton area residents in the local press one might have been forgiven for believing Filton had suddenly become a major night-time airport.

When BRS is in the news in the local press people still post comments saying that the city's airport should have been at Filton. BAE's mid-1990s proposal would have taken much of the short-haul business traffic from BRS or, at least, that's what the BRS management must have felt because the airport was one of the objectors to BAE's application. A planning inspector was appointed to hold an enquiry which resulted in the BAE application being refused.

On the face of it Filton would have been a much better prospect for Bristol's airport (and not just a city airport) than Lulsgate: a larger site; longer runway; better weather; near a major motorway intersection (M4/M5); a main line railway nearby and a branch line running through the airfield site. There might have been problems accomodating a growing airport within a busy works airfield, and the area around Filton is far more built up than the villages around Lulsgate and would no doubt have led to even more objections than those that always surface when BRS is in expansion mode.

[Asturias56]

I heard a guy in the Energy business once describe their situation:-

"Everyone wants the maximum amount of energy, available instantly at the flick of a switch 24/7 in any amount and at the lowest possible price. And they want it generated and transported from as far away as possible from where they live"

Sound familiar? :ugh:

[BA318]

It seems that Easyjet will stop the Bristol - Stockholm Arlanda route. Does anyone know if it will return next summer?

[MerchantVenturer]

BRS-ARN began in November 2017 as a year-round route, 2 x weekly. It remained year-round until this coming winter's timetable was published.

We will no doubt have to wait until easyJet announces its summer 2020 programme to see if it returns then. In terms of loads summer has been generally very good with sell-outs a not uncommon occurrence (three sectors this week and early next for instance). In deep mid-winter one or two months saw relatively poor average loads.

Obviously we don't know the yield from the route.

[strawberry Ribena]

BRS-ARN began in November 2017 as a year-round route, 2 x weekly. It remained year-round until this coming winter's timetable was published.

We will no doubt have to wait until easyJet announces its summer 2020 programme to see if it returns then. In terms of loads summer has been generally very good with sell-outs a not uncommon occurrence (three sectors this week and early next for instance). In deep mid-winter one or two months saw relatively poor average loads.

Obviously we don't know the yield from the route.

Ezy are also terminating LTN-ARN.

[MerchantVenturer]

BRS's passenger numbers will be substantially affected by the loss of Thomas Cook. TCX handled about half a million passengers annually at BRS, approximately 6% of the total annual passenger throughput. With flybmi ceasing to operate last February that is another potential 200,000 passengers down. However, that deficit has been mitigated significantly with Brussels Airlines taking back BRU, albeit with a third party carrier, easyJet doubling its own frequency to 2 x daily on CDG, Loganair taking on ABZ, easyJet and Ryanair commencing MXP, all routes that flybmi operated, but flybmi's other routes - FRA, MUC,DUS and HAM - have not been replaced.

BRS has seen strong passenger growth in recent years from 6.3 mppa in 2014 to 8.7 mppa in 2018. The current 12-monthly rolling total (to July) is just under 8.9 mppa. Had TCX continued to operate, and with other airline growth, it's likely that 10mppa would have been within touching distance over the next couple of years.

That might have presented a problem to the airport as its current planning consents restrict it to 10 mppa. BRS has applied to the local authority for the limit to be raised to 12 mppa and submitted planning applications for infrastructure expansion to enable it to handle that number. The applications have been with the local authority for most of this year with no sign yet of a determination date. With the political colour of the local authority (North Somerset unitary authority) markedly changed since May's local elections it is quite likely that the applications will be rejected. That could lead to a Planning Inspectorate appeal which might not be completed for up to another two years.

Laudamotion announced today that they would be commencing BRS-Vienna on 29 March next year at 2 x weekly on Sundays and Wednesdays. That will compete with easyJet's BRS-VIE also 2 x weekly but which is being increased to 3 x weekly for much of the coming winter and next summer until the end of June, after which it reverts to 2 x weekly.

[CabinCrewe]

BRS's passenger numbers will be substantially affected by the loss of Thomas Cook. TCX handled about half a million passengers annually at BRS, approximately 6% of the total annual passenger throughput. With flybmi ceasing to operate last February that is another potential 200,000 passengers down. However, that deficit has been mitigated significantly with Brussels Airlines taking back BRU, albeit with a third party carrier, easyJet doubling its own frequency to 2 x daily on CDG, Loganair taking on ABZ, easyJet and Ryanair commencing MXP, all routes that flybmi operated, but flybmi's other routes - FRA, MUC,DUS and HAM - have not been replaced.

BRS has seen strong passenger growth in recent years from 6.3 mppa in 2014 to 8.7 mppa in 2018. The current 12-monthly rolling total (to July) is just under 8.9 mppa. Had TCX continued to operate, and with other airline growth, it's likely that 10mppa would have been within touching distance over the next couple of years.

That might have presented a problem to the airport as its current planning consents restrict it to 10 mppa. BRS has applied to the local authority for the limit to be raised to 12 mppa and submitted planning applications for infrastructure expansion to enable it to handle that number. The applications have been with the local authority for most of this year with no sign yet of a determination date. With the political colour of the local authority (North Somerset unitary authority) markedly changed since May's local elections it is quite likely that the applications will be rejected. That could lead to a Planning Inspectorate appeal which might not be completed for up to another two years.

Laudamotion announced today that they would be commencing BRS-Vienna on 29 March next year at 2 x weekly on Sundays and Wednesdays. That will compete with easyJet's BRS-VIE also 2 x weekly but which is being increased to 3 x weekly for much of the coming winter and next summer until the end of June, after which it reverts to 2 x weekly.
Are the existing VIE flights full? Is 4x weekly on two carriers sustainable?

[MerchantVenturer]

Are the existing VIE flights full? Is 4x weekly on two carriers sustainable?

It’s difficult to be absolutely sure about load factors because with the loss of the BRS Mayfly it’s not easy (no pun) to keep track of the aircraft types, but a considerable majority on the Vienna route appear to be 156-seat A319s. If that is the case the monthly load factors this summer (ie since April) would have been comfortably into the 90% zone.

easyJet began the route in 2015 and it has operated year-round at 2 x weekly since then although, as I said previously, it’s being increased to 3 x weekly for much of the coming winter and through the first part of next summer which with Lauda would give a 5 x weekly service next summer.

easyJet and Ryanair compete on 13 routes at BRS, some seasonal. Not all the competed routes are obvious sun routes.

For example easyJet and Ryanair go head to head year-round on Krakow (up to 9 x weekly between the two airlines), Seville (up to 5 x weekly), Venice Marco Polo (up to 12 x weekly) and Milan Malpensa (up to 6 x weekly) with Ryanair also offering Bergamo year-round at 3 x weekly.

Given that Ryanair will know the BRS market well, having had a base there for 12 years and flown in from other bases before that, one can only presume that they think Lauda will work on VIE alongside easyJet, at least in the summer.

[OltonPete]

https://www.bristolairport.co.uk/about-us/news-and-media/facts-and-figures

Up 2.69% which included 8 days of the Thomas Cook closure.

On the same matter, has there been any obvious replacement flights added by easyjet, TUI and Ryanair?

BHX and MAN has been well publicised with Jet2 adding flights regularly over the last two weeks has Bristol seen the same from any of the above?

Pete

[marko1]

https://www.bristolairport.co.uk/about-us/news-and-media/facts-and-figures

Up 2.69% which included 8 days of the Thomas Cook closure.

On the same matter, has there been any obvious replacement flights added by easyjet, TUI and Ryanair?

BHX and MAN has been well publicised with Jet2 adding flights regularly over the last two weeks has Bristol seen the same from any of the above?

Pete

no increases whatsoever so far.

[yeo valley]

no increases whatsoever so far.

Also no talk what so ever about extra cover flights. The only thing different is Easyjet with A321 aircraft,but they already have their work sorted.

[rog747]

It seems that so far Jet2 have no plans to come down to the SW.

BRS CWL EXT and their spiritual home of BOH....

[Flitefone]

It seems that so far Jet2 have no plans to come down to the SW.

BRS CWL EXT and their spiritual home of BOH....

they will have their hands full backfilling the growth especially at MAN and BHX, a shortage of B737 on the market for at least the next year. TUI will also lack aircraft capacity for the same reason, and will also struggle to fill the gap left by TC, but in my view there is no doubt Jet2 will head further south as soon as they are able.

FF

[rog747]

they will have their hands full backfilling the growth especially at MAN and BHX, a shortage of B737 on the market for at least the next year. TUI will also lack aircraft capacity for the same reason, and will also struggle to fill the gap left by TC, but in my view there is no doubt Jet2 will head further south as soon as they are able.

FF

Possibly, I agree, and it seems for Jet2 BRS would seem to be a good place to start to fill a large gap left by TCK/MT but I guess TUI EZY and FR could/can take that on.
Trouble with EXT CWL and to some extent BOH the market is really a summer only one, with peak winter troughs and some Ski market.

[PDXCWL45]

Possibly, I agree, and it seems for Jet2 BRS would seem to be a good place to start to fill a large gap left by TCK/MT but I guess TUI EZY and FR could/can take that on.
Trouble with EXT CWL and to some extent BOH the market is really a summer only one, with peak winter troughs and some Ski market.
In all probability they'll just put a big base at Bristol eventually and just ignore the other airports like Easyjet do.

[MerchantVenturer]

Thomas Cook had three A321s based at BRS in summer, athough one was replaced by a 320 for part of the season in a pre-planned move, and one A321 in winter. Thomas Cook handled about 500,000 passengers annually at BRS in recent years so that's a fair chunk out of a near 9 mppa throughput. With flybmi calling it a day in February it's not been the best of years for BRS although growth this year will still likely to be around 200,000+ which is still a far cry from the 2.4 million added in the previous four years.

Given the wealthy nature and propensity to travel of much of the immediate city region and West Country in general it might be surprising if some of the TCX void is not replaced by someone. Who that someone might be is far more difficult to determine. The only obvious gesture so far is Ryanair adding a fourth weekly Malta rotation next summer following Thomas Cook's absence on the route - Air Malta also seems to have gone.

Ryanair's Laudamotion announced a Vienna route for next summer but that will compete with easyJet's existing route which is year-round and that's the total of recent route announcements.

2020 is likely to be just the sixth calendar year since 1970 that BRS will have seen a drop in annual passenger numbers against the prevous year, although until the 1980s annual passenger throughput was in low six figures.

[fanrailuk]

3 new services from TUI for Summer 2020

Izmir, Girona and Almeria

https://www.bristolairport.co.uk/about-us/news-and-media/news-and-media-centre/2019/10/tui-launches-additional-summer-2020-flights-from-bristol

[Bristol_Traveller]

The SN BRS-BRU flight is back to overnighting from Monday 28OCT (out at 06:05, back in at 21:20), and the following Sunday 03NOV back to double daily. I've had a quick look across the flights, and they're all looking fairly lightly booked at the moment. I have a feeling it's going to take a while for that route to recover, so I hope SN sticks with it.

It'd be nice to bring back the third mid-morning rotation too, as currently I can fly out to the USA and Asia from BRS, but I'm not spending 10 hours waiting at BRU to come back to BRS on the way home.

[MerchantVenturer]

CAA August stats for BRS finally published today. The airport handled 1,009,498 passengers in the month, up 4.66% on August 2018. This is the first time that BRS has handled more than a million passengers in a calendar month.

Rolling 12-month total was 8.918 million.

[MerchantVenturer]

http://travelweekly.co.uk/articles/347945/lufthansa-launches-new-route-from-bristol-airport

The Franfurt link is being restored from next March with a twice daily except Saturdays E190 service. The route ceased last February when flybmi with Lufthansa code share went out of business.

[Bristol_Traveller]

http://travelweekly.co.uk/articles/347945/lufthansa-launches-new-route-from-bristol-airport

The Franfurt link is being restored from next March with a twice daily except Saturdays E190 service. The route ceased last February when flybmi with Lufthansa code share went out of business.

This is really good news. The morning flight time (08:20 from FRA, 09:35 from BRS) isn't ideal, but hopefully it can edge back to being a nightstop again.

As Brussels and Lufty are both LH Group airlines, it's possible to do BRS-BRU-USA in the morning with the 06:05 to BRU, and come back NYC-FRA-BRS in the morning with the 08:20 ex FRA. I don't know how/if that option will work out automatically on either the LH or SN online booking engines, but it's a good one.

I guess this is Lufthansa back as actual Lufthansa for the first time since 2008?

[devon_guy]

This is great news, Singapore via Frankfurt here I come!

[MerchantVenturer]

I guess this is Lufthansa back as actual Lufthansa for the first time since 2008?
Eurowings operated the flights with Bae146-300 aircraft - 3 x daily, 21 x weekly. They operated from the end of March 2008 until April 2009. In that time a touch under 100,000 passengers were carried but probably too many seats at that frequency. The recession was also beginning to bite hard.

2 x daily on a 100-seat aircraft might be a better fit although you mention the flight times. Eurowings departures from BRS in the summer were 0630, 1150 and 1735. Arrivals were 0955/1015 (varied according to day of the week), 1700 and 2215. The winter timings were slight variations on the above.

[TartinTon]

This is really good news. The morning flight time (08:20 from FRA, 09:35 from BRS) isn't ideal, but hopefully it can edge back to being a nightstop again.

As Brussels and Lufty are both LH Group airlines, it's possible to do BRS-BRU-USA in the morning with the 06:05 to BRU, and come back NYC-FRA-BRS in the morning with the 08:20 ex FRA. I don't know how/if that option will work out automatically on either the LH or SN online booking engines, but it's a good one.

I guess this is Lufthansa back as actual Lufthansa for the first time since 2008?

Only morning BRS departure that would make any sense would be the Monday and possibly the Tues at a push. Rest of the week are dogs.

They've obviously done their homework as these are the best flights. Slightly surprised that no day 6 option is there.

[virginblue]

Slightly surprised that no day 6 option is there.

That's not what the Lufthansa press release says. It says it will be twice daily except saturdays when it will be once daily. Timings:

FRA 0820 - 0900 BRS 0935 - FRA
FRA 1630 - 1710 BRS 1750 - FRA

[Bristol_Traveller]

And just like the last time Lufty launched from Bristol, they've announced the route but not put the flights in GDS, so it's not yet bookable.

[devon_guy]

And just like the last time Lufty launched from Bristol, they've announced the route but not put the flights in GDS, so it's not yet bookable.
Well the flights are now loaded but sadly they want double the price to go to Singapore from BRS rather than LHR so it's off to LHR I shall be going.

[GAXLN]

AWell the flights are now loaded but sadly they want double the price to go to Singapore from BRS rather than LHR so it's off to LHR I shall be going.

I would be just a little patient. It is quite likely they have not loaded the LH BRS fares yet. Have a look at the fares from other LH UK regional airports and their pricing is not that bad.

[Bristol_Traveller]

A

I would be just a little patient. It is quite likely they have not loaded the LH BRS fares yet. Have a look at the fares from other LH UK regional airports and their pricing is not that bad.

Also exactly what happened when LH launched from BRS in 2008 🤣.

The bad news is, the fares are loaded. I'm seeing the same fares ex-BRS as ex-MAN. The problem appears to be lower availability of seats at the cheapest fares, presumably because fewer seats overall between BRS and FRA. On the dates where fare avails are the same ex-BRS as ex-MAN, the only difference is the difference in Airport Fees between BRS and MAN. (£8 cheaper to fly from MAN). £549 v £541.

Unfortunately, regional fares (regardless of KL/DL or LH/UA) are often not as good as fares ex-LHR, where there's a ton more competition. I don't mind a premium of 'about £100', but sometimes nutcase offers out of London are half the price of elsewhere. We need Norwegian to turn up at BRS, that always encouraged airlines to create competitive fares.

[devon_guy]

For some reason they seemed to have removed all of their first basic fares and have them as sold out for the next 12 months. They were there the other day so I assume at some point they'll be reloaded.

[bcn_boy]

Well the flights are now loaded but sadly they want double the price to go to Singapore from BRS rather than LHR so it's off to LHR I shall be going.
Have you taken a look at Qatar Airways from CWL? Closer than LHR, less fuss.

[Bristol_Traveller]

For some reason they seemed to have removed all of their first basic fares and have them as sold out for the next 12 months. They were there the other day so I assume at some point they'll be reloaded.

The F fares ex-BRS are the same as ex-LHR, (lowest fare GBP2521 for a r/t) so I assume the problem is avails in the business bucket that it cross-books into in BRS-FRA. This has been a recurring problem where tight avails on the BRS-FRA segment have a dramatic effect on the applicable fares.

[devon_guy]

The F fares ex-BRS are the same as ex-LHR, (lowest fare GBP2521 for a r/t) so I assume the problem is avails in the business bucket that it cross-books into in BRS-FRA. This has been a recurring problem where tight avails on the BRS-FRA segment have a dramatic effect on the applicable fares.

I can't see any fares at that price! All I see is that the basic, basic plus and basic II are all sold out on every date both from LHR and BRS. It must be an IT error.

[Bristol_Traveller]

It must be an IT error.

Almost certainly. I've reported this in the past, and LH confirmed it was a glitch and it fixed itself two weeks later. Very expensive glitch. If you have a HON PA or dedicated sales agent, let them know so they can get someone to fix it. My lowly SEN status is regularly trumped by anyone buying F fares.

[Plane mad 134]

Transavia had a map on twitter showing new routes from Montpellier and Bristol was on it, expect something soon.

[Severn]

Transavia
The map that has been quoted online has been misinterpreted. It was assumed that all the routes on the map related to new Transavia routes from MPL (which included BRS) . However, what the map actually shows is the current routes available from MPL in blue (to BRS with easyJet, DUB with Aer Lingus, BES with Volotea etc) and the new countries (no actual specific destinations) to be announced by Transavia in green which seem to cover Southern Europe and North Africa.
A false alarm maybe?!

easyJet operates a summer route from BRS-MPL 2x weekly.

[MerchantVenturer]

The first easyJet A321 to operate into BRS is currently flying in from Alicante - G-UZMA. The 321 is then due to operate BRS-GLA-BRS and BRS-CDG-BRS later today. Two easyJet 321s are reportedly to be based at BRS this winter.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Various new outlets reporting that Easyjet has 'bought' ex-TCX slots at BRS.

https://news.sky.com/story/easyjet-snaps-up-thomas-cook-landing-slots-for-36m-11857364

I've never heard of anyone trading slots at BRS before?

[MerchantVenturer]

Various new outlets reporting that Easyjet has 'bought' ex-TCX slots at BRS.
https://news.sky.com/story/easyjet-snaps-up-thomas-cook-landing-slots-for-36m-11857364
I've never heard of anyone trading slots at BRS before?

BRS is now a Level 3 slot co-ordinated airport but only in the summer and then only between 2300 and 0700.

This is to address the increasing challenge of the airport's night time movements limit and night time noise quota.

Both restrictions are broken down by season - summer and winter - but the seasonal limits are disproportionate, being overused or nearly so in summer but underused in winter.

Night time (2330-0600) summer movements must not exceed 3,000 take-offs and landings and winter must not exceed 1,000. There are far fewer landings in winter during the night time period and no timetabled take-offs that I can recall, unlike summer with its numerous landings and a handful of take-offs each week (Thomas Cook was involved with some of the pre-0600 take-offs and post-2330 landings). In addition, the total number of take-offs and landings between 0600 and 0700 and between 2300 and 2330 must not exceed 10,500 in any calendar year.

The most recent summer total was 2,975, slightly down on the previous year's 2,991, with both years just under the 3,000 limit. Winter by contrast has only been between 232 and 353 over the past five years, little more than a third of its 1,000 limit.

The night noise quota also covers the 2330-0600 period (there is also a blanket ban on the noisiest types of aircraft between 2300 and 0700 but that is largely academic these days). Each aircraft type is given a quota count. The summer (BST) maximum total quota count for the airport is 1,260 and the winter (GMT) is 900.

There is a system in place where overruns can be borrowed from a previous season or set aganst the next season although quota limit penalties exist in such circumstances re the season after that. The most recent summer usage figure was 1,490 (above the limit of 1,260) which was achieved by borrowing from the underused winter quota whereas wnter was 152, less than 20% of its 900 limit.

BRS has applied to have the seasonality removed but not the overall annual noise quota count. Neither has there been a request for the quota count limit to be raised.

It remains to be seen what easyJet actually does with the Thomas Cook slot pairs it has purchased. We ought to learn more on 19 November when easyJet is due to make an announcement.

[MerchantVenturer]

Bristol Airport's planning application seeking permission to further develop infrastructure to enable it to handle 12 mppa will not now be heard by North Somerset unitary authority planning committee until next year. The current limit is 10 mppa and the application includes a request to have the limit raised. Annual throughput at the moment is approaching 9 mppa.

The application was submitted a year ago next month. The process might yet lead to a Planning Inspectorate enquiry should the local authority reject the application.

[MerchantVenturer]

New route from March - Brest. 2 x weekly on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

[Blackfriar]

North Somerset has declared a “climate emergency” so I doubt they will allow any expansion.

[Asturias56]

Councils can drag out planning for years - one of the UK Onshore oi companies has had their application for a well site S of London deferred for the 5th consecutive planning meeting recently that's 10 months.

And a Planning Enquiry takes the best part of a year to set up and then a year to report.

[MerchantVenturer]

North Somerset has declared a “climate emergency” so I doubt they will allow any expansion.

Councils can drag out planning for years - one of the UK Onshore oi companies has had their application for a well site S of London deferred for the 5th consecutive planning meeting recently that's 10 months.

And a Planning Enquiry takes the best part of a year to set up and then a year to report.

I will be surprised if the North Somerset unitary authority approves BRS’s applications to have its 10 mppa planning limit raised to 12 mppa together with infrastructure expansion to handle that number. The political complexion of the elected members has changed significantly since last May's elections. That could lead the airport to a Planning Inspectorate appeal which, as has been said, might take a long time to arrive at a final resolution; possibly later in 2021 is the earliest a final decision might be made.

The airport is edging ever closer to its 10 mppa cap with the current annual throughput just below 9 mppa. The demise of Thomas Cook and flybmi has slowed the expected growth this year but TUI’s and easyJet’s expansion next summer (anticipated in the case of easyJet but not confirmed), plus the return of Brussels Airlines and Lufthansa, ought to see 9 million passed next year.

Two years ago this month the airport announced a public consultation into its proposed new master plan. The original timeline saw a draft master plan published later in 2018 for further public consultation. 2020 will be with us soon but still no draft master plan in the public domain for consultation.

The current planning applications awaiting a determination by the local authority actually embrace some things that might have been expected by some to have formed part of the new master plan. I suppose time was of the essence, as is now shown by the local authority delay in making a decision. It might be that the airport is now awaiting a final decision on its annual passenger cap before resuming the draft master plan process. The uncertainty of the final outcome and the likely time it will take could well be putting of an airline or airlines that might have shown a serious interest in operating out of BRS.

On another topic, TUI announced today that they will operate to Sharm el Sheikh twice weekly next winter, an increase on next summer’s weekly flight.

[MerchantVenturer]

TUI

https://www.bristolairport.co.uk/about-us/news-and-media/news-and-media-centre/2019/12/tui-uk-launches-additional-55000-seats-for-winter-2020-from-bristol-airport

An extra 55,000 seats will be made available by TUI for winter 20/21 with additional capacity to Hurghada, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Enfidha, and Sharm el Sheikh being increased to 2 x weekly from its summer 2020 frequency.

Old Terminal Building

Work is about to commence on its demolition. The road in front of it has been fenced off. Planning permission already exists for additional aircraft stands and an eastern walkway at that end of the airfield which the removal of the OTB will facilitate, with the walkway apparently to be constructed along the lines of the existing western walkway.

Current planning application

Further to my previous post #460, BRS CEO Dave Lees has spoken out against the continuing delay by North Somerset unitary authority in setting a date for the determination of the airport’s planning application to enable it to handle up to 12 mppa. The airport submitted its application a year ago and still no date has been set.

[fanrailuk]

BRS - AYT begins 3rd May 2020

3 x weekly (Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday)

[Severn]

BRS overtakes GLA to become the UKs 8th largest airport

A regular poster on another forum pointed out that today is quite a historic day for BRS.
The October CAA report shows that on a rolling 12 month basis BRS has now overtaken GLA making it the 8th largest UK airport.
GLA handled 8,894,000 from Nov 18 to Oct 19.
BRS handled 8,938,000 during the same period.

[Standard Noise]

Earlier than expected, we thought it would be in 2020.

[Willo 3D]

I’ve seen it mentioned elsewhere that EasyJet are launching Paris Orly from March - so now there is a morning EZY to CDG and the afternoon flight goes to ORY?!

[fanrailuk]

The easyJet booking engine confirms this;

Paris CDG 1 x daily
Paris ORY 1 x daily

(effective Sunday 29 March 2020)

I’ve seen it mentioned elsewhere that EasyJet are launching Paris Orly from March - so now there is a morning EZY to CDG and the afternoon flight goes to ORY?!

[marko1]

Cdg back at 2 daily - evening on a a319 and the orly is on a a320

[Captain_Caveman]

The easyJet booking engine confirms ORY;

Paris CDG 2 x daily
Paris ORY 1 x daily

(effective Sunday 29 March 2020)


It will be 1 x CDG and 1 x ORY once the booking system has been updated.

[MerchantVenturer]

It will be 1 x CDG and 1 x ORY once the booking system has been updated.
It has been since yesterday afternoon.

[Bristol_Traveller]

It will be 1 x CDG and 1 x ORY once the booking system has been updated.

I can see this creating 'hilarious' situations where people turn up at the airport they arrived into, to find their flight is departing from the other side of town. Maybe this is a new ancillary revenue for Easyjet, getting a kickback from taxi drivers racing people between CDG and ORY?

[fanrailuk]

A one-off special committee meeting is being held for the planning application to be discussed and decided upon at North Somerset Councils Planning & Regulatory Committee.

The meeting will be on Monday 10th February at 18:00 and is to be held at Weston-super-Mare Town Hall.

This meeting is open to the public and is likely to be streamed live online.

Current planning application

Further to my previous post #460, BRS CEO Dave Lees has spoken out against the continuing delay by North Somerset unitary authority in setting a date for the determination of the airport’s planning application to enable it to handle up to 12 mppa. The airport submitted its application a year ago and still no date has been set.

[santito]

The proposed expansion has been recommended for approval...
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-airport-expansion-flights-parking-3791345#comments-section

[bravoromeosierra]

I do like how there is a Continental/United liveried RJ85 parked up in those artists impressions.

[fanrailuk]

I do like how there is a Continental/United liveried RJ85 parked up in those artists impressions.

It’s the old Lufthansa Cityline livery, not CO/UA.

:ok:

[MerchantVenturer]

Re the expansion plan application to be heard on Monday week (10th February), there is certainly no guarantee that the elected councillors will think the same way as their planning officers. Could still finish up at the Planning Inspectorate if the council rejects the application and the airport appeals. It looks as though the secretary of state will have an involvement anyway because part of the application involves taking some Green Belt which apparently needs the sec of state's approval. Part of the airport site is already within a Green Belt Inset.

[fanrailuk]

Re the expansion plan application to be heard on Monday week (10th February), there is certainly no guarantee that the elected councillors will think the same way as their planning officers. Could still finish up at the Planning Inspectorate if the council rejects the application and the airport appeals. It looks as though the secretary of state will have an involvement anyway because part of the application involves taking some Green Belt which apparently needs the sec of state's approval. Part of the airport site is already within a Green Belt Inset.

The application in question has tonight been refused by North Somerset Council.

[bristolflyer]

No great surprise that they rejected it. It has always been on the cards since the last local elections. BRS will get it on appeal, because the application was supported by the planning department. The planning inspector will take one look and approve it on a national level. The Councillors were told as much in the meeting tonight. The main issue for them is to demonstrate their virtue. The silent majority vote with their feet and they are using the airport. I agree that local transport and links are crying out for improvement, but that is a wider problem across Bristol where we have 1970's infrastructure trying to cope with 21st century volume.

[PDXCWL45]

No great surprise that they rejected it. It has always been on the cards since the last local elections. BRS will get it on appeal, because the application was supported by the planning department. The planning inspector will take one look and approve it on a national level. The Councillors were told as much in the meeting tonight. The main issue for them is to demonstrate their virtue. The silent majority vote with their feet and they are using the airport. I agree that local transport and links are crying out for improvement, but that is a wider problem across Bristol where we have 1970's infrastructure trying to cope with 21st century volume.
Although yes it's likely it'll get approved in the end it still will take a while so is definitely an opportunity for Cardiff and Exeter to attract extra flights and maybe new airlines potentially at Bristols expense.

[rpmac]

Whilst I am sympathetic to Bristol and their desire to grow beyond 10million per year is there not a case of slowing down the bigger airports such as BRS and MAN, even EDI so that the smaller airports can grow and provide better for their catchment area. If it becomes that little bit more difficult to find a flight from a larger airport this might encourage growth at smaller airports. This should result in less car journeys and at the same time spread the load of noise pollution allowing residents of the larger airports to take less of the strain. Local businesses such as hotels should also benefit if smaller airports can grow. Of course long haul from the bigger airports will continue to be the norm but maybe the smaller airports could be encouraged to have more European flights, eg CPH, ZUR, MAD etc which benefit business travellers both European and UK. As an example Lufthansa might want to expand Manchester services but if this was restricted they may be prompted to start a LBA route thereby reducing by a small margin the number of people travelling over the M62 from West Yorkshire. The same might be said of LPL, NCL , EMA, etc. all of whom lose out to MAN which continues to grow.

[ATNotts]

Whilst I am sympathetic to Bristol and their desire to grow beyond 10million per year is there not a case of slowing down the bigger airports such as BRS and MAN, even EDI so that the smaller airports can grow and provide better for their catchment area. If it becomes that little bit more difficult to find a flight from a larger airport this might encourage growth at smaller airports. This should result in less car journeys and at the same time spread the load of noise pollution allowing residents of the larger airports to take less of the strain. Local businesses such as hotels should also benefit if smaller airports can grow. Of course long haul from the bigger airports will continue to be the norm but maybe the smaller airports could be encouraged to have more European flights, eg CPH, ZUR, MAD etc which benefit business travellers both European and UK. As an example Lufthansa might want to expand Manchester services but if this was restricted they may be prompted to start a LBA route thereby reducing by a small margin the number of people travelling over the M62 from West Yorkshire. The same might be said of LPL, NCL , EMA, etc. all of whom lose out to MAN which continues to grow.

For various reasons LH might be very reluctant to do as you suggest. Here are a few:-

1. Frequency of service. Business passengers demand multi-daily services, and the LH hub needs 3 services minimum per day to offer sufficient connectivity. This may not be realistic from smaller airports.

2. Better to add seats to existing routes - LH, for example would rather first add more seats to existing capacity before opening up new routes.

3. The would be an additional cost to doing so, new routes mean more operating cost, and of course the costs of developing the route

4. Environmental. All businesses today want to promote green credentials. Whilst offering services from a secondary airport may reduce emissions from surface transport, additional flights (one assumes in the LH scenario they aren't going to reduce frequency from MAN) will generate more CO2 and other gases.

Local businesses would surely like to see services from their local airport, in fact chambers of commerce will often lobby for them. Sadly, when it comes to the crunch, there isn't the business class take up and they are often viewed an nonviable, or as with BRS and BHX to Newark, proved to be so. Businesses often say one thing and do another!

[rpmac]

I entirely agree.

[fanrailuk]

BRS - PVK (Preveza)

Begins Sunday 3rd May

Twice weekly (Sun & Wed)

[MerchantVenturer]

BRS - PVK (Preveza)

Begins Sunday 3rd May

Twice weekly (Sun & Wed)

Also Kos twice weekly (Mon and Fri) from 4 May

[bravoromeosierra]

Has the Brussels route always been suspended during the British summer? Seems no flights in July and August.

[MerchantVenturer]

Has the Brussels route always been suspended during the British summer? Seems no flights in July and August.
It was usually reduced in the number of daily rotations operated. July and August were taken out of 'the system' for 2020 a while ago.

[Asturias56]

"is there not a case of slowing down the bigger airports such as BRS and MAN, even EDI so that the smaller airports can grow and provide better for their catchment area. "

that is INTERFERING IN THE MARKET - you'll never get any support for that in politics - the first thing the disadvantaged would do would be to sue for damages.............

You'll be asking for an integrated transport policy next my lad......................

[MerchantVenturer]

I wouldn't call BRS a big airport whether by number of airlines, air transport movements or passenger numbers, and certainly not by physical size. It's a small to medium size mainly short-haul regional airport. It certainly cannot be put in the same bracket as MAN or anywhere near.

I live near it and have been using it since the 1970s. It's very good at what it does which is largely short-haul with some TUI transatlantic charter routes and some long-haul hubs at AMS, BRU, DUB and the soon to be re-connected FRA.

[fanrailuk]

Brussels Airlines BRU service suspended from 17th - 28th March.

2 x daily CRJ9 services

Has the potential to be suspended beyond this date I'm sure...

[Bristol_Traveller]

SN BRS-BRU is missing from the schedules until 01MAY (Friday), when the afternoon rotation is operating (SN2057/2058/2059). But that feels like someone just deleted out until 30th April, rather than a considered return date.

I hope the new LH BRS-FRA route doesn't also get killed off. The last time LH operated that route, they killed it off because of the financial crisis. We're not having a lot of luck with that.

[yeo valley]

FRA route
The FRA route might get canned again with whats going on with the coronavirus and talk of a world wide recession.One thing is certain the world how it operates now will change in many ways.

[fanrailuk]

FRA route
The FRA route might get canned again with whats going on with the coronavirus and talk of a world wide recession.One thing is certain the world how it operates now will change in many ways.

Looks like the start of this service has been pushed back to Sunday 26 April...

Subject to change I’m sure.

[ATNotts]

This from the BBC News live ticker on the dreaded virus regarding Edinburgh airport could equally apply to just about any airport in UK (with the undoubted exception of LHR!).

Edinburgh Airport has warned that it is potentially facing the scenario of receiving no passengers in the next three months because of coronavirus.

In a statement released on Friday, a spokesman for the airport said: "We are facing an unprecedented situation, looking at the potential of three months of zero or close to zero passenger demand.

"We have spent the last few weeks looking at how we deal with the immediate and longer term effects and unfortunately that means taking some extremely tough decisions as the industry continues to react."

More than 100 jobs at the Scottish airport are said to be at risk.


In these sorts of circumstances talk of new routes is just about as fanciful as expecting to see a flock of flying pigs. I feel very sorry for the thousands working in commercial aviation, it's ancillary services, tourism and hospitality.

[Bristol_Traveller]

From the departure boards, it looks like there are no flights arriving or departing BRS tomorrow (29MAR).

[jon01]

From the departure boards, it looks like there are no flights arriving or departing BRS tomorrow (29MAR).

There is a Loganair to Aberdeen, looks like it's empty though, plus a few private movements

Also there is a combined Loganair service with Birmingham to Aberdeen Sunday evening and a Ryanair Dublin

[Bristol_Traveller]

Nothing today or tomorrow? (I'm going by the Departures page on the website, so not necessarily ideal as a data source).

[MerchantVenturer]

According to the local rag there were no regular commercial flights today with an airport spokeswoman quoted as saying, "Bristol Airport is operational to assist with repatriation, medical, military and other essential flights." I take that to mean that the normal flight programme has been suspended.

[SealinkBF]

Bristol proposal to be designated a “coordinated” airport.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/bristol-airport-designation-as-a-coordinated-airport?utm_source=5f182cdd-4d63-4157-9ec7-6c2bfbf0f60f&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=govuk-notifications&utm_content=immediate

[MerchantVenturer]

The intention was announced a few months ago.

BRS is currently co-ordinated (level 3) in summer only (BST) and then only between 2300 and 0659 hours each night. This is to help it manage its night time movement restrictions and night time noise quota limits.

Whether the previously identified need to extend the co-ordinated status for the entire summer period (24/7) can still be shown given the likely impact on aviation of COVID-19 in the years ahead might now be a moot point.

[bravoromeosierra]

Looks like the start of this service has been pushed back to Sunday 26 April...

Subject to change I’m sure.

Now 2nd June as per Lufthansa.com

[MerchantVenturer]

BRS handled 560,250 terminal passengers in February this year, up 7% on February last year. Rolling 12-month total was 9.011 million, the first time the airport has handled over 9 million passengers in a 12-month period. They might have to wait quite a while for the feat to be repeated.

Brussels Airlines

The BRU service is now suspended until summer 2021 along with seven other routes from BRU.

https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/brussels-airlines-scraps-wet-lease-contract-with-cityjet-for-5-crj900s-and-cancels-8-destinations-until-summer-2021/

[Bristol_Traveller]

I wonder if Brussels will keep Bristol under review, as it's always been a reasonably well performing route. The demise of bmi meant a bit of a scramble to get SN back in and to find an aircraft to operate it.

I hope this means LH are committed to launching FRA when things get back on their feet, otherwise we're back to being completely disconnected from the Star network again.

[Bristol_Traveller]

Just noticed in the website that the main terminal building is closed and all passengers are going through Aviation House. I think as far as scheduled flights are concerned, that's the Ryanair Dublin flight on Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon evenings? I assume they have security facilities there, and that you just drop and grab hold luggage from a trolley.

[Rutan16]

Just noticed in the website that the main terminal building is closed and all passengers are going through Aviation House. I think as far as scheduled flights are concerned, that's the Ryanair Dublin flight on Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon evenings? I assume they have security facilities there, and that you just drop and grab hold luggage from a trolley.

Its a fully functional terminal used by Airbus charters why would there be any issues ?

[fanrailuk]

Its a fully functional terminal used by Airbus charters why would there be any issues ?

You may have confused Aviation House (which is generally a building for staff with offices and crew rooms) with the Centreline building on the south side (used for the Airbus flights).

[heading 125]

Its a fully functional terminal used by Airbus charters why would there be any issues ?

a bit touchy there. Better not mention the hump in the runway and the excitement when you land on 09 in gusty winds. 😀