bmi baby routes from CWL

[jetstream7]

Now announced...

Alicante from £25
Faro from £25
Geneva from £25
Jersey from £25
Malaga from £25
Milan (Bergamo) from £25
Belfast(Intl) from £18
Edinburgh from £18
Glasgow from £18


Milan/Bergamo and Geneva are once weekly and Jersey is weekends only too, so not quite so much there as it first appeared. Faro and Malaga are 4 & 5 times weekly

Pity for the guys at Air wales who have aalso nnounced services to EDI and GLA - wonder what will happen there. Understand they've leased a couple of German Be1900s for these flights?


More details can be found on BBC and bmibaby websites

http://www.bmibaby.com/bmibaby/press/release.asp?ArticleID=41

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/2150264.stm

[brabazon]

Is this the big announcement for bmi, that was eluded to last week?

So these are the routes where they will be head to head from with Go from Bristol

Alicante from £25
Faro from £25
Malaga from £25
Belfast(Intl) from £18
Edinburgh from £18
Glasgow from £18


It will be interesting to see the traffic figures on these routes for the winter - is there really room for 2 players in this market.

They seem to be both doing reasonably out of EMA, but there is a far larger population around the East Midlands than in the Cardiff - Bristol region.

[Knifedge]

Brabazon,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are Stanstead and Luton not closer together than Bristol and Cardiff? Are easyjet not contemplating a move to STN. There is one almighty bridge and a shed load of traffic between BRS and CDF not to mention a nation. I think there just might be enough to go around.

[CheekyVisual]

The routes to the Med will definately work from CWL. In general South Walians love their trips to the sun and will take as many as they can afford. Believe me I've lived here for 30 years and it rains a lot !

The same goes for Jersey. It is a very popular destination from this part of the world and that route will do well for them.

I assume Geneva and Milan will only appear on the winter schedule aimed at the skiers. Again as weekend routes they will go very well. There are only a handful of skiing flights from CWL and they largely utilise RJs and are, if you can get them VERY expensive. The business is there for an increase in capacity at a lower price.

Unfortunately you can not compare the catchment area of CWL and BRS with LTN and STN. It just isn't even in the same league.
GO/Easy at BRS have a good solid catchment area. Remember we are talking about LOW FARES here. No one from the English side of the Bristol Channel is going to be tempted to CWL. 1) when EASY take over GO they are going to compete VERY aggresively on price and 2) Why add almost another £5 to your fare to get over that Bridge. Even with CWL soon having a rail link (well by this time next year) will people really add the cost of a train fare which will probably be significantly more than their air fare ! This leaves CWL with a (by LOW COST standards) very small catchment area.

I assume that to make any money Baby must be hoping to tempt every single Welsh Passenger that currently goes to BRS to fly from CWL. Even if they do that I just don't believe that the business is there to make more than a single daily EDI/GLA service profitable and to have any credibility or be of much use to anyone other than leisure travellers. Having spoken to a few people from Air Wales they are confident that by running a two or three times daily service they will compete quite effectively even using the ATR 42s which they will have by the time Baby starts.

I will be more interested to see what next summer brings.

[BRISTOLRE]

CAA ATOL website, latest update, showing route licence applications for all of these routes in detail.

[canberra]

i logged on to this and thought why are bmibaby flying from cranwell, then i realised it was sita for cardiff wales!

[brabazon]

Knifedge

I was referring to Go's EMA services not those from STN.

We'll see how the traffic numbers look in the months after bmi baby start at CWL.

[weedflier]

One problem with both CWL and BRS is that they are very inconvenient to get to, with lousy motorway links and involving lots of tortuous back roads and roundabouts.
The other problem is that the facilities at CWL are lousy - it's more like a private flying club than a terminal at the international airport for the Welsh capitol.

[Captain Chaos 747]

Not sure if BMI will fill the 737 for EDI/GLA from CWL, I have heard that Air Wales are now not going to launch the EDI/GLA routes which is a shame, I think it would suit the business traveller more with 3 daily trips than what BMI are scheduled to do with just the morning and evening flights. Also heard that BACE will now drop the Jersey service and maybe Belfast with BMI doing both these routes.

[Luke341]

Good news for Jersey:p