Flybe.com gets the Buzz!!

[atco-matic]

They just said on BBC South Today that flybe is expected to announce this lunchtime that they will start three new routes out of Southampton to help fill the gap left by Mr. O' Leary at Bournemouth.

The three new routes will be Malaga, Murcia and Toulouse and are in addition to the new routes already announced from Southampton to Barcelona, Geneva, Milan and Nice.

Should give some comfort to the 50,000 who already booked on Buzz before MOL pulled the plug. Hope they make a success of it and give MOL something to think about... what aircraft they going to use though?

Good luck flybe!

[johnwalton]

Fares starting from £49 one way, and they call that low-cost? Whats the typical fare going to be? £150 rtn?

http://www.flybe.com/news/feb03.htm

[surely not]

£49.00 o.w. sounds pretty good to me considering the a/c types operated. Fewer seats to divide the operating costs into.

My question is where will all the pax check-in cos SOU only has a small check-in area, not to mention limited ramp space to park the a/c. :confused:

[Wycombe]

Surely,

I would have thought it would cope ok, provided all of these flights aren't checking in at the same time (unlikely as I guess we are talking 1 rotation per day on each route, using a couple of based a/c?)....they seem to manage ok with the 737/A320/757 charters during the Summer.

There also usually seem to be a couple of stands (the ones alongside the new Multi-storey) that are rarely used except during the busiest parts of the day.

I assume BEE will be using the 146 for these routes? - will they make it to Malaga & Murcia with a fullish load one wonders?

Good luck to them anyway - I've already booked to JER in Sept, £53 per head return, including all the "charges".

[surely not]

The stands alongside the new multi storey are quite restricted in a/c type that can use them due to possible interference with the ILS by tail structure etc.

I wish them well, I have always found Fly.be and its predecessors to be good to work with.

[eurostar builder]

Re Murcia and Malaga

Would a 146 be able to do these routes from southampton or have they another type planned.

Re Geneva
Isnt this a long way for a Dash 8 to fly.

[brabazon]

The 146 has the range to serve the Spanish destinations, it'll just take a little longer than a 737.

Also, you'd be surprised what the max range of a Dash 8 is, Geneva's well within range.

OK quick trivia question anyone know the longest non-stop passenger turboprop service in Western Europe?

[Jobs-a-Goodun]

Eurostar - FlyBE currently operate a winter charter MANALC and over the summer also have BHXAGP so the routes out of Southampton should be within reach of the 146. I accept that SOU runway is of a reduced length but FlyBE have even operated GCIAGP in the past with the 146-200 seating 97pax.

It may also suprise you that even the D8-Q400 can operate both SOUMJV and AGP routes if required but may suffer from a reduced payload on the return journey, and FlyBE currently operate BHXBRN with a D8-Q200. Thats a 2.5hr sector on a 37seat prop, that said, the charterers are very happy with it!

[Wycombe]

Go on Brabazon, enlighten us?

My guess is it involves either Saab 2000 or DHC8-Q400

[Wycombe]

BBC South Ceefax says BEE took 6000 bookings in the first week for the AGP, MJV and TLS routes ex. SOU

[brabazon]

Wycombe

At least someone gave it a thought!!

The longest (in terms of Great Circle Distance at 908 nm / 1045 sm / 1682 km) is ARN - GVA with SAS with a Dash8-400. Block time is upto 3 hours 15 minutes.

If you think it should be measured in block time then the longest is CPH - MPL (GCD = 795 nm / 915 sm / 1473 km) which on a Cimber ATR72 is scheduled at 3 hours 50 minutes.


By way of contrast SOU - GVA (in terms of GCD) is only 409 nm / 471 sm / 758 km I would guess this would be around 1 hour 50 minutes.

Source: OAG MAX Feb 03

[richardhall99]

just reading on teletext travel (pg: 1717) that there will be will ten new routes from Southampton this summer. It mentioned that Skybus were starting from Southampton where are they flying too?

[parttimer]

right just to set any querying minds straight from someone thats in the know. before the addition of the extra 3 routes to cover those who buzzed off flybe were planning to operate as follows. on 146 (based at sou) will do sou-dub-sou-gva-sou-dub another dh8q400 also based at sou will do sou-bhd-sou-jer-sou-dub-sou-bhd-sou and the other dh8400 will be based in jer doing jer-sou-jer-sou-bgy-sou-jer-sou-jer we shouldn't have a problem with space as at the mo we have 7 nightstoppers and one dh8 goes when bacx pull the dub route so that will leave us with 8 nightstoppers for 9 reasonably useable stands. it also shouldn't mean more than 7 a/c at any one time during the busy periods. with regards to c/i desks we have 14 so should be able to bear the brunt without too much trouble.(providing we can find the staff from somewhere!!) as for the runway. with the 146 and q400 being pretty much designed for airports with disgustingly short runways we hope it wont be a problem but we shant hold our breath. (have not yet been able to take a full load on the atp to man due runway restrictions!) hope this helps????

[Buster the Bear]

Q400 and 146 low cost!

Once the starting fares are gone, what will FlyBe charging in 2 years time?

[Chris Gains]

Allegedly Q400 has a lower cost per seat mile than a 737……………If you can believe that! :rolleyes:

[surely not]

part timer, how do the Fly.be STD's fit with the BACitX? My recollection was that all the early morning pax arrived within 30 minutes of closure and the queues were spectacular on a monday morn and friday afternoon. Should be very interesting when you throw in the sumer charters and a couple fo a/c dlyd due tech or wx!!

Good luck to everyone, hope you get the staff you need as a handling agent.

[parttimer]

well there will be an extra a/c in the first rush at 5am (z) which will indeed mean more queues on a monday morning and more delays due inept de-icing in the winter (if they last that long) and then ourmain rush periods are 0830 1000 1400 1700 and 1900 so 2 extra a/c at 0930 one at 1100 1255 etc shouldnt cause too much hassle might just be at 0600 and 1700 that we have a problem but with the extra staff it should be just about bearable!

[Hydroforming Bushmaster]

parttimer

Do the new routes to Malaga, Toulouse and Murcia all operate using the same 146-200? The timings on the be.com website didn't quite fit a one a/c operation last time I looked.

[parttimer]

not too sure. you'll like this but we didn't know they were even going to ops it until the rest of the world knew. not even sure they're aware of what a/c they're using yet! they were originally just supposed to add nce bcn and tls but obviously thought they'd capitalise on buzz a the last minute. i'll find out tom if u wanna know!

[Hydroforming Bushmaster]

ta parttimer....not that I'm suspicious or anything but they seem to be happily taking punters' money before they have timings sorted

e.g. some of the booking systems (I use itn.net cos it shows the seats left in each class) show TLS and AGP but not MJV.

AGP still says in itn.net the rather nice timings for bucket n spaders of

BE1679 SOU1045-AGP1430
BE1678 AGP1055-SOU1240

while it has now changed on the be.com site to

BE1679 SOU0640-AGP1025
BE1678 AGP1055-SOU1240

which at least fits with

BE1705 SOU1330-TLS1615
BE1706 TLS1645-SOU1730

but not

BE1607 SOU1620-MJV1945
BE1608 MJV2020-SOU2155

unless they are pulling one of the previously mentioned services, are finding yet another a/c (thus double parking overnight?) or using smoke and mirrors. I can't see the MJV flight leaving SOU after 1800 as - even if the 146 doesn't fall to bits with overwork - it will not get back to SOU until midnight which presumably is a no-no.

[parttimer]

jesus, i relly don't know should be able to get my hands on some sort of schedule tom if they have one. at the mo the airfield shuts at 2130 so yes it would be a no no. spoken to some of the existing flybe crews that op our existing sou-gci routes and they say they have no idea where all these a/c are coming from which is slightly conerning. i should imagine it will be other dh8 q400's or 146's as they now onlyhave a few 300's and not too sure about the allocation of they're crj's. cos its all new nobodys seems too sure of anything. it's all a bit up in the air. bit of a dash 8 city at sou at the mo what with bacx and everything. nightmare!!!

[Wycombe]

.....aren't BEE supposed to pick-up more Q400's in exchange for their CRJ's (not sure of whether this is a done deal, or on timing). Earlier posts suggested this a/c could operate all the new routes, with block times not too different to the 146.

Parttimer... slightly off-topic (and apologies if you're not involved), but how's this Summer's (increased) charter programme at SOU looking (too early to say yet maybe)? Just thinking that falling bookings may lead to consolidation into the bases and consequent effect on SOU's ops?

Still, looks like it's going to be pretty busy at SOU this Summer :D