Rumour: bmibaby to launch Manchester & Teesside to Cardiff

[Simon Lumley]

Ga ga ga ga ga!!!!!!!!

According to bmi baby news on 'Internet Explorer' on my mobile, bmibaby are to launch new services both from Cardiff to Manchester and Cardiff to Teesside, but don't know of frequencies - I assume it would be twice daily at least to begin with on each route.

But this news is not available on their website as yet so I'm assuming they will launch within a few weeks or so.

If anyone can shed any light.

Cheers.:hmm: :hmm: :hmm: :hmm: :hmm: :hmm: :hmm: :hmm:

[MerchantVenturer]

Simon,

The CWL-MAN route has been tried by at least two carriers at various times during the past 6-10 years. It has not proved viable. From memory I believe it was one of Air Wales' original routes a year or two ago. The cities are not so far apart by land and I wonder whether a 737 would be too big anyway.

As for MME-CWL I really cannot see a market, unless they want to try to interfere in some way with easyJet's new BRS-NCL route starting next month. This has already had the effect of axing the BA Citiexpress BRS-NCL operation from this coming autumn.

Still, baby does seem to go for some unusual options at times, not all of which succeed, so I would not put any money against CWL-MAN or CWL-MME or even both. I wonder if baby did try CWL-MAN whether easy would retaliate with BRS-LPL.

[Buster the Bear]

I suppose if you are being subsidised to fly these new routes then it becomes viable?

When the grants stop, you either continue the route of go for another?

Lots of EU development money around, I think Now are using some to help with thier route development from Luton (According to local press at thier launch anyway).

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I've wondered about BRS-LPL - its a heck of a drive these days with the dreaded M5/M6 stationary section. Not heard any rumours though.

WWW

[fadec_primary_channel]

That's the key to it, the roads are beyond a joke with congestion apart from the 2am-5am slot. With traffic tolls on lorries projected to come in and giving a discount for night travel, this gap may dissapear.

Either way, I would pay to fly as most prices will be less than the cost of driving. Very convenient if you are only needing to get to the airport, more cost if you need to travel after arriving.

One to watch I suppose.

FPC:)

[MerchantVenturer]

WWW,

We would use BRS-LPL. We often drive to our daughter's house near Chester and it is a pig of a journey by road. I always arrive trying to conceal my bad temper after a usually frustrating ride.

The rail alternative is not direct either. Daughter could easily pick us up at Speke, sorry John Lennon.

Cannot remember a BRS-LPL in modern times. Whether Cambrian Airways ever did it in the 50s/60s, or the likes of Railway Air Services before WW II I am not sure.

Brymon then Citiexpress tried BRS-MAN is recent times but the one lunchtime rotation a day was not a success. It was one of the BRS-ABZ flights routed via MAN instead of NCL.

[Golf Charlie Charlie]

Merchant

Pretty sure Dan Air flew a combined Liverpool to Cardiff and Bristol service way back in the 1960s and into the early 1970s with DC-3s, possibly followed later by Nord 262s for a while.

[ALLMCC]

tend to agree with earlier posts that Bmi Baby do pick some strange routes - one can't help but wonder if they are adopting the Easyjet strategy of starting a route simply because nobody else serves it with little consideration being given to whether anyone will actuallly use it - a prime example of this is MME - BFS due to start in October - this sector has been tried many times both to BFS and BHD and failed every time.

Other threads in this forum refer to baby's reduction in routes from EMA and one wonders if this is the start of their eventual withdrawal from EMA - could it be that there is some animosity between BMI and Baby management in the direction Baby is taking bearing in mind that the 2 airlines are supposedly meant to complement each other not compete? - is BMI's reinstatement of EMA- BRU possible evidence of this.

[MerchantVenturer]

Thanks GCC.

I think you are right. In the 1960s the main airlines serving BRS were Dan Air, Cambrian and Aer Lingus and there weren't many of their flights either.

[flower]

I believe one of the reasons the Air Wales flight to manchester didn't succeed was due to the type of aircraft involved, that was the rumour at the time.

Think a Newcastle or Teeside would work though.

[onion]

Right people let me put u straight on a few things about Teesside.
1> They have a bigger catchment area than Newcastle
2> The Belfast in the past was done by the wrong people with the wrong aircraft e.g. Gill Air (which incidentally was a Newcastle based airline) with short 360
3> Teesside has the largest army camp in europe only 20miles down the road so plenty of business for the Belfast route
4> Teesside being an airport owned previously by several councils never got any development coz none could agree with each other
5> never recieved any government or EU help
6> It is spelt TEESSIDE

so will u all get off there backs, I bet many of u don't even have jobs in the aviation business and so u can slag off people as u like but there are peoples lively hoods u are having a go at. Why can't any of u b happy that something has finally happend that is good news for an area of the North East and Yorkshire that is at the moment down in the dumps!:*

[Red Four]

Dont let them worry you onion, it must be NV makes them say such things.:D

[Mr A Tis]

Baby's winter scedule has only just been published and there is definitely nothing about a MAN - CWL service, very unlikely.
In the old days Dan-Air used to operate Nord 262 and 748s NT-CC-FF along with HH-BB-CC-NT route. Nobody has taken up the the MAN-NCL route vacated by Gillair, the SH33 was always pretty full despite fairly high fares.

[MerchantVenturer]

onion,

I'm always pleased when any new routes start up at any airport, including MME.

I can empathise with your comments about lack of government funding for MME. There does seem to be curious logic applied at times in the matter of public money, whether in aviation or in other fields. Some places are 'haves' - others are 'have nots', but for no obvious reason at times.

I hope that MME does go from strength to strength and just because because I cast doubt on one suggested route does not mean I have a 'down' on MME or the region.

Anyway, it will probably mean that a MME-CWL would be a success because I could not see how FR's STN-NQY route could possibly work, especially in winter, but apparently it has.

Good luck to MME and all who work in aviation there. If CWL-MME does get off the ground I will pay Teesside a visit. I am already due to visit Newcastle with easyJet's new BRS-NCL service that starts next month.

[ALLMCC]

Sorry onion - maybe my post came across as a criticism of Teesside which wasn't intended - the point I was trying to make was that Newcastle always seems to be favoured in any developments in the NE. In truth, my gripe is really why any airline would want to introduce a new route which has failed before for whatever reason and particularly to Belfast International

BFS is fast becoming a joke to many - it is around 15 miles from the city it is supposed to serve, has poor surface connections (it can frequently take 1 hour to access from Belfast), an antiquated 40 year old terminal building which, despite attempts to modernise, still looks as if its out of another era. If anyone wants to try MME to Belfast, why not use Belfast City - similar sized regional airport, virtually new terminal building, soon to be resurfaced runway and updated aids, forward looking new owners (Ferrovial), 2 miles form Belfast city centre, need I go on!

I do hope Teesside emerges from the shadow of NCL and, with proper investment and support, I'm sure it will.

[civil aviation]

With its ability (to lose money) bmibaby must be looking at new ways to grab grants, with the help of the Taffia. If not (and rumour is that Cardiff cash cow is running dry) they may soon be running away from Wales, rather than to MAN.

[TwinAisle]

1. Why do you say WW is losing money?
2. For an airline that you reckon is about to leave CWL, they have an awful lot of full planes....

Do you work for Air Wales? You must work for some of Baby's competition, all you do is knock them....

TA

[MerchantVenturer]

TwinAisle,

I am glad to hear you say that many of the WW 'planes at CWL are full because, whereas easyJet and Ryanair give regular load factor reports, bmibaby do not seem to do the same thing, not that I can find anyway.

I realise that load factors are only part of the profitability equation but it would be nice to have an idea.

When CWL announced baby's 100,000th passenger through their airport back in the winter I did a calculation based on the available baby seats during that period from CWL and arrived at an approximate load factor of under 50% (somewhere around 47% from memory).

I have to add that I took the date of the 100,000th passenger to be the date it was announced on the web site - it seemed to be a fairly current report at that time. If the event had occurred sometime before the announcement then the load factors would have been correspondingly higher. I also assumed 148-seat B 733s whereas I believe that baby also have the smaller 735s but I don't know if these operate out of CWL. I have only ever seen 733s on the limited occasions I have seen baby's CWL a/c, but I am not a regular visitor or user at CWL.

I know the airline had only just started its operation from CWL at that time and it was also the winter period. Services need time to build and from what you say they are doing so successfully now.

I'm not quite sure what is meant by the 'Cardiff cash cow'. I heard somewhere that the Welsh Development Agency had contributed to baby's start-up costs at CWL. I understand development agencies are permitted to so this sort of thing - hasn't the Eastern England Development Agency done something similar with Now at Luton?

What I thought was more sensitive and potentially controversial was the subsidising of particular routes. Again I believe this is permitted under stringent guidelines but I was not aware of any of WW's routes out of CWL being subsidised. Indeed, are anyone's routes out of CWL subsidised?

As always I wish WW well, as I do all airlines.

[flower]

Cardiffs terminal is always heaving these days since the arrival of BMI, all the ski flights have been fully booked , so much so that they are having to look at increasing the number of flights to accomodate the number of people who wish to fly.

You don't become the fastest growing regional airport in terms of passengers if your aircraft are empty folks , and Cardiff is the fastest growing regional airport in the UK at the moment
:ok:

[Little Blue]

Trust me////
The load factor ex-CWL is thru the roof
No probs ex CWL...The cow is filling up nicely, thank u very much !!
;) ;)

[civil aviation]

Ignore the East Midlands Front and fans on here because no-one has contradicted the bmibaby losing money rumour.
Their load factor is, also, a mystery.
Fastest growing regional airport, even if true, does not mean any airline operating at Cardiff is making money.
It is not difficult to sell things for next to nothing- although locos are discovering that consumers are saturated with and sick of their dodgy offers. They're clued-up, also, about avoiding inconvenient airports (e.g. Aldergrove) when there are better alternatives.

I have and have had no employment, direct or indirect, related to the aviation world, in which the bull**** is truly astonishing but, therefore, rarely convincing. I'm not saying that bmibaby is any worse than the others but, if only for amusement, any airline in South Wales is worth watching

[flower]

Civil aviation ,
I don't usually rant and rave back at people but im afraid you have made me angry.
Why do people think its amusing to laugh at Wales so much ,I find it rather insulting.

We are the fastest growing regional airport like it or not , its in all the Aviation Press and has been announced as such through all the normal channels.

The people of Wales deserve the same opportunities to fly at low cost as the rest of the UK , we are not second class citizens and the uptake of passengers obviously shows what we have always known, place the product at the right place in the right market and it will sell.

An increase month on month of 100 000 pax is dammed good and cannot be thought of as bad at any angle.

[TwinAisle]

Flower

I'm with you on this. Come on CA - why don't you try and book on a baby flight out of Cardiff, and look at the full terminal, and the nice load on the flight? If you don't want to do that, stand at the perimeter fence and count the folks getting on - the sum for load is easy, total pax/total seats.

In terms of making money - do you think they would be putting on a second flight to GVA this winter if the first (which has sold out virtually 100%) was losing dosh?

Give you a clue - the answer's "no".

Good luck to all the airlines at Cardiff - and to CWL itself, which as Flower as pointed out, is the fastest growing regional airport - which might have something to do with passenger numbers!

TA

[MerchantVenturer]

Reading the various posts on this forum has left me thoroughly confused as to how baby really is doing at CWL

On the one hand we have some glowing testimonies about full aircraft and extra flights being considered, whilst on the other hand we have been told that baby’s capacity has been reduced by 25% at CWL this winter - see thread on this forum headed, 'bmibaby winter 2003/4 schedule reveals massive capacity cut at East Midlands'.

I have checked the web timetable and it appears that the Munich and Bergamo flights have been chopped. In addition frequency has been reduced compared to last winter on the Alicante and Jersey (four per week instead of daily on these two routes) and Malaga (four per week instead of five). On the plus side, compared to last winter, there are to be two flights to Palma each week (none last winter but daily this summer), a weekly flight to Toulouse (continuing from this summer). two daily flights to Paris Cdg (continuing from this summer and replacing the BA flights of last winter) and a new four times a week service to Cork which I hope will do well without having a detrimental effect on Air Wales.

Finally there is also advertised one weekly flight to Geneva (there were two last winter), but we have been told in this thread that demand is such that a second flight is being contemplated. Well, I would hope so because the flight or flights is/are only scheduled for the short ski season which is from December until the end of March. Given that last winter CWL only had two other weekly ski flights, charters to Innsbruck and Chambery, I would be very worried if there was not sufficient demand for at least two weekly baby flights to Geneva. By comparison last winter BRS had thirteen weekly ski flights, including four to Geneva, albeit they had no official scheduled flights to ski destinations, but there is little difference to the average punter, except perhaps or perhaps not in price, between a weekly ski flight operated by say Britannia and a weekly flight operated by say bmibaby to the same destination.

All this still leaves me with a mixed message about baby. If the flights are doing so well, why reduce capacity on some, even on last winter’s schedule, and discontinue others? Is this a crafty marketing ploy whereby baby will suddenly announce that because of increased demand they are going to put on extra flights, but in reality will then return to the same number as last winter? I don’t know.

As to CWL being the UK’s current fastest growing airport, I have no doubt this is true. Invariably the arrival of a low cost airline will stimulate growth at any airport, and where one has a relatively low base that growth will be enormous in percentage terms, which is how such airports claim this ‘title’. A couple of years ago BRS had the crown following Go’s arrival there, and expect tiny EXT to feature prominently next year when its current third of a million annual pax total is boosted to over half a million by the arrival of Flybe – a massive increase in percentage terms. On the other hand an extra million pax at somewhere like BHX will be a much lower growth figure in percentage terms than an extra million at somewhere like CWL.

[flower]

I would suggest that the reasons for changes maybe to do with experience and customer demand.

So some routes did well and some didn't so lets adjust the frequency and try to get it right.

This isn't a perfect science.

I just see point scoring going on here from people outside of Wales and find it strange, when Bristol really took off in terms of growth I didn't sit there sniping I thought great, likewise should Exeter succed with its low cost then surely that to is something to welcome.

Our Regional airports should be where the growth is, the airspace over the South East is so overcrowded. Stop the sniping and start welcoming the choice of Airports.

[MerchantVenturer]

flower,

I am sorry you regard what I thought was a serious post as mere sniping. I am seeking genuine answers.

If you have read some of my posts in other threads you will understand that I am fully committed to local airports, especially those in the south west of England and south Wales, an area that particularly interests me.

I am a great supporter of 'my' airports (BRS, BOH, CWL, EXT, PLH, NQY, SOU and now of course Swansea) and am always pleased to see extra services and routes from any of them. Like you I believe that these airports can service a local need as well as taking just a little of the strain from the crowded south east.

On occasions though I like to try to satisfy myself that what we are being told is true. If one doesn't ask questions, one will never learn anything. I'm not having a go at Wales just because on this occasion my query relates to CWL.

In the past I have queried easyJet's performance at BRS, I hope in a positive and not negative way. In fact on another forum someone then accused me of being anti low cost airlines. I am not. I love them and fly on them whenever I can.

I hope that WW is doing very well at CWL and continues to do so. We are very lucky living in the Bristol area because if BRS cannot fulfil our needs then CWL, EXT, and even BHX and LHR are good alternatives. No, I don't want to see CWL or WW falter - far from it.

[Golf Charlie Charlie]

I must say, seeing Merchant Venturer's list there of eight airports in the southwestern quadrant of the UK, it does bring home rather starkly the reasons why not all of these airports will be able to support low-cost services or any services to a material degree. This area of the country, taken together, just cannot support profitable services, given the fragmented geography, the less dense population and the road distances involved, so this does rather explain the rivalry and competition, and probably the dis/mis-information being put about by operators and the changes in their services. I have no further answer, but, as they might say in Private Eye, "that's enough airports, Ed".

By the way, I always thought that Liverpool had been the fastest growing airport in the UK for a couple of years running, around 2000 and 2001 anyway.

[MerchantVenturer]

GCC,

There are a lot of airports in the area, although PLH is very small and physically incapable of expanding significantly. NQY is also small but now has Ryanair linking it to Stansted.

EXT and BOH are about the same size at present, although EXT will increase to over half a million annual pax next year with Flybe, and all the rumours about a loco setting up at BOH will mean good growth there as well in the forseeable future.

SOU is technically outside the South West Government Region but it inter-relates with parts of the region. It is, I believe, either through the million annual pax barrier or very close to it and will get well past it in the coming months with Flybe's large operation there.

BRS was the first airport in this region and in South Wales to become a loco base (Go in 2001) and carried just over 3.5 million pax last year and appears on track for the forecasted 4 million this year.

In South Wales CWL suffered, many believe unfairly and I would not argue with that, with the pullout of BA Citiexpress, but now that bmibaby has arrived and Air Wales is increasing routes it is very much on the up. I repeat that I sincerely hope it is because I regard it as a very important part of air travel in the two adjacent regions that interest me. CWL should get well past 2 million pax this year and hopefully will go on increasing its pax numbers in subsequent years. Swansea is now developing as an important small local airport for West Wales and of course has Air Wales based there.

Both CWL and EXT have longer runways than BRS and better weather records, and are very useful to BRS when the dreaded Bristol fog and mist appears, mainly in the winter, and aircraft have to divert. They still do because BRS's Cat III landing system is only operational on the western runway (for technical reasons it cannot work on the reciprocal eastern runway). Furthermore many of the smaller regional jets are not Cat III equipped anyway.

So, and I may be being a touch naive, from the public's point of view I regard all these airports as complementary and almost part of a team offering services to a wide range of destinations. I hope and believe there is room for them all to develop in their own ways.

As to your point about LPL, I believe it was the fastest growing UK regional airport during the period you mentioned, but the BRS management kept saying their's was during most of the last financial year. I do not regard this sort of thing as being very important although it makes a good local headline.

[Silkman]

Onion

Good first post and welcome to PPRune !
I agree with your comments entirely about Teesside. I recently oversaw a short series of business flights through MME for an American customer. I originally looked at NCL but found a less than welcoming attitude from some individuals there. I then looked at Teesside and found the complete opposite, they could'nt have done more for us. A very freindly and professional outfit. (and they had some of the best looking young ladies I have ever seen working there ! ;) :D

[TwinAisle]

For those who want some baby metrics.....

bmibaby boom continues as low cost airline bucks national trend (http://www.bmibaby.com/bmibaby/en-gb/sectiondetails.aspx?p=4&Rid=190)

See? Told you they were looking good!

TA

[stalling attitude]

but are they managing to buck the national trend and raise their yields.i dont think any of the low costs are having trouble getting bums on seats but they are struggling to get them to pay more for the seat.

[brabazon]

I'm not sure if bmibaby can claim "My Baby Still Cares for Me" when this happens:

We were due to return from Toulouse with BMIbaby on a flight at 7-20pm, they delayed us for five hours and then cancelled our flight and left us stranded in Toulouse at 1am. They did not provide accommodation for us and refused to find us alternative flights. They are also refusing to compensate us and will not pay for the alternative flights that we had to find ourselves to get home. I would never fly with them again and would not recommend them to anyone. The way we were treated was appalling.

Source Skytrax web-site

I was at Toulouse waiting for the East Midlands flight which did at least leave - if 5 hours late. Some Cardiff passengers were offered the chance to change to the EMA flight, but they would have to pay for a taxi to take them to Cardiff from EMA (!).

Things do go wrong, but it's the way it's handled that is critical - this was a PR disaster for them and they are unlikely to see those passengers again.

[TwinAisle]

Hate to break this to you all.... but baby is a low-cost operator.

This means that you have a choice. You can travel with the likes of BA or AF, and you will know that they have quite a few spare aircraft, and a strong local support network at every station. In addition, your fare will be inflated with a sort of insurance premium that they have included, that will help pay for all the taxis, meals, hotels and other goodies that their punters will need if it all goes wrong.

Alternatively, you can travel low cost. THIS MEANS THAT - if things do go adrift, you cannot demand hotels, onward travel, meals etc etc. That is the whole point. Low costs agree to transport you between the points you have agreed with them as close as possible to the times you agree - but to give you low prices, you have to accept that not every eventuality is going to be covered at the airline's expense - you don't get owt for nowt, and there really is no such thing as a free lunch (or dinner, or taxi, or hotel).

Personally, I have had no trouble at all with baby on my 20-odd trips with them - but if I did, I am prepared to put up with it, since I am paying pence compared with what BA used to stiff me for out of Cardiff.

I quote from baby's conditions of carriage, to which you agreed when you bought the ticket....

"If we cancel a flight, fail to operate a flight reasonably according to the schedule or, fail to stop at your destination, we shall, at your option, either:

9.2.2.1 carry you at the earliest opportunity on another of our scheduled services on which space is available without additional charge and, where necessary, extend the validity of your Ticket; or

9.2.2.2 within a reasonable period of time re-route you to the destination shown on your Ticket or an alternative destination acceptable to you by our own services without additional charge.; or

9.2.2.3 make a refund in accordance with the provisions of Article 10.2.

9.2.3 Upon the occurrence of any of the events set out in Article 9.2.2, except as otherwise provided by the Convention, the options outlined in Article 9.2.2.1 through 9.2.2.3 are the sole and exclusive remedies available to you and we shall have no further liability to you."

It sounds as though this is what they did....

You can't have baby fares and expensive service - but you can buy delay insurance at your expense....

TA

[EastMids]

If baby are doing so well, why is it I've been told by a fairly reliable source that the bmi have refused to allow baby to acquire two more 737s...? With lease rates currently being fairly attractive, I'd have thought that if baby was doing so well adding two more airplanes would be a bit of a no-brainer. The suggestion that fleet expansion has been put on hold also seems to justify the reduction in service from East Mids this winter - the capacity is needed to launch MME services.

Andy

[MerchantVenturer]

I read the bmibaby link and am a bit confused about one point, where they say that the baby CWL-AGP route is outperforming the easyJet BRS-AGP route.

Baby has one rotation a day to AGP from CWL whereas easyJet has two rotations a day from BRS to AGP. Does this mean the baby a/c is carrying more pax each day than the two easyJet aircraft combined?

Furthermore, does the fact that only the AGP route has been highlighted by baby mean that the other common loco routes from BRS and CWL (to EDI,GLA, BFS, ALC and PMI) are being outperformed by easy over baby? I know GLA is about to be replaced by PIK from CWL.

I know figures can mean virtually what you want them to mean but I would like to know how baby measures its figures.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I find that EZY BRS-AGP goes at least twice daily all year round and that the loads are very high.

I'd be amazed if BMI Baby are shifting more people in and out of AGP to CWL than EZY are in and out of BRS. Not that I know, but I really would be amazed.

I think thats the only proper measure.

Perhaps their single daily loads are phenomenal and thats what they meant.

Not sure why they dropped ALC if AGP is doing so well. The two are very very similar, basically shifting property or timeshare owners, and their friends/relations, in and out of the Costa del Sol/Costa Blanca; with a sprinking of independent holiday makers thrown in.

Perhaps South Walians have a thing for the Costa del Sol and not the Costa Brava...?

I counted 3,500 UK registered seats on the ground in AGP two Sundays ago during a pretty sharp turnaround. It really is scary how many Brits go through that place every year.

Cheers

WWW

[MerchantVenturer]

WWW,

Thanks for that insight.

From a pax point of view I hope that baby is doing well at CWL in the same way of course that I hope that easyJet continues to do well at BRS.

Both airports are fairly accessible to a large common catchment area, but I am sure you know that far better than me.

I think both cities need good airports and I am a firm believer in regional airports anyway.

[TwinAisle]

MV

I read the baby figures as being based on load. My guess is that baby are getting 90%+ (if not even higher) on the CWL-AGP with their service. Baby are doing it daily, easy twice daily, so it is quite conceivable that baby have higher loads (the basis of the claims in the article), but easy is flying more people.... in fact, logically, easy will be flying more people iof they get more than half the load of baby, which I think is probably likely!

Looks like they're both doing well, so good news all round - long may they all prosper.

Re: the ALC from CWL.... I really wouldn't read much into the "cuts" in service from Cardiff.... consider the following, which are accepted wisdom...

1. baby was set up to take the 13 737s from bmi mainline.
2. baby now has them all.
3. bmi made a nasty loss last year, so is unlikely to want to buy any more aircraft, either for itself or for its subsidiaries.
4. As a lo-co, baby is going to be very loath to take on A320s, A321s or any of the other goodies that bmi have.
5. baby has grown very strongly, and is having to spread its assets around a little.

Looks to me as tho baby is deploying its assets in a way most geared to making money, given the constraints it has. My guess is that, whilst I am sure the CWL-ALC was nicely in the black, you could make more on CWL-PMI in the winter, or MAN-PMI or wherever - so that is what they have done.

I award them the TwinAisle prize for outstanding competence in Airline Management!!

TA

[small4]

When discussing load factor, I would agree with the statement that ' you can make figures mean almost anything'.

I note that most 'Baby' 737's I see in Spain are -500's which will, for a given number of pax, always give a higher load factor than a -300.

[jbird11]

Yes I agree, I think MME has had far too many people run it down over the years. Although it is a small airport it has a hugh catchment area, I used to commute on the MME-LHR route and saw how busy the airport can be for the few destinations that operated out of there at the time. I am so pleased that BMI baby have made a excellant decision to open up their fourth base at MME. I am certain that their flts will be busy and will them all the success, at last MME is opening up again.:D

['PlaneHappy]

On a different note, wasn't the non-stop service between LPL and STN successful? I believe it had virtually full loads, although it ceased after a relatively short time. Does anyone know why?

WWW - I flew AGP-BRS last summer and I'm quite sure it was virtually full.

Cheers for offering a good service. :)

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I believe the LPL - LUT service had a lot to do with LPL being a new base and they were feryying aircraft to and from it out of LPL. Someone had the bright idea of offering the empty ferry seats for sale and they found they sold really well.

After a time LPL became properly established with its own aircraft so the route was cancelled.

Thats what I've been told but it could be an old wives tale.

I do have a hunch though that more domestic pairings would pay. The road and rail network is now so grindingly bad that I get the impression regional domestic flying is on the up.

BRS to LPL for example takes over 5 hours of hard driving any time of the week or over £100 to the train companies. Probably not a big enough route for a lo-co 737 operations but the turboprop commuter airlines should be doing very nicely these days. Doesn't seem to be happening though.

Cheers

WWW

['PlaneHappy]

Thanks, WWW.

Do you know what the loads were like on U2's LPL-LTN-LPL service?

[Ringwayman]

I'm sure dwlpl will correct me but I thought it was because they claimed they could use the aircraft more profitably doing other routes even though loadings were high.

[dwlpl]

:O Ah fame/infamy at last!


Ringwayman: I'm sure dwlpl will correct me but I thought it was because they claimed they could use the aircraft more profitably doing other routes even though loadings were high

WWW: I believe the LPL - LUT service had a lot to do with LPL being a new base and they were feryying aircraft to and from it out of LPL. Someone had the bright idea of offering the empty ferry seats for sale and they found they sold really well.

The reason easyJet gave at the time (must be the first time Ringwayman and myself agree on this BB) was that they could make more money flying other routes from Liverpool other than the Liverpool/Luton service.

The aircraft swaps by easyJet between its Liverpool and Luton bases brought into being the LPL/LTN route and it was started on 1st October 1999 and was ended on 24th March 2001. In the last 15 months of its 18 month life span the route carried 246,575 pax. A very good total I think you will agree. There were no more than 21 return flights per week. The routes that they flew more rotations on after the demise of the LPL/LTN service where to Amsterdam, Malaga, Palma and Belfast Int. Indeed the Liverpool to Belfast Int route is now the best (and sixth best overall) non-London domestic route for passengers carried annually. The route uplifted 544,801 passengers in 2002 and so far this year is carrying 29% more passengers than last year.

As for based aircraft, easyJet first based one aircraft at Liverpool in the winter of 1998. They currently have seven based 737's at Liverpool Airport.

Moving onto domestic routes. Liverpool has currently NO domestic mainland routes. An appalling fact in itself but when you consider that the train service from the city is disgraceful it makes matters even worse!

Things re domestic air service wise, I believe, will resolve itself to some degree sooner rather than later. ;)