'Flybe to announce BRS hub on Wednesday'

[MerchantVenturer]

The Bristol Evening Post and HTV West News report today that flybe will announce a new 'hub' at BRS on Wednesday.

At present flybe fly from BRS to BHD and IOM and also code share with Air France Regional on the BRS-CDG route, but no aircraft are based at BRS.

The Evening Post states, "the new hub at Bristol will mirror the model of the airline's successful Southampton base."

If these august news organisations are well-informed about a BRS base it will be interesting to see the routes chosen, especially having regard to easyJet at BRS and flybe's own bases at nearby SOU and EXT (from next spring).

One might be EXT-BRS-MAN as flybe were reported recently as having gained four daily slots at MAN for EXT flights. Might make more sense to drop in at BRS on the way. ABZ is also no longer flown from BRS since BACx pulled the route.

I shall await Wednesday before being convinced though. Only about two months ago the BBC West TV business and industry correspondent announced confidently that Ryanair was going to expand its route network at BRS. Hasn't happened yet.

[sugarbird]

Oh no they're not.

My understanding is that the announcement has been postponed but no reason was given why or until when.

Any news on potential routes - mirroring Southampton/Birmingham would suggest Milan, Toulouse, Geneva, Salzburg and the Channel Islands among others. But how would that lie alongside the recently announced hub at Extere less than an hour away?

['PlaneHappy]

I hope that FlyBE's organic expansion occurs, although I have my reservations.

Once the carrier serves AGP, ALC and the like from EXT, I very much doubt that this will affect U2's operation from BRS. In fact, I suspect that EXT and BRS serve two different markets, even though they are close together. Surely EXT serves Devon, Cornwall and possibly Dorset, more so than the Bristol area, South Wales, parts of North Somerset and East Somerset? I'm not sure.

As a Devonian, it will be good to see FlyBE expand at BRS.

[Whispering Giant]

Sugar bird - 1 pity you cant spell, it's Exeter not Extere and
2 shame you cant get your facts right - the announcement and publicity event IS going ahead on Wednesday and we are even sending a Dash8-Q400 in as part of it.

W.G.

[Smokie]

When anybody mentions the word "HUB," it usually means basing a/c and crews there as well.

Flybe are struggling to crew SOU at the moment, as a fair few crews from other bases are continually spending 5-6 days at SOU.

I think it highly unlikely that creating a "HUB" at BRS will be on the cards for some while yet.

Unless of course they close down other bases such as :-
NCL, CDG, TLS, LYS.............;)

[Godfroi]

MerchantVenturer,

Or not so well informed newspaers it seems. I've never heard of a BRS-CDG codeshare with AF operated by flybe?

['PlaneHappy]

Incidentally, FlyBE is to start new routes from SOU to Chambery, Prague and Salzburg, the latter complementing the airline's new service (starting in October) from BHX.

[MerchantVenturer]

Godfroi,

The BRS-CDG route is operated by Air France Regional aircraft but flybe codeshares the route. BACx also competes on BRS-CDG with Air France/flybe.

BTW my comments about 'august news organisations' was made tongue-in-cheek. I rarely believe such reports until they happen.

Bristol Evening Post now announces that the announcement has been delayed 2-3 weeks for contracts to be finalised with the airport. Hmm.

'Planehappy,

I believe that at present BRS serves the whole southwest and many pax from the far southwest use the scheduled services especially, because EXT and PLH have none worthy of the name at present - this will change somewhat at EXT next spring with the new flybe base.

As to charters, again BRS serves many more destinations than EXT and also has a greater frequency on those served by EXT, therefore many pax from Devon and Cornwall use BRS.

One would expect this because BRS currently carries ten times more pax than EXT but its immediate catchment area is not ten times bigger than EXT's.

It is not a one-way thing though because on occasions people from the Bristol area use EXT charters and sched flights to the Channel Islands.

The same sort of thing applies to BRS and CWL where some Welsh people use BRS at times and some Bristol area people use CWL. It might be because of price, available flights, better flight times, personal reasons or preferences etc.

[Charlie Fox]

FlyBE., the UK’s fastest growing airline, today announces its intention to make Bristol a major centre for its low cost operations. It will launch daily flights to Toulouse from Bristol from 23 October. FlyBE. also plans to commence flights from March 2004 to Bordeaux, Bergerac and Murcia (subject to slot availability). Flights to Toulouse go on sale today. Flights to the other key destinations will be available for sale from October.

www.flybe.com

[MerchantVenturer]

I note the flybe statement in which they claim to be more reminiscent of Go than of the 'other low cost model at Bristol'. Doubtless this is in response to the comment still heard among some Bristol pax that they thought Go to be a bit more upmarket than easyJet or Ryanair.

I think if the fares and destinations are right most pax will happily move 'down market', so I am not sure whether flybe's concept is a winner in itself.

They also suggest that they will not duplicate many routes from BRS but might go head to head with easy on selected routes as they do at present with Belfast, albeit easy goes to BFS and flybe to BHD.

According to the Bristol Evening Post flybe will be using the Q 400 turbo prop on their flights from BRS, but the report also says that by 2005 flybe intends to have up to fifteen destinations from BRS.

There are of course Bristol aero connections with Toulouse and there is the ski market there as well. Bordeaux is one of Bristol's twin cities (of long standing) and Bergerac a possible winner for the 'owners abroad' trade. Murcia is a sun destination not flown by anyone else from BRS.

Interesting that at present flybe is not competing with easyJet on the mainstream sun destinations but going for the slightly more quirky routes that easy's 737s would probably be too big to fill from BRS. Neither are they duplicating any of their destinations to be commenced from EXT, apart from Murcia. A sensible move all round IMO.

['PlaneHappy]

It is a good to see FlyBE capture niche markets from airports already served by low-cost airlines, such as BRS.

I am quite surprised that the carrier is expanding so quickly, although concurrently very pleased.

For fun, I searched for BRS-TLS-BRS departing on October 28 and returning on October 29. Interestingly, the total fare was only £19.24, although the tax and charges was an amazingly high £38.76! :ooh: :sad:

[MerchantVenturer]

I believe strongly that the key to a successful route is good marketing, especially for services from regional airports where the general public is not always aware of what its local airport/airlines have to offer.

I am pleased to see that flybe are already advertising their new flights from BRS on the local HTV West television channel even though the routes do not commence until next year, apart from TLS which starts in October.

bmibaby impressed me when they started up at CWL because they had a major advertising push on HTV West as well as I presume on their local HTV Wales.

I think Go had a strong campaign when they commenced at BRS but I am not aware of much other airline advertising on local television in the Bristol area, although I do not watch that much tv.

[glynn-kayes]

personally i think flybe are expanding far too fast,with each new base comes start up costs which drains capital. its ok to have the money banked for reservations not yet taken but the daily costs soon eat into reserves, i hope that flybe dont trip up before they learn to walk

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I think the low cost boat sailed about 4 years ago now.

Good news for BRS airport and the travelling public though. Lets see more advertising getting more people into the habit of flying from the regions I say.

Wonder where they are going to park at night though?! The ramp at BRS is pretty tight these days...

WWW

[redfield]

WWW - you hit the nail on the head there! BRS is at capacity most nights at the moment. There's a plan afoot to move the general aviation ramp across to the south side along with the mail operation and then transform the W apron into additional parking stands. Hopefully this'll be done in time for the BE expansion and the rumoured U2 expansion next year.....

[MerchantVenturer]

As an interested supporter and user of local regional airports in south west England and south Wales I have often wondered how BRS would be able to expand to the oft-mentioned 8-13 million pax in the next ten to twenty-five years, given the constricted nature of the site. Particularly I wonder where all the space will come from to park the very significant increase in aircraft that would be necesary to expand as set out above.

I like BRS and think it a great facility for the region but why oh why have national and local governments down the years been scared to give the go-ahead to Filton to become a civil airport? A much bigger site, motorways and mainline railways on its doorstep, better weather record, longer runway, much easier to get to. It could be a truly European airport for the region with probably a few longer routes as well.

The answer of course is that there are far more potential NIMBYS in the region of Filton than Lulsgate (BRS).

[redfield]

The idea is to move the general aviation to the south side, then transform the general aviation and mail apron into parking stands. BRS can only take more aircraft of the same size, not larger aircraft. Unless they build another hill next door that is, and then fill in the valley in between!:D

[WHBM]

MerchantVenturer is right. Filton has everything to make a superb regional airport, except for political support (and a terminal). It would be far better than Lulsgate from all aspects.

But Filton happens to be surrounded by political marginal seats, and both main parties would never want to rock the boat there in case they became the focus for criticism, however misguided. Lulsgate and its approaches by contrast is in traditional Conservative country, regardless of what the government does.

Those with long memories from the late 1960s will recall how the Concorde project built at Filton was only kept on when all other national-scale projects were being cancelled because Tony Benn, then an important minister in Government (!) was a local MP with a marginal seat.

[MerchantVenturer]

WHBM,

The last shot at turning Filton into a civil airport was around 1996 when a public enquiry toook place into Bae's application to turn the field into a sort of London City in the west, albeit in a much bigger setting.

In the end the appropriate minister, one John Selwyn Gummer, turned down the application following the public enquiry. You are quite right of course, his main focus was on the marginal seats in the area rather than on the benefits an airport there would bring.

Didn't do him any good though because most of these seats went to Labour in the 1997 election.

Ironically Bristol City Council was offered Filton for a civil airport as far back as the mid 1950s, but turned it down in favour of moving to Lulsgate when they had to close the old Bristol Airport at Whitchurch because it had become too small for even the aircraft of that time.

Had they gone to Filton then there would have been no outcry, because NIMBYs, environmentalists and protest groups were a thing of the future. It makes you wonder how big Filton would be today if the City Council (never the most far-seeing body under any political colour) had moved their airport to the north of the city instead of to the south.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

It annoys me daily when I have to drive another 30 minutes past Filtons marvelous 100yd wide (!) runway to get to Lulsgates somewhat less accomodating strip of downhill tarmac.

Filton had the lot - Motorway interchange, rail hub and even a container port within spitting distance. Talk about integrated transport!

Shame - but the housing that was allowed to surround the airfield means that it'll never happen now.

So what they should do is sell Filton - with planning permission for housing - for, say, hmm, £180,000,000. then take this money and build a brand new airport the size of Manchester on that flat bit of farmland by the Severn bridge. Two 10,000ft runways, a spur to both the rail lines and motorway. Close Cardiff and Lulsgate or just give them over to GA and then concentrate on the new Bristol North/Servernside aiport. It could alleviate pressure on Heathrow whilst serving a very wide catchment area.

Operating costs would be tiny because a) it was built to the latest high tech spec, and b) no money was borrowed for it because Filton paid for it all.

Let the council keep ownership and hey presto the profits can be used to provide a discount for Bristols council tax payers.

Everybody wins!

Cheers

WWW

[Golf Charlie Charlie]

WWW, I am on your side, but I think you'll find that 180 million is a drop in the ocean to pay for that kind of vision.....

[LGS6753]

GCC
Yes, although £180,000,000 is almost an afternoon's pay to some readers, it would buy about half a Stansted terminal (built 10 years ago), or a Luton Terminal + 9 stands and some taxiways.

Sadly, it's not enough for WWW's vision.

[MerchantVenturer]

WWW,

If only!!

On a practical note, because of Greater Bristol's particularly arcane system of local government, neither Lulsgate nor Filton is actually within the city of Bristol. Filton lies within the unitary authority of South Gloucestershire and Lulsgate within the unitary authority of North Somerset. And of course Bristol City Council no longer owns Lulsgate Airport.

Incidentally, it was reported today that the government has called for more financial detail into the application submitted earlier this year for a Severnside Airport near Newport.