Until recently I think Bristol was a bigger base than Manchester. Not sure if it still is
 
Until recently I think Bristol was a bigger base than Manchester. Not sure if it still is
BRS should have been 18 based aircraft this summer - 10 x 320, 6 x 319, and 2 x 321 (thanks to Severn's post of a while ago for the fleet breakdown). For a long time BRS was easyJet's largest non-London UK base and the fifth in size of all the bases (LGW, LTN, MXP and - I think - GVA were bigger).

In recent years MAN has grown and I believe that this summer it might have been due to base the same number of aircraft as BRS, or possibly one or two more.

What has been clear for a while is that MAN was on course to overtake BRS at some point with the Covid problems throwing something else into the mix.
 
So on a Monday Bristol need more aircraft than Manchester ?
Correct. BRS will continue to be the larger base. There was a large expansion at MAN planned for this summer (pre-Covid), which may have seen more based aircraft at MAN than BRS (by 1 I think) but BRS was still to see more flights/seats each week partly because aircraft based at BRS can operate more flights per day due to it being further South, and also operate more domestic flights. I assume these plans of expansion have been put on hold indefinitely and BRS continues to be easyJets third largest UK base after LGW & LTN.

Since July and the return of easyJet, both MAN and BRS have required the same number of based aircraft (currently both require 14 to operate the schedule). However looking at the month of August, the weekly departures from MAN was lower than BRS. Below is the average number of weekly departures from easyJets UK bases during August:

LGW - lots
LTN - 309
BRS - 192
BFS - 183
MAN - 164
EDI - 144
LPL - 102
GLA - 102
STN - 71
NCL - 40
SEN - 28

and for interest, the largest non-bases
BHX - 32
JER - 28
 

With people like this around it's little wonder that the virus is beginning to spread again.

 
I spoke to our son this evening on the phone. He and his wife had a short break in Krakow last week. They flew out from BRS with easyJet on Thursday morning and returned with them at lunchtime on Sunday (yesterday).

Although he flies a lot for both business and leisure he is not interested in aviation for its own sake and can be critical when the mood takes him. However, this time he was very satisfied with the arrangements at the airport and on the aircraft.

They drove to BRS (a seven-mile journey from their home) and left their car in the Meet and Greet car park. They passed through the large tent outside the terminal that automatically records passengers' temperature. Check-in and security were easily accomplished and they were outside the Aspire lounge a few minutes before it opened at 5am. Once inside they found the service and food entirely acceptable for breakfast.

The aircraft was an A319 with a 0700 departure. He knew it was an Airbus but not much else (he's always telling me to stop being a nerd), and said it seemed to be full. I'd looked at the easyJet booking engine the night before and the flight was apparently full as it was no longer bookable. easyJet seems to have abandoned the 'sold out' label at the moment and merely shows no flight available.

The flight was typical easyJet according to him: nothing to complain about and nothing special either. Everyone seemed to be wearing masks or face coverings although some passengers resorted to exposing their nose and had to be reminded of the regulations by cabin staff.

Krakow Airport was a decent experience and they went into the city by taxi and returned the same way.

The return flight was on an A320 and was not completely full (this also accorded with the seat selector the evening before when about 85% of the available seating was taken).

Both flights were on time; in fact, the return landed over 15 minutes early. His only complaint was the time taken to pass through immigration at BRS with the egates taken out of service, presumably because of the virus.

Before they left the UK they printed forms that can be downloaded from the easyJet website to present to Polish officials on arrival. On return they had their trace details on their mobile phones for the information of UK officials.

They are off to Dalaman from BRS with TUI on Friday and are hoping not to be contacted by trace staff to tell them there were infections on their easyJet flights.

I've left this post in the easyJet thread rather than trip reports as it's relevant to the current virus situation.
 
A very very interesting read. Third most profitable base . I wonder pre COVID what easyJet’s plans were for Bristol ?
 
A very interesting read!!

A very very interesting read. Third most profitable base . I wonder pre COVID what easyJet’s plans were for Bristol ?
And the highest profit margin of all easyJet bases.

I knew the base was profitable - it would not have been subject to such growth had it not been so - but I didn't have any idea how it compared with the airline's other bases. The figures are gleaned from various sources and the deductions made might not be one hundred per cent accurate, but it's highly likely that they are in the right area given the provenance of the organisation publishing them.

No wonder easyJet has been so enthusiastic about building up BRS year after year. I remember that Barbara Cassani, CEO of GoFly, said that the BRS performance quickly exceeded the expectations of her airline and even that of the airport after it became Go's second base in 2001.

Given its small site, short runway, elevation, often unco-operative weather, challenging surface connectivity and stuck in the middle of the Green Belt it really is quite remarkable that the airport has been so successful. What would a bigger and better situated airport for the city region have achieved?

Still odd that if easyJet can make such a go (no pun, well not really) of things, and as the report points out the BRS easyJet network is similar to that of Gatwick with a wide mixture of domestic, leisure, sun, and business destinations, more traditional carriers don't give it a go on short-haul. There is little doubt that many of the 5-8 million South West passengers (sources vary) who use London airports, mainly LHR, each year come from the BRS catchment and use short-haul routes from the capital that are in existence at BRS but not always at the frequency, timings or days to suit.

It seems that easyJet's BRS plans were for more growth with the original basing this summer of two A321s some evidence of that, and had the pandemic not intervened 2021 would likely have grown further. They would though by then have had the airport's 10 mppa cap in sight which could have led to other considerations that are currently being discussed elsewhere on F4A.
 
There was a similar article regarding Ryanair and it’s bases a little while ago and Bristol was not mentioned at all. I wonder why Brs is so profitable for easyJet but not Ryanair ?
 
The a321s are not scheduled to be based at Brs post March however. Not sure why
 
The a321s are not scheduled to be based at Brs post March however. Not sure why
easyJet have put flights on sale all the way up until next summer, but it’s a carbon copy of previous summers so I would expect changes to aircraft based, routes and schedules before then.
They are still changing the schedule two weeks in advance currently so I wouldn’t judge the schedule next March yet!
 
All airlines could be hanging by a thread to be honest by the end of the winter season. I would think easyJet would be one of the safer ones. Far weaker ones out there. I’m not sure what the union rep hoped to achieve by leaking the recording which was not taken in context according to the bbc . It’s almost like he was talking himself out of a job
 
If easyJet was to disappear it has to be wondered which airlines would survive.

If the UK airline industry was decimated because of the pandemic and few airlines survived that would be bound to have a catastrophic effect on some airports, because those airlines that were left would naturally be looking to operate from airports that were the most profitable for them. With a smaller number of airlines there would not be enough aircraft to go around anyway to operate from the myriad of airports that abound in the UK.

They do seem to be taking a different approach to Jet2 and TUI at the moment. Although these other airlines are primarily holiday airlines easyJet too began to dip its toe into that water, yet it continues to operate half-empty or near-empty aircraft to countries subject to UK quarantine restrictions such as Spain. So too does Ryanair.

The BBC report suggests that the comment that has been leaked was a tactical ploy on the part of a union official aimed at his members. Whether or not that is so it is, as others have suggested, unhelpful for the airline as Mr and Mrs Pubic will read it and assume that easyJet really is on the brink and might be reluctant to book with them.

Looking purely from a BRS angle it might well be that if the profitability figures produced through anna.aero are correct the airport would be looked upon favourably if easyJet had to downsize considerably because of the pandemic effects.
 
Is the Easyjet winter schedule starting earlier this year. Have they scaled back flights from 1st Oct at Bristol?
 
Is the Easyjet winter schedule starting earlier this year. Have they scaled back flights from 1st Oct at Bristol?
A number of easyJet destinations from BRS have been removed for much of October including such places ad Paris (CDG and ORY), Amsterdam, Rome and Barcelona. Currently they and some of the others are back for the winter season (from the last week in October) but at reduced frequencies. This could all be altered again of course depending on pandemic circumstances.
 
The weekend arrivals from Malaga' Alicante and other Spain destinations was less than 50 per flight. One ALC flight was 10.
 
The weekend arrivals from Malaga' Alicante and other Spain destinations was less than 50 per flight. One ALC flight was 10.
That's been pretty common across easyJet airports to Spain from what I read. I don't know why easyJet (and Ryanair) didn't follow the example of Jet2 and TUI and suspend flights to Spain and other countries affected by UK quarantine.

I've periodically looked at the easyJet seat selector for Spanish flights and flights to other quarantined countries (not a hundred per cent guide but indicative nonetheless) and some have been showing no more that 30 occupied seats on the night before or in the morning for later flights that day.

easyJet must be losing a lot of money operating these sparsely-filled flights.
 

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