Bristol: EasyJet Route News & Base Updates

[Marko1]

There are 18 scheduled departures first thing on Mondays and Thursdays from June so I suspect some new routes and greater frequencies on existing routes are in the pipeline. I read somewhere today that easyJet is focussing on Greece and Turkey so perhaps we may see a route or two there.

 

[Sherburnflyer92]

There are 18 scheduled departures first thing on Mondays and Thursdays from June so I suspect some new routes and greater frequencies on existing routes are in the pipeline. I read somewhere today that easyJet is focussing on Greece and Turkey so perhaps we may see a route or two there.

Not surprised when Spain has lost their heads over all this covid crap. Children have to be double vaccinated to enter the country even though they are no threat to anyone. I suspect that'll be reversed once the Spanish realise the damage they are doing to their own tourism industry - I mean Christmas statistics alone should prove what a disaster such move was.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The easyJet CEO offers some optimism regarding Spain and his airline. Whilst this not the thread to debate the pandemic and its causes and effects per se the actions of governments obviously have an important bearing on many things, with travel - particularly air travel - adversely affected.

BRS, perhaps surprisingly given its size, has long been one of easyJet's most important bases and, according to a well-known aviation analytical forum, was one of the airline's most profitable bases pre-pandemic. Given that the airport has apparently been an excellent investment for its owners it seems to be a situation that suits both parties.

If the report quoted in my post #2,102 is correct, and its sources seem sound, easyJet intends to continue its BRS growth, perhaps even increase the rate.

That's interesting given Jet2's arrival.

Is easyjet attempting to further cement its dominant position at the airport or is it more a response to Jet2? With Ryanair and TUI also major presences easyJet might be flexing its muscles in the face of all its competitors which includes the newcomer Wizz Air at CWL.

Growth now and next year would also put easyJet in a strong position if BRS loses its planning appeal and is stuck with a 10 mppa planning cap indefinitely. It's likely that once the pandemic ceases to play a part in restricting air travel that the current operators at BRS would already generate 10 mppa between them.

 

[Marko1]

Geneva increases to 5 daily on sat and sun in March

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Geneva increases to 5 daily on sat and sun in March

For the several ski seasons prior to the pandemic easyJet's GVA schedule was 21 rotations per week including 5 on Saturdays and 4 on Sundays, with a sixth rotation on Saturdays operated by easyJet Switzerland some years around the February half term.

Currently it's 20 rotations per week with Saturday reduced to four. From March it will be 22 rotations per week. Looking at many of the fares for early March they seem to be anticipating a decent take-up. Some of the weekend fares for that period are over £200 per sector with most over £100.

By coincidence I looked at the seat selector last night for the four outbound easyJet GVA flights today. The first three on 320s were showing a take-up in the region of 85%-90%. Only the last one on a 319 was lower - around 70%. TUI also had their regular GVA charter today too.

All this suggests that the ski season might have a late revival although some of the other easyJet flights to ski destinations today were showing lower seat take-up, but still respectable given all the attendant circumstances.

The four outbound flights tomorrow (all on 320s) currently show seat selector load factors of 91%, 93%, 93% and 69% respectively.

 

[Severn]

An acquaintance departed Bristol yesterday bound for Israel…. with easyJet!

For a while I thought I’d missed an easyJet route announcement or wondered if this person had meant another airport or carrier maybe?

Through social media I saw they were boarding an easyJet A321 at BRS and worked out this flight was heading to LYS… the plot thickens…

It turns out they were telling the truth and using the easyJet booking engine you can book BRS to TLV via LYS.

Would be interesting to learn how many passengers are using easyJet (and Ryanair) services to connect onto another flight? Having said that, there’s not too many easyJet destinations that aren’t available from Bristol - and I’m sure TLV is high on the list of destinations that the airport would like to be served.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The journey lengths can be horrendously long.

I did a couple of test bookings for New York in June. The first was to JFK which would take me via Barcelona and the Azores with the last two sectors on Azores Airlines. The fare wasn't too bad but the journey time was 30 hours!

The second was to Newark which took me via Paris Orly with ORY-EWR on La Compagnie. The fare looked a bit steepish, over £2,000 one-way, until I remembered that La Compagnie is an all-business class airline. This journey too was around 30 hours.

I checked a short-haul route, Malta, which would have been via a connection at Milan MXP. The one-way fare wasn't so bad but the flight length was 23 hours. I remember checking Malta a couple of months ago in the booking engine to find there were several days a week shown. I thought I had missed an announcement only to find all the flights were with easyJet's Worldwide connections.

There are short-haul routes not available direct from BRS that have shorter overall flight lengths but they can still be two or three times the length of a non-stop flight.

I tried a test booking for Tel Aviv and picked 21 February at random and found there were seven flight options that day from BRS involving changes at Geneva, Amsterdam, Berlin or Paris CDG depending on departure selected from BRS. All involved overnight stays en route with overall flight lengths ranging between 16 hours and 26 hours. The fares were quite reasonable though, but you'd have to balance that with overnight accommodation costs at the en-route airport. There might be other days when it's possible to get to Tel Aviv without an overnight stop.

About 20 years ago before BRS had direct scheduled flights to Geneva I persuaded my wife to use KLM from BRS to reach Geneva for a holiday instead of driving to LHR. We had between two and three hours on the ground at AMS between flights in both directions which wasn't too bad at all given the alternative was a drive to Heathrow and a drive back afterwards.

https://www.easyjet.com/en/help/extra-services/worldwide

 

[Severn]

Summary of EZY Routes from BRS in Summer 2019

I've compared easyJets schedule from BRS during the second week in August 2022 compared to the same week in 2019. Here are the number of departures each week with the changes highlighted.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of destinations operating per week:
2019: 65
2022: 68 (+3)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of flights per week:
2019: 386
2022: 405 (+19 / +5%)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of based aircraft:
2019: 17 (7x A319s, 10x A320s)
2022: 18 (3x A319s, 13x A320s, 2x A321s) (+1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Weekly Frequencies: (a '[+]' or '[-]' represents change from August 2019)

26x Weekly
Edinburgh (EDI) [+1]

24x Weekly
Glasgow (GLA) [+3]

21x Weekly
Belfast Intl (BFS) [+1]

20x Weekly
Amsterdam (AMS) [+8]

19x Weekly
Majorca Palma (PMI)

17x Weekly
Faro (FAO) [+1]
Malaga (AGP) [+1]

16x Weekly
Alicante (ALC) [+2]

15x Weekly
Newcastle (NCL) [+1]

14x Weekly
Barcelona (BCN)

10x Weekly
Geneva (GVA)
Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) [-4]

8x Weekly
Nice (NCE) [-2]

7x Weekly
Paris Orly (ORY) [NEW] [+7]
Bordeaux (BOD)
Inverness (INV)
Madrid (MAD)

6x Weekly
Dalaman (DLM) [+3]
Berlin (BER)
Prague (PRG)
Murcia (RMU) [-1]
Rome Fiumicino (FCO) [-1]
Toulouse (TLS) [-1]

5x Weekly
Lisbon (LIS)
Split (SPU)
Pisa (Tuscany) (PSA) [-2]

4x Weekly
Antalya (AYT) [NEW] [+4]
Bodrum (BJV) [+1]
Corfu (CFU) [+1]
Dubrovnik (DBV) [+1]
Tenerife South (TFS) [+1]
Basel (BSL)
Ibiza (IBZ)
Menorca Mahon (MAH)

3x Weekly
Isle of Man (IOM) [+1]
Lanzarote (ACE) [+1]
Rhodes (RHO) [+1]
Zante Zakynthos (ZTH) [+1]
Bilbao (BIO)
Copenhagen (CPH)
Cyprus Paphos (PFO)
Gibraltar (GIB)
Naples (NAP)
Nantes (NTE)
Porto (OPO)
Sardinia Olbia (OLB)
Krakow (KRK) [-1]

2x Weekly
Gran Canaria (LPA) [NEW] [+2]
Kos (KGS) [NEW] [+2]
Preveza (PVK) [NEW] [+2]
Athens (ATH)
Biarritz (BIQ)
Crete Heraklion (HER)
Cyprus Larnaca (LCA)
Fuerteventura (FUE)
Kefalonia (EFL)
Lyon (LYS)
La Rochelle (LRH)
Madeira Funchal (FNC)
Pula (PUY)
Sicily Catania (CTA)
Milan Malpensa (MXP) [-2]
Marseille Provence (MRS) [-1]
Venice Marco Polo (VCE) [-3]

1x Weekly
Hurghada (HRG) [NEW] [+1]
Mykonos (JMK) [NEW] [+1]
Santorini (JTR) [NEW] [+1]
Sharm El Sheikh (SSH) [NEW] [+1]

Cancelled
Brindisi (BDS) [-2]
Genoa (GOA) [-2]
Montpellier (MPL) [-2]
Seville (SVQ) [-3]
Stockholm (ARN) [-2]
Vienna (VIE) [-2]


Summary
Out of these 405x departures a week:

• 361x departures are operated by BRS based aircraft (-5 from 2019)
• 44x departures are operated by aircraft from other bases (+24 from 2019) - which are:

7x flights from Faro​

7x Malaga (that operate AGP-BRS-AMS-BRS-AGP)​

6x Edinburgh,​

5x Barcelona​

2x Berlin​

1x Glasgow​

all 6x Toulouse​

all 2x Lyon​

​

So although there is 1x more based aircraft in BRS in 2022 vs 2019, there are 5x less departures per week operated by BRS based aircraft. This will be due to an increase in the number of flights that are to destinations further away, such as AYT, DLM, BJV, TFS, LPA, ACE etc.

 

[Marko1]

I think there’s some gaps in the schedule which could result in some new routes hopefully. I think a recent press release mentioned 78 routes didn’t it so hopefully we may see a bit more. I note that Bristol is the only major base not to have a new route announcement yet for summer 22

 

[Severn]

I think there’s some gaps in the schedule which could result in some new routes hopefully. I think a recent press release mentioned 78 routes didn’t it so hopefully we may see a bit more. I note that Bristol is the only major base not to have a new route announcement yet for summer 22

Agreed, I'm sure there is more to come.

There is 74 routes available from BRS, but some are winter only and therefore don't appear in the list above.
These destinations are: GNB, INN, KEF, SOF, SZG, TRN.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Many thanks for that extremely comprehensive breakdown of summer 2022, Severn. If this schedule operates it will mean an average of nearly 58 easyJet departures every day of the week in peak summer.

The quote from the easyJet UK manager talks about 78 routes for Bristol. She doesn't specify summer so that might well include the winter routes. However, as Severn points out, the total so far is 74 - 75 if Kittila is included with its winter sports service for a tour operator but it never appears in the easyJet public flight booking system. On that basis there ought to be 3/4 routes to be announced although of course airlines do change their mind after making a public announcement.

the easyJet UK manager also spoke of eight new routes for BRS. In Severn's list there are nine new routes compared with summer 2019. They are not all new for summer 2022. Paris Orly for example operated for part of last year. Some of the others had been announced in previous years and would have already operated but for the pandemic. Perhaps easyJet intends to copy Ryanair where summer-only routes are announced as new routes for the following summer on the basis that they had not operated in winter but had the previous summer.

The axed routes are interesting.

Brindisi hadn't been operating for long from BRS but now Gatwick is the only UK airport served by easyJet

Genoa too was a relative newcomer for BRS but easyJet no longer flies there from anywhere

Montpellier is another that is not a longstanding BRS route but now easyJet's only UK airports to there are Gatwick and Luton. Ryanair's Beziers is not a million miles away with easyJet's Marseille and Nice also along that stretch of the South of France

Seville was served by both easyJet and Ryanair. The latter is operating until the end of this winter season but then gives up, so Seville will be unserved this summer. The Airbus connection might have been an attraction but the same could be said about Hamburg and that remains unserved after flybmi ceased flying. easyJet's only UK route to Seville is Gatwick.

Vienna is no longer served by easyJet to any UK airport which just leaves Ryanair's modest 2 x weekly service as far as BRS is concerned

Stockholm Arlanda is another airport with no easyJet UK routes

I note the increase from 12 weekly to 20 weekly for Amsterdam. If KLM returns to its 28 x weekly schedule that's 48 departures each week to Amsterdam. Depending on the type of aircraft used by these airlines it could amount to over 55,000 seats. In August 2019 BRS-AMS carried 40,670 passengers and August 2018 saw 38,997. A 90% load factor across the two airlines would give 49,500 based on 55,000 seats although if easyJet used more A319s and KLM more E175s that would obviously reduce the overall number of available seats.

As seems to be general with most airlines and airports at the moment summer 2022 is predicated on a spectacular upsurge in passenger demand. I don't wish to sound negative because this programme indicates much confidence in BRS's ability to take full advantage of a burgeoning market. 2023 could be even better for the airport according to strong hints made by the airline's UK manager.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Geneva is getting back towards normal now.

Tomorrow there are four easyJet departures, plus the weekly TUI service. The seat selector is suggesting healthy loads:

0605 departure A320 178/186 seats taken
1055 departure A320 181/186 seats taken
1240 departure A321 220/235 seats taken
1745 departure A321 207/235 seats taken

Remaining seats are over £300 for the sector.

 

[Marko1]

Easyjet have dropped their planned 3rd weekly Zante on Mondays

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Looks like another non-story.

Technical issue caused emergency landing at Bristol Airport

The aircraft made a u-turn back to Bristol Airport on Friday evening

www.bristolpost.co.uk

 

[Marko1]

An extra weekly Rhodes every thurs during peak summer.

 

[Severn]

Looks like a very neat schedule now for 17x based aircraft:
3x A319
12x A320
2x A321

Some flights have also been swapped between the A320 and A321.
For example on a Monday, the morning CDG and GLA rotations which were scheduled for an A321 have moved to the A320 and replaced with a KGS.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re four flights diverted yesterday evening (three easyJet) - see below post copied from the Diversions thread - some passengers were unhappy at the way the issue of ongoing travel was handled.

Passengers 'disgusted' as flights to Bristol diverted to London

"It was just disgusting to be lied to for hours only to just be stranded with no information or communication"

www.bristolpost.co.uk

Wx Diverts

4 diverts away from BRS last night due to gusty winds affecting the airfield:

3 x EZY (PFO, GVA & LPA) diverted to LGW
1 x FR (ALC) diverted to STN

It seems there’s storms and hail in todays forecast for the airfield too.

 

[Marko1]

Several new routes announced tonight but nothing again for Bristol. To date o don’t think there is one new destination on offer for this summer

 

[andrewgreen]

Maybe it’s the jet2 effect ?

 

[Marko1]

I have thought about that and I’m not sure. Easyjet have increased frequencies on flights to Alicante , faro and Malaga , Dubrovnik and Rhodes . All bar two are also jet2 destinations . I really would have thought that easy may re introduce Malta and a few Greek destinations for example.