Aer Lingus

[TheLocalYokel]

They might be changing that as they've cancelled my flight in September and nothing is onsale until November

With the restrictions in Ireland that are in place its not surprising. What is surprising to me is that Ryanair continues to operate a daily (sometimes 2 x daily) flight from BRS to Dublin, and a Knock route.

Whenever I've checked the Ryanair seat selector the occupied seats shown have rarely exceeded half full - often less. Today seems an exception with the afternoon BRS-DUB showing 154 occupied seats. The evening BRS-DUB is only showing 53 seats taken at the moment.

I checked today's BHX-DUB and the seat selector for the next flight (this evening) shows 61 occupied seats at the moment.

I don't know whether Ryanair receives any sort of incentive from the Irish Government to operate these routes. It must be losing money on them otherwise.

I add the caveat that the seat selector is not a completely accurate method of establishing load figures but it does give a broad summary of the trend.

With the above in mind Aer Lingus no doubt correctly assesses that it would be senseless restoring the Bristol to Ireland routes for a while.

 

[Jerry]

They might be changing that as they've cancelled my flight in September and nothing is onsale until November

They've shifted my flight to Heathrow so that makes my day trip a non starter now.

 

[Jerry]

4 other regional airports are also bidding as well as Manchester and Edinburgh.

Aer Lingus may move transatlantic services from Shannon to the UK

Airline's long-range craft are currently subject to Covid-19 travel restrictions here

www.irishtimes.com

 

[Marko1]

I doubt we be that lucky. It probably go to an airport who already has plenty of transatlantic ie. Manchester.

 

[Jerry]

Definitely highly likely it'll be Manchester but would be interesting to know if Bristol bid for it.

 

[Marko1]

The article mentioned 6 regional hubs so I would say probable

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I think that BRS would be unlikely to get it with LHR in the shadows. It was noteworthy that amongst the several reasons that Continental gave for axing the Bristol-Newark route in 2010 after five and a half years of operation there was no overt mention of the proximity of LHR, yet as soon as the BRS route ended the 757 that operated it was immediately switched to LHR-EWR to become the fifth daily rotation at that time.

When the BRS-EWR route began in 2005 Continental had no access to LHR but within a couple of years or so they did and immediately switched their LGW-EWR service to LHR, with the BRS route following in due course.

Leaving that issue aside would the BRS owners want to enter a bidding war that would mean spending a substantial amount of cash in these uncertain times for something that might add very little to their balance sheet?

Bearing in mind the airport's business model which sees aeronautical revenue accounting for less than 40% of the airport's annual income, the clear need is passenger footfall to feed the other revenue streams such as car parking and retail concessions. Encouraging, say, easyJet to base another aircraft would generate more passenger footfall than a long-haul aircraft operating probably just one rotation per 24 hours.

 

[Rob c DSA]

Thing is which four could it be maybe a good bet would be Liverpool an airport who would love something going West.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Thing is which four could it be maybe a good bet would be Liverpool an airport who would love something going West.

Isn't Liverpool in the same boat as Bristol with LPL having MAN up the road and BRS having LHR?

 

[Rob c DSA]

Isn't Liverpool in the same boat as Bristol with LPL having MAN up the road and BRS having LHR?

If places such as Liverpool or Bristol aren't in the running who could be I can't see how it will be any airport with just a million or two passenger's a year.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

If places such as Liverpool or Bristol aren't in the running who could be I can't see how it will be any airport with just a million or two passenger's a year.

A few years ago Qatar announced that they intended commencing a new UK route to Doha from the 'South West'. Most people probably believed it would be from BRS but Qatar went to CWL instead.

On that basis I would not rule out CWL which is an airport handling less than 2 mppa. If so minded the Welsh Government (WG) would have the financial clout to bid high for the aircraft to operate out of CWL although with the current pandemic financial climate they might think twice.

Unlike a private sector owner the WG views its airport as a facility to grow Wales's economy as a major reason for owning it, with airport profitability desirable but not essential for the time being if the airport has a beneficial effect on the economy as a whole. After seven years of state ownership CWL is yet to return a profit.

Some scheduled routes to the USA would fit the economic growth aim and would also help the current WG administration politically in Wales. That said, CWL is probably not the most likely winner (neither is BRS if its owners have thrown their hat into the ring). Then again, outsiders sometimes triumph, but if I was a betting man I wouldn't be staking any money on the Severnside airports in this.

 

[andrewgreen]

A few years ago Qatar announced that they intended commencing a new UK route to Doha from the 'South West'. Most people probably believed it would be from BRS but Qatar went to CWL instead.

On that basis I would not rule out CWL which is an airport handling less than 2 mppa. If so minded the Welsh Government (WG) would have the financial clout to bid high for the aircraft to operate out of CWL although with the current pandemic financial climate they might think twice.

Unlike a private sector owner the WG views its airport as a facility to grow Wales's economy as a major reason for owning it, with airport profitability desirable but not essential for the time being if the airport has a beneficial effect on the economy as a whole. After seven years of state ownership CWL is yet to return a profit.

Some scheduled routes to the USA would fit the economic growth aim and would also help the current WG administration politically in Wales. That said, CWL is probably not the most likely winner (neither is BRS if its owners have thrown their hat into the ring). Then again, outsiders sometimes triumph, but if I was a betting man I wouldn't be staking any money on the Severnside airports in this.

My money would be going further up the M5 as well ! But the other thing that Cardiff do have going for them is they seem to have a good relationship with IAG ( BA and Vueling in particular ) And there is always the old chestnut of the Bristol runway being able to facilitate what would probably be a couple of A321s to the states with full loads on a regular basis ?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

My money would be going further up the M5 as well ! But the other thing that Cardiff do have going for them is they seem to have a good relationship with IAG ( BA and Vueling in particular ) And there is always the old chestnut of the Bristol runway being able to facilitate what would probably be a couple of A321s to the states with full loads on a regular basis ?

I don't know what runway length the ER A321s would need to reach the east coast of the USA.

The 172-seat, then 175-seat, B757s of Continental seemed to have no difficulty with Newark from BRS but I believe the original A321s did not, do not, have the range of the 757-200s. Whether they needed more runway for a like-for-like load and distance with a 757 I don't know.

First Choice used to base a couple of A321s at BRS in the late 90s/early 'noughties' before replacing them with 757s.

Like you, I suspect that all this is academic as far as BRS is concerned, even if the airport has thrown its hat into the ring.

 

[superking]

While the A321 were BRS based First choice merged with Thomson. The airline named in the end to TUI. Thomson liked the Boing range of aircraft and the A321 that was in BRS got changed over to the B757,also the first choice A320 aircraft got moved out the fleet like the A321,that was the reason for B757 based in BRS as passenger wise not much of a difference.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

I'd heard from a TCX pilot once that their A321s weren't far off limits in the wrong conditions. The furthest TCX destination would've been about 5-5 1/2 hours. They were obviously older A321 versions so not sure on the performance different of the neo version.

 

[Jerry]

Delayed until late January

https://twitter.com/x/status/1313881321157124096

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The restart date is (understandably) being pushed further into the future yet again. Whether they actually do resume on 21 January next year obviously cannot be guaranteed and, unless something occurs in the meantime to tilt virus sentiment in a positive way, it's probably unlikely.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Thanks to jfy1999 who posted this link in the BHX Aer Lingus thread.

As far as BRS is concerned it shows the airport in third place for percentage growth (70.7%) re Aer Lingus's North American connectivity between 2016 and 2019.

The link contains an embedded table setting out the performance of various UK airports re the airline's North American connectivity.

anna.aero | Temporarily Unavailable

 

[Jerry]

Would be interesting to know how much of that traffic originates from Wales.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Would be interesting to know how much of that traffic originates from Wales.

Aer Lingus would know the origin of outbound traffic via DUB to the USA but not necessarily in the other direction in terms of final destination, whether in Wales or England.