Continental Airlines

[Aviador]

So in some ways the lack of expansion at Heathrow could in turn lead to a return of a similar service in future years. CO might be kicking their heals in a couple of years when the slots dry up at Heathrow after the recent government announcement that they no longer support the building of the third runway.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

There's always that possibility.

 

[alphagolf]

CO77 delayed this morning, latest update suggests 1400 departure, but that's been and gone! Not good in the Business First cabin, only 1 pax going to EWR, and 125 pax in Economy. :sad:

 

[alphagolf]

Update on CO77, flight now boarding with ETD of 1615, so running 345mins late. Continential flight status, advised that the flight had returned to the gate due to maintenance.

 

[Aviador]

CO77 delayed this morning, latest update suggests 1400 departure, but that's been and gone! Not good in the Business First cabin, only 1 pax going to EWR, and 125 pax in Economy. :sad:

Yes it's a real shame this service isn't performing but it's of no fault of the airport. Bristol Airport has slogged the route but as TheLocalYokel has already said, business passengers from the South West seem to prefer London Heathrow for some reason which is a shame. Hopefully this wont signify an end to Continentals regional development, or indeed it's return to Bristol.

Welcome to the forum AlphaGolf and thanks for joining!

 

[alphagolf]

CO77 to EWR this morning, had better load figures in Business First, 12 Pax booked, no upgrades. 108 in Economy of which one was a stanby.

With 12 in BF that should compensate for the lower econ figures, probably a good yield on todays flight. :smile:

 

[alphagolf]

Just had a look at the CO76 from EWR this morning, good load figures inbound. 9 Pax in BF and 147 Pax in Economy. :smile:

 

[Aviador]

Just had a look at the CO76 from EWR this morning, good load figures inbound. 9 Pax in BF and 147 Pax in Economy. :smile:

I wonder if the route is being stopped because it's reached the end of any initial start-up deal with the airport? Obviously only the airline knows if the route is performing sufficiently to keep it running but looking at those numbers you would think it was working enough to sustain the route as a summer only route perhaps.

PS. I don't know if I've already said it, but welcome to Forums4airports. Don't forget to let your friends and colleagues know we're here! We're a friendly bunch you know! 😛leasantry:

 

[alphagolf]

Monday 21st June - Continental Airlines

Load figures:

CO76 EWR - BRS 5 Business First & 137 Economy

CO77 BRS - EWR 9 Business First & 152 Economy

Some good figures on both Inbound and Outbound flights today! :good:

 

[alphagolf]

Tuesday 22nd June - Continental Airlines

Load Figures:

Inbound: CO76 EWR - BRS 8 Pax Business First 124 Pax Economy

Outbound: CO77 BRS - EWR 10 Pax Business First 115 Pax Economy

Load figures in Business First seem to holding up well both Inbound and Outbound.

I am monitoring this daily to see if this trend continues until the route is due to close later in the year!

 

[Aviador]

Thanks for keeping us updated with the CO passenger figures 'alphagolf'. Whatever CO do, it would appear that there will be a case for the route to be reinstated by another airline in the future. How many passengers have flown on the route over the last 12 months do you know?

 

[alphagolf]

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 - Continental Airlines

Load Figures:

Inbound: CO76 EWR - BRS 12 Pax Business First 116 Pax Economy

Outbound: CO77 BRS - EWR 11 Pax Business First 126 Pax Economy

When I get a bit of spare time I will look at compiling some year on year figures.

 

[backtrack]

This is quite interesting to see. How are CO's B752s fitted seat wise?

 

[alphagolf]

Hi Type Rated 767

Continental's B752 are fitted as follows:

16 seats in Business First

156 seats in Economy

Total Seats = 172

 

[backtrack]

Thanks for that alphagolf

 

[alphagolf]

Continental Figures:
BF AS LF E AS LF TOTAL AS TOTAL LF
Thu 24/06/2010 CO76 7 16 43.75% 150 156 96.15% 157 172 91.28%
CO77 7 16 43.75% 122 156 78.21% 129 172 75.00%
Fri 25/06/2010 CO76 14 16 87.50% 123 156 78.85% 137 172 79.65%
CO77 10 16 62.50% 150 156 91.03% 160 172 93.02%

BF = Business First
E = Economy
AS = Available Seats
LF = Load Factor

 

[alphagolf]

Sorry about last post didn't transfer from excel very well. Will try again.

 

[alphagolf]

Continental Figures for the last week: Monday 21st June 2010 to Sunday 27th June 2010

Total Pax: 2,031 Inbound & Outbound :good:

(BF) Business First Pax: 121

(E) Economy Pax: 1,910

Ave Load Factor: 84.34%

Ave Load Factor in BF: 54.66%

Obviously don't know what Continentals margins are, but these figures are quite impressive. With an average of over 50% of seats being sold in BF, they must be making money? There must be a case for another carrier to continue this route even if Continental do pull out, obviously this is just a snap shot of one week, lets see what the figures are like again next week.

CAA Figures Published for May 2010

Total Pax: 8,588 up 15% on May 2009 :yahoo:

 

[TheLocalYokel]

alphagolf's posts are fascinating in that they break down the passenger figures into classes.

I can only rely on the raw overall numbers provided by the CAA and a summary of the Bristol-Newark route since its inception in May 2005 is as follows:

2005 (part year from May) 55, 254

2006 84,046

2007 93,225

2008 90,195

2009 83,284

2010 (up to and incl April) 21,817

Total 427,821

As a comparison the Belfast International figures (route to Newark started one week after the Bristol route) are: 56,747, 102,317, 103,627, 99,644, 99,794, 25,259 487,388.

The BFS route operated largely as the BRS route - daily from early March until early November then 5 x weekly in winter, though on occasions around Christmas/New year and US Thanksgiving rotations were reduced further. In January and February this year the BRS route was reduced to 4 x weekly.

In the main summer period months in 2009 the total monthly Bristol route passenger numbers were as follows, with average load and load factor indicated (to the nearest whole percentage figure).

April 8031 134/76%

May 7439 120/69%

June 8186 136/78%

July 8386 135/77%

August 9622 155/88%*

September 8655 160/92%**

October 8336 154/88%

* highest monthly total since route began

** route reduced to 6 x weekly from early September (no Wednesdays) for the first time in a summer period thus giving the highest ever monthly load factor - back to daily for summer 2010

It does seem that BRS did pretty well in terms of overall passenger numbers for most of the summers that the route operated - the winters though, especially January and February, were disappointing.

It was reported that BRS waived landing fees for the first three years of the route's operation and this may have continued after that. I know from speaking to a senior figure at BRS that Continental were extremely impressed with the way the flight was handled – BRS were desperate to retain the route once won and went the extra miles to try to keep it.

My own view remains that once CO gained access to LHR and then obtained additional slots to use for EWR from there the BRS route was always going to be in severe danger, and so it has proved.

 

[Aviador]

Which is interesting because I thought Continental Airlines was big on regional departures. It's almost as if they want to use the business end passengers to prop up the more prestigious Heathrow service. Still, like I said in a previous post, at least the airport authority will have some good figures to play with when they try to tempt another operator onto the route.