BRS press release. Some heart-warming airport news amongst the current gloom.

Bristol children receive respite in the sky with Air Smiles day at Bristol Airport
Created: 24th Sep 2019

A respite day for children and adults living with profound disabilities and life-limiting conditions saw 20 children and 14 adults from Bristol and the surrounding regions spend a day at Bristol Airport as part of an aviation-themed Air Smiles Day on Saturday 21 September.

Bristol children receive respite in the sky with Air Smiles day at Bristol Airport

The Air Smiles Day was run by Airbus, UK aviation charity fly2help and Bristol Airport. Airbus invited 9 families from its Charity Partners to take part and families from St Peter’s Hospice, Headway Bristol and Severn Freewheelers were in attendance.

An attendee that had received support from St Peters Hospice said: “It was absolutely lovely to see the children smiling, happy and enjoying themselves. They’ve had so much fun and experienced things they wouldn’t usually get to. Just knowing that they’ve had a day planned that they would enjoy and not having to think about it. It has given them something that they will always remember.”

The aviation-themed day is crafted around a flight experience in a light aircraft and for some of the young attendees this will have been their first flight in an aircraft and a thrilling experience. Members of the group included bereaved children, people living with brain injuries and children with sight-loss. The flight lasted 25 minutes and made use of three aircraft: a Socata TBM, PA-32 Saratoga and Cessna 182.

Bristol children receive respite in the sky with Air Smiles day at Bristol Airport

The attendees took part in demonstrations from Police emergency response services, spent time with Airbus graduates where they learned more about the mechanics of flight and for those willing, had their face painted. Attendees had the opportunity to try out augmented reality facilities used in aircraft design.

Georgina Godfree, Programme Delivery Co-ordinator for fly2help said: “For over a decade, we’ve been working to create life-changing experiences for people living with illness, disability and various forms of life-trauma. The Air Smiles Day enables families to create shared, everlasting memories via the wonder of flight, for some time away from their daily struggles. We’re delighted to continue our partnership with Airbus and Bristol Airport, creating Air Smiles for families from their local area – changing lives, one flight at a time.”

Jacqui Mills, Public and Community Relations Manager at Bristol Airport, said: “The Air Smiles Day is such a special day, it is a true collaboration of aviation partners working together to inspire young people. It’s a fun filled day which Bristol Airport is proud to support and help these young people forget their worries for one day and make magical memories that will last a lifetime.”

Hannah Hammond, Community Relations Officer for Airbus said: “Airbus is really proud to be part of this special day. It has been fantastic to share the inspiring power of aviation. It’s our privilege to help create some wonderful memories for the children and their families.”
 

People reportedly missed their flight to Lyon on Monday because the flight information screens at the airport were seemingly malfunctioning. BRS admits there were problems and will investigate the circumstances of the missed flight.

On a number of occasions in recent months it has been commented on in the BRS threads that the fids at the airport sometimes cease operating. It can't still be down to the IT hacking that occurred over 12 months ago surely.
 
I been saying for a long time with the dep/arr boards problems. Well it had to happen some time with the passenger missing flights.With what happened last Monday I hope the airport compensate the affected passengers as I blame airport for this problem.Come on it team get the boards sorted.
 

The Advertising Standards Agency has ruled that an email advert sent out by Bristol Airport to promote flights to North America by Aer Lingus Regional/Stobart did not breach advertising rules.

Someone complained that they could find no flights at the £227 price mentioned in the email advert.
 
https://www.bristolairport.co.uk/~/...2018-operations-monitoring- report.ashx?la=en

Above is a link to the BRS environment report, which includes night time flying. (Between 2330-0600)
It shows up to winter 2017/2018 where night time quotas are pretty much being fully utilised - summer 3000 limit vs 2991 actually used. Since 2017 theres been further expansion from TUI and EZY, although it's more likely EZY can manage to avoid some of their flights arriving after 2330, less likely for TUI given the destinations and flight schedule they tend to operate.
With TCX gone, but capacity being replaced by TUI with additional aircraft, it begs the question, what capacity of the night quota is left for someone else to pick up?
I had heard that Jet2 would be keen on Bristol but this may be a stumbling block as they would want to bring at least 3-4 aircraft in. With the destinations they would want to serve being typical charter schedules (2hr destination in AM then 3-4hr destination PM, it could restrict what night slots would be available, thus making it difficult to work a schedule. Hence my assumption of TUI getting in there first to protect the base.
 
https://www.bristolairport.co.uk/~/...2018-operations-monitoring- report.ashx?la=en

Above is a link to the BRS environment report, which includes night time flying. (Between 2330-0600)
It shows up to winter 2017/2018 where night time quotas are pretty much being fully utilised - summer 3000 limit vs 2991 actually used. Since 2017 theres been further expansion from TUI and EZY, although it's more likely EZY can manage to avoid some of their flights arriving after 2330, less likely for TUI given the destinations and flight schedule they tend to operate.
With TCX gone, but capacity being replaced by TUI with additional aircraft, it begs the question, what capacity of the night quota is left for someone else to pick up?
I had heard that Jet2 would be keen on Bristol but this may be a stumbling block as they would want to bring at least 3-4 aircraft in. With the destinations they would want to serve being typical charter schedules (2hr destination in AM then 3-4hr destination PM, it could restrict what night slots would be available, thus making it difficult to work a schedule. Hence my assumption of TUI getting in there first to protect the base.
BRS has two night time problems: the restrictions on movements and the noise quota.

They are both broken down by season - summer and winter - but both are disproportionate.

The night time (2330-0600) summer movements must not exceed 3,000 take-offs and landings and winter must not exceed 1,000. There are far fewer landings in winter during the night time period and no timetabled take-offs that I can recall, unlike summer with its numerous landings and a handful of take-offs each week (Thomas Cook was involved with some of the pre-0600 take-offs). In addition, the total number of take-offs and landings between 0600 and 0700 and between 2300 and 2330 must not exceed 10,500 in any calendar year.

The most recent summer total was 2,975 slightly down on the previous year's 2,991. Winter by contrast has only been between 232 and 353 over the past five years, around a third of its 1,000 limit. However, in the late 90s/early ‘noughties' winter frequently saw movements well over 1,000 and in some years the aggregate summer and winter movements exceeded the 4,000 annual limit - for example in 2001/02 summer was 2,999 and winter 1,536. I don’t know how they got around that. I can’t remember if the night movements limit then was as it is now. I imagine that higher winter movement figures then were probably mainly attributable to the regular night Royal Mail aircraft that no longer operate at BRS.

The night noise quota also covers the 2330-0600 period (there is also a blanket ban on the noisiest types of aircraft between 2300 and 0700 but that is largely academic these days). Each aircraft type is given a quota count. The summer (BST) maximum total quota count is 1,260 and the winter (GMT) 900.

There is a system in place where overruns can be borrowed from a previous season or from the next season although reduced quota penalties exist in such circumstances re the next season after that. The latest summer figure for BRS is 1,490 (above the limit of 1,260) which was achieved by borrowing as described. The 1,260 limit was also breached around the turn of the century and in the early ‘noughties’ more than once and resorted to ‘borrowing', as it did in 2010/11 and for the past three years. Winter has used less than 20% of its 900 quota count in each of the past seven years.

BRS has applied to have the seasonality removed but not the overall annual quota count. Neither has there been a request for the quota count limit to be raised.

New types of aircraft such as the neo are quieter but I don't know how that type's quota count compares with the older generation of smaller Airbuses.The same will apply to the Boeing MAX if and when it appears

It's certainly not all plain-sailing as BRS tries to expand its operations and passenger numbers still further given the planning constraints in terms of movements, noise quotas and overall annual passenger numbers.

If ultimately BRS fails to have the 10 mppa planning limit raised and /or the noise quota limit spread more evenly serious problems obviously lie ahead. Probably the annual passenger limit would be the most damaging as the night movements and night noise quotas could presumably be worked around to some extent, although it would clearly not be ideal.

I sometimes wonder what is in the thoughts of the owners and senior airport management as they must have contemplated such a scenario. The owners have invested and continue to invest many hundreds of millions of pounds in infrastructure expansion/improvements. That's a lot of money if the business is prevented from growing through external reasons.

Errata: Final paragraph, penultimate sentence should have read hundreds of millions of pounds - I've now corrected it.
 
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Embraer 550 operating BRS-Tenerife this morning encountered a technical problem and returned to BRS. It's not reported whether the intended destination was TFN or TFS.

 
I've been reading in another forum that Luton Airport is very close to its 18 mppa cap - CAA stats for September show its 12-month rolling total at 17.975 million. Reports in that forum suggest that airlines are being turned away. I can't verify that but it might be a case of things to come at BRS.

Thomas Cook's demise might give the airport a bit more breathing space before the 10 mppa planning cap becomes really close. The current 12-month rolling total is 8.938 million. At the beginning of this year the airport said it expected 9 million to be exceeded in 2019 which it would have had not first flybmi then Thomas Cook gone under.

TUi's expansion next summer and a likely expansion by easyJet particularly in connection with easyJet Holidays, plus Lufthansa to FRA and Brussels Airlines to BRU, should, short of another unexpected event, get the total past 9 mppa in 2020.

The airport's application to the local authority to have the limit raised to 12 mppa together with planning submissions for infrastructure development to handle that number were submitted a year ago next month. A date has still not been set for a determination. If the local authority rejects the applications and the airport decides to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate a final decision might not be made until 2021.

If the airport was hoping to attract someone like Jet2 the uncertainty of the passenger cap situation might influence the airline's decision if it was thinking in terms of summer 2021. Early morning and late night/early hours slots might also be harder to come by during the Level 3 coordinated period in summer because of the night movement and night noise quota restrictions which are operating close to their limits.

Another factor that might actually ease the looming planning cap dilemma, but in a way the airport would not want, is the likelihood of APD being devolved to Wales if Labour wins the general election. That could even sway Jet2 and might also take some of BRS's current business - TUI long-haul for instance would probably be very interested if they could operate to the likes of Florida and Mexico APD-free. Even taking into account that under 16s fly APD-free in economy already, TUI could still pocket probably at least £15,000 per outbound flight by keeping the APD equivalent instead of lowering fares which they might not need to do.

These external factors, over which the airport has no control, could distort the airport's ability to grow in the way it wishes.
 
There was a comment in the local rag a few weeks ago about the airport planning. The comment was the planning would be looked at in the early new year, one of the delays was quoted as the general election as many councillers doing election business.
 
Another milestone has been passed in the history of BRS!! A look at Table 1 on CAA October report shows that on a rolling 12 month basis BRS has now overtaken GLA
Fantastic news and very impressive!
Today there are around 62 departures from BRS and 88 from GLA.
Most movements at BRS are A320/B738 size (average departing seats today around 164 per flight) whereas GLA sees many more smaller aircraft operate - SF34/E145/DH8D/E170 etc (average departing seats today around 133 per flight).

Another interesting thing I found was that only 12 of the 62 departing flights from BRS today are domestic (20%) whereas 63 of the 88 departing flights from GLA are domestic (71%).
I'm sure with 71% of flights leaving GLA being domestic (the majority to London), one would assume the load-factor of these would be a lot lower than international flights?
 
Fantastic news and very impressive!
Today there are around 62 departures from BRS and 88 from GLA.
Most movements at BRS are A320/B738 size (average departing seats today around 164 per flight) whereas GLA sees many more smaller aircraft operate - SF34/E145/DH8D/E170 etc (average departing seats today around 133 per flight).

Another interesting thing I found was that only 12 of the 62 departing flights from BRS today are domestic (20%) whereas 63 of the 88 departing flights from GLA are domestic (71%).
I'm sure with 71% of flights leaving GLA being domestic (the majority to London), one would assume the load-factor of these would be a lot lower than international flights?
Many interesting airport stats in the BRS Annual Monitoring Report for which the latest year is 2018. One set shows the average load per flight at BRS and the total has grown steadily and consistently over the years. In 2002 the average load was 78.59 and in 2018 it was 130.7. Now the flybmi Embraers have gone I'd expect it to be noticeably higher again in 2019.

As to Glasgow, they do have a number of daily flights to the Highlands and Islands which use small aircraft and they would be part of the domestic total and also bump up the number of movements each day.
 
It must be coming up to 2 years since the cyber attack on the airport which led to the airport mayfly becoming unavailable to the public n its site.

Any news when the mayflys will reappear?
 
It must be coming up to 2 years since the cyber attack on the airport which led to the airport mayfly becoming unavailable to the public n its site.

Any news when the mayflys will reappear?

The attack wasn't quite as long ago as that - it occurred in September 2018.

Some while before the cyber attack on the airport's systems the BristolAirportSpotting (BAS) website had assumed responsibiity for making Mayfly available online to those who wanted to download it. I'm not a 'techie' but presumably BAS would have had to have some sort of digital feed from the airport in order to place it on the BAS site, although I'd be pleased to be corrected if this was not the case.

I've just checked the BAS website and there seems to be no mention of Mayfly whatsoever now. Whether this means it won't be publicly available at all in the future I don't know.

I don't know if Mayfly is currently produced and available internally at the airport.
 
Mayfly
At 1 time before it went on the net.The mayfly was on sale at the information desk. They charged 50 pence for the weekly sheet.
 

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