Bristol: Airport Route Development & Rumours

[superking]

Looks like a new ski route to sion in switzerland to start in December 2017. aircraft types penned in are fk100, they will be chartered from powdair Zagreb. flights from other uk airports and a few European airports are planned. lets hope these go ahead as a complete new destination.

 

[Severn]

From CH-Aviation:

PowdAir (Sion) is a virtual carrier looking to offer direct flights from various UK, Dutch, and Belgian airports to Sion located in the heart of Switzerland’s most popular winter sports region, the Valais.

The start-up said in a statement that effective December 17 onwards, it will offer flights from Sion to each of London Southend, Bournemouth, Southampton, Bristol Int'l, Manchester Int'l and Edinburgh in the UK as well as Brussels in Belgium, and Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Operations are on-board two Fokker 100s chartered from Croatia's Trade Air (C3, Zagreb).

Transfers from Sion to the ski resorts of Verbier, Zermatt, Crans-Montana, Zinal-Grimentz, Leukerbad and Anzère will be available.

 

[kraktoa]

I have a distant relative who works in the livery design department for Qatar.

I recently got reacquainted with him on whatsapp so did not pass up the opportunity of asking if he plans to visit us as there is likely to be a direct flight to Bristol and as staff he can travel free.

This is his response.

Bristol is in the programme but no date announced yet.

!!!!!!!!!!

 

[kraktoa]

When does Qatar release its yearly timetable? From memory most airlines have timetables that end 31?march? Could april herald a new route to Doha?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I have a distant relative who works in the livery design department for Qatar.

I recently got reacquainted with him on whatsapp so did not pass up the opportunity of asking if he plans to visit us as there is likely to be a direct flight to Bristol and as staff he can travel free.

This is his response.

Bristol is in the programme but no date announced yet.

!!!!!!!!!!

When does Qatar release its yearly timetable? From memory most airlines have timetables that end 31?march? Could april herald a new route to Doha?

Funnily enough I've been looking at ME airlines' timetables this morning for UK-Melbourne - we go every year to visit relatives. Emirates and Etihad are currently selling seats until mid January 2018 and Qatar until mid February 2018.

If, I still think it's a big if in the short term at least, Qatar did start at BRS I wouldn't think it would be until late this year or more likely next year at the earliest. I remember that Continental began serving EWR from BRS in May 2005 and the official announcement was made in September 2004.

Interesting snippet from your distant relative nonetheless, and ties in with those rumours that have been around for a few months, possibly resulting from the Qatar UK boss's comments a year or so ago.

 

[Jerry]

If Qatar was going to launch a BRS service would they want to announce it in April 2017 for April 2018 to give it a whole year to build up to or could they have a short lead time? Also how much would it have an effect on KLM?

 

[forest1979]

Interesting.. I tend to agree that if this is to come off, I think it would be announced this year for next...? We may even get an air bridge in that time!

 

[Sierra3]

Being a FF with QR & therefore receiving their monthly emailed 'magazine', have come to the conclusion that they announce new routes in a rather (to Joe Public) scattershot manner. Longest I've seen is maybe 9 months, shortest maybe 3 months.
They don't seem to follow the northern hemisphere winter / summer schedule changes when making such announcements / route launches.
Can't believe they expect too much O&D traffic on BRS - DOH, especially in the summer & connecting traffic going LH south east to SE Asia, Aus, India etc is probably better in the UK winter; so MAYBE an autumn / winter commencement??

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I agree about O&D traffic between BRS and DOH - that's where Emirates would have had an advantage as Dubai is a destination in itself. BRS-DOH would be aimed mainly at long haul connecting traffic.

I doubt that a Qatar route would much affect the hub routes to AMS, BRU, FRA and MUC. It would almost certainly generate a lot of new traffic - the only question would be how much and whether it would be enough. I've looked at FRA and AMS for long haul travel 'Down Under' from BRS but the timings, costs and having to change aircraft twice could not compete with MEB3 routes from bigger UK airports. I would certainly look seriously at a BRS-DOH route if Qatar did start one.

 

[BRSregular]

What does 'it's in the programme' actually mean?

 

[kraktoa]

What does 'it's in the programme' actually mean?

I am assuming in the future plans.... English is not my relatives first language...

But the fact that the reponse was not...what are you talking about? ....is promising in itself.

Btw as he is not in the planning or operations dept he had to ask someone else the question i posed. The fact that they came back with that response it good to hear.

 

[Sierra3]

Personally have been praying for a BRS - Middle East carrier since 1995 when I first started working in the Middle East, to no avail. Now retired & wonder if it'll happen in my lifetime.
Almost certain it would work - have employed, met and worked with loads of west country folks in Middle East (& beyond) who are fed up with the hoo haa of getting to LHR, myself included.
For example the merchant marine aren't too price sensitive. Once had a Master living in Cornwall, he was always booked on the Brymon or whatever to LGW, then a transfer to LHR (plus hotel) for a next day departure to the ME and it was all in J class (not Brymon) - cost a fortune.
The market is there, not just for leisure travel; will QR take the plunge

 

[andrewgreen]

Personally have been praying for a BRS - Middle East carrier since 1995 when I first started working in the Middle East, to no avail. Now retired & wonder if it'll happen in my lifetime.
Almost certain it would work - have employed, met and worked with loads of west country folks in Middle East (& beyond) who are fed up with the hoo haa of getting to LHR, myself included.
For example the merchant marine aren't too price sensitive. Once had a Master living in Cornwall, he was always booked on the Brymon or whatever to LGW, then a transfer to LHR (plus hotel) for a next day departure to the ME and it was all in J class (not Brymon) - cost a fortune.
The market is there, not just for leisure travel; will QR take the plunge

I totally agree , It's been in my prayers to ! Ive travelled via the Middle East many times and the worst part about the whole trip is having to go to London to start it , the hub connections just don't seem to ever be any good when I look be it cost or connection times .
I do hope Qatar do take the plunge , i can see it working very well , with Heathrow practically full they will find it hard to expand there so why not take the passengers from source (the south west ) and by pass Heathrow, otherwise all those passengers will be dissipated to other airports and other airlines !

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The VFR traffic to Australasia from the UK is substantial as I know from personal experience. Many use the MEB3 carriers and many, particularly a significant number of retired people who are comfortably off (the West Country is home to a lot of this type of person), travel in J or F.

With the right sort of advertising there is no reason why a Qatar service would not be successful. Emirates and Etihad provide complimentary chauffeur services for J and F passengers to reach their airports (there can be a supplement if the journey is a long one, typically over 100 miles) which takes some of the hassle out of getting to Heathrow or Gatwick or Birmingham from the West Country. Qatar has no chauffeur service but would have the benefit of an airport much closer to the homes of West Country travellers. The B 787-8 which would probably be the type used at BRS has no F with Qatar and I believe that some of the long-haul routes from Doha don't feature F either.

Business would also take advantage of such a service with links to the Far East assuming increasing importance.

Clearly, the more premium passengers the better from the airline's perspective and for the route as a whole. A lack of full-fare premium passengers was said to be one of the reasons for the axing of Continental's BRS-EWR, although there were other factors as well.

Anyway, it's no good getting ahead of ourselves as a Qatar presence is still only speculation and might not happen, at least for a while.

 

[Jerry]

The VFR traffic to Australasia from the UK is substantial as I know from personal experience

I believe as well that it was mentioned in a report by Cardiff airport that 200,000 welsh also travel to Australia and New Zealand every year so no doubt many of those would be tempted to use a Qatar service from BRS if one happens.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Blue Air are announcing seven new routes tomorrow and Bucharest-Bristol seems to be amongst the rumours. Anybody heard anything?

 

[Jerry]

Blue Air are announcing seven new routes tomorrow and Bucharest-Bristol seems to be amongst the rumours. Anybody heard anything?

That would put them up against Ryanair. That would be interesting. Another possibility could be LCA. They just announced LCA-LPL.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Larnaca - Liverpool and Iasi - Glasgow are the two other new UK routes, both now appear on the Blue Air website.

I guess we'll find out tomorrow about Bucharest - Bristol.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

If it is Bucharest can't get very excited over it as Ryanair has it covered and is increasing frequency. The only thing to say though is that where Ryanair and easyJet/Wizz compete on non-sun routes, including eastern Europe, passenger numbers have increased to maintain the already high load factors when these routes were only operated by one airline. Don't know about yields of course.

Larnaca would have been better. Apart from the major charter carriers there is no LCA route. The only scheduled Cyprus route from BRS is easyJet to Paphos.

If Blue Air is dipping its toes into the BRS pond - still nothing in the Blue Air booking engine - it might augur well for the future. Wizz seems to have ground to a halt. The other positive thing is that it would be a new scheduled airline.

 

[Jerry]

Bristol is in the Blue Air drop down menu but I can't find any bookable flights yet.