Bristol Airport - Route News

[Aviador]

Wise words of wisdom.

 

[Marko1]

Very intriguing information. My mind is working in overdrive. I'm guessing the charter carriers may be for the TBA designated flights for Thomson ? I also wonder is there more from easyJet ?

 

[superking]

don't push it for info anyone. I think its great when you get snippets of info. it makes the mind wander every where. I do hope we get more snippets to ponder on. I love it its great.like a crossword. we will all learn in due corse what is going on or could happen.

 

[BRSregular]

Very intriguing information. My mind is working in overdrive. I'm guessing the charter carriers may be for the TBA designated flights for Thomson ? I also wonder is there more from easyJet ?

I think there will always be more from EasyJet but I'd rather have some decent growth from Ryanair or Wizz. These 2 flights per week additional destinations from EasyJet are all very well but it doesn't suit a lot of the people who want a short 2 night break somewhere.

I keep going back to it but I'd love Norwegian and/or Finnair.

On a separate note, and as the east isn't served particularly well except through KLM I suppose, does anyone have any experience with Pegasus? They were the cheapest option (which isn't a good thing) when pricing up Dubai recently. And does anyone know of their own expansion plans?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I know nothing about Pegasus other than they were once a charter airline (they served BRS in the past) but are now an important low-cost airline.

A glance on the net shows they appear to have orders for 100 A320-family neos with about 75 being firm orders. However, a recent report says that they were offering some aircraft as ACMI owing to a substantial downturn in passenger numbers.

If they are a low cost airline they may not be able to offer anything more than point to point. If BRS was going down the Turkey scheduled path I'd much prefer Turkish Airlines.

Harking back to conns' comment that another scheduled airline is showing interest that would be a 'spotters dream', the mind boggles. I think that most of the regular BRS posters on this forum tend to be level-headed and not given to fanciful dreams so we are not likely to get outlandish suggestions that sometimes appear on other aviation websites with some airports. Nevertheless, the comment is certainly intriguing.

 

[IanFarquharson]

would be a 'spotters dream' ????

Dreamliner ?

Qatar ?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

would be a 'spotters dream' ????

Dreamliner ?

Qatar ?

It's certainly being speculated but may lie in the 'fanciful dream' category. BRS is due to see regular Dreamliners next summer with TOM so if Qatar was to pitch up alongside one day that would certainly be something for the spotters.

A B787-8 should have no problem reaching Doha without load penalty from the interesting BRS runway and the airline's UK chief did say last year that they were looking at the South West as a possible route. That would not necessarily have meant BRS though, although it's unlikely from a commercial angle that Exeter would have been considered a better bet.

That might still leave CWL to serve the South West and if it was down to operational practicalities then Rhoose might have held an advantage. But it doesn't appear to be an issue with Qatar's 787s so the generally stronger and larger BRS catchment ought to put it in pole position if Qatar really is looking seriously at the South West. The only caveat is that the Wales Government is desperate (for political as well as economic reasons) to see their airport prosper so might be tempted to see how far they could push the EU state aid regulations if they thought there was a chance of landing one of the MEB3.

 

[kraktoa]

When Contnental started services from Bristol they insisted on the airport building showering facilities for their business class pax. The airport of course complied, the floods that they caused in neighbouring offices is a different matter. When Continental pulled out the showers were removed.

So a good indication that of trans atlantic servces resuming would be an order for showers.

 

[superking]

and showers that don't flood every thing lol.

 

[andrewgreen]

A spotters dream ... dreamliner could also be United , they have plenty of them now

 

[Marko1]

I was having a little think about the missing European routes and who might be tempted to operate them :-

Oslo - sas, Norwegian , Ryanair or easyJet?

Stockholm - as above

Riga - Ryanair or Wizz

Tallinn - Ryanair or easyJet

Seville - Ryanair , vueling or easyJet

Granada - easyJet

Valencia - easyJet

Athens - easyJet , Ryanair or Aegean

Istanbul - Turkish or Pegasus

Tel aviv - easyJet

Verona - Ryanair or easyJet

Zurich - Swiss , bmi or easyJet

That would more or less complete a probable European network

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Interesting list:

Oslo and Stockholm

Ideally SAS. They've tried both in the past with Stockholm always short summer seasons and Oslo for an entire summer before SAS downsized dramatically in 2009 and axed 40% of its routes including Bristol-Oslo

Riga

Operated by Ryanair from 2007 to 2012 - both they and Wizz have indicated no more expansion in the UK because of Brexit but Ryanair still seems to have increased services at a number of UK airports this year. Either Ryanair or Wizz but the latter might be better as it's less likely to operate at peak times. BRS needs to spread its load

Tallinn

Ryanair would be more likely although both it and easyJet operate from Tallinn to London airports

Seville

Ryanair operated a summer service from 2009 to 2011. Loads were decent and with the Airbus connection it might be thought that someone would take it on. Again they both operate to London airports from Seville. Vueling hasn't indicated any interest in BRS so far as we know

Granada

easyJet has a London route, no Ryanair routes from there currently

Valencia

A bit of a football this one. easyJet had it from 2004 to 2009 after which Ryanair stepped in.However, they ceased to fly it in September 2015 and moved the route up the road to Castellon. Is there scope for Valencia and Castellon?

Athens

Both easyJet and Ryanair operate to the UK from Athens but it feels more of an easyJet route to me

Istanbul

Given Turkey's current problems it's probably unlikely at the moment but if it did come to fruition I'd say Turkish every time because of the connectivity possibilities

Tel Aviv

I can't see this one happening. I don't think the West Country has a large Jewish population

Verona

There are summer and winter charter routes to Verona. Would there be scope for a schedule service?

Zurich

As we know, Helvetic was the last to try it and only on a point to point basis. Loads were rising on the 100-seat F100 with monthly average loads in the 60s when it was axed. Before that BAConnect operated the route with E145s. I think it has to have connections so Swiss is the best bet in my view. bmir is so expensive on most of its routes, and point to point travellers would probably opt for Geneva or Basel with easyJet if bmir started the route

One of the glaring omissions to me is Milan. I know that Ryanair operates Bergamo and bmir has a niche (mainly it seems for Leonardo at Yeovil) route to Malpensa. easyJet operated Malpensa for three years until 2010. A, say, 4 x weekly operation would be likely to see a market.

Bratislava is another I was surprised to see Ryanair axe with load factors in the 90s%. However, now that easyJet flies to Vienna maybe Bratislava might not be so popular given that people often used it to access Vienna.

Looking at the routes that easyJet no longer operates from BRS they have all been taken over by other airlines except Biarritz and Rijeka which were summer-only routes.

Ryanair is a different animal though. Since its base opened in 2007 it has seen routes come and go with bewildering speed at times. These routes that the airline no longer operates from BRS are not currently being operated by anyone else:

Derry, Dinard, Szczecin (Stettin), Shannon, Pau, Bydgoszcz, Lodz, Rimini, Belfast City, Seville, Riga, Eindhoven, Perpignan, Montpellier, Toulon and Trieste. The last five lasted just one season (summer 2009) which was the year when BRS was finally negatively affected by the recession; indeed, the only year.

Conns757 is adamant that the 8 mppa barrier will be passed 'easily' this year and says the incumbent carriers will provide 'lots of growth'. As he says in his post, patience is the key.

 

[tpm]

Tel Aviv
I can't see this one happening. I don't think the West Country has a large Jewish population

Not sure if a large Jewish population is required for this to happen, but a certain pull as a city to generate inbound traffic as well as outbound traffic always helps I suppose, but then Bristol seems to be doing okay so far regardless. Easyjet also operate flights from Tel Aviv to Basel, for example.

Israel in general and Tel Aviv in particular make a great tourist destination, both for beach holidays and those interested in sight-seeing, history or local culture. The Daily Mail recommends it, so it must be true Might also be perceived as safer than Egypt, Tunisia, or Turkey at the moment.

Tel Aviv is also one of the world's tech hubs, so there should be at least some potential for business-related traffic too.

It's quite a long sector of course, but I don't see why it couldn't be possible twice a week or so. Could even leave late in the evening, arrive there very early in the morning (which seems normal for arrivals from Europe), and you'd be back in the UK in time for breakfast, having utilised the aircraft overnight. (I know nothing about operations of course.)

 

[kraktoa]

Is this news going to come soon or what?

 

[Jerry]

It will have to be big if it gets BRS over the 8 million mark next year. Only thing i can think of is an airline opening a new base at the airport or a large European airline operating lots of routes into the airport.

 

[forest1979]

I read an interesting piece in airliner world this week on the rise and expansion plans of Norwegian.. a lot of this was focused on the recent department of transport agreement for them to set up and operate within the US.. interestingly there was a big piece on the UK.. It appears they are looking to get a similar agreement here. I was kind of looking for some hints that BRS might be in the reckoning but it was focused a lot on current bases and growing those. One glimmer of hope was the fact that while they don't plan on increasing bases at the moment, the new fleet coming into operations means they are thinking of connecting more of the UK from foreign bases. Thinking here the 737 max which they intend to use on transatlantic flights to Europe from secondary airports within the US. Maybe as has been muted on here, BRS may get point to point link to the US but not as previously we might have thought. Worth noting, LGW has big options for growth but are restricted currently by the timings of slots available. A good read and shows the success and big ambitions they have...

 

[Marko1]

I see Ryanair has announced significant route and frequencies increases at stanstead. I wonder whether we may see a bit of that here too ....

 

[TheLocalYokel]

It will have to be big if it gets BRS over the 8 million mark next year. Only thing i can think of is an airline opening a new base at the airport or a large European airline operating lots of routes into the airport.

The first three months of 2017 ought to be good start. Ryanair has a 25% increase in services compared with the previous winter and easyJet is also significantly up. November (so far the only winter month with published figures) was up nearly 14% in passenger numbers. If January, February and March average a 10% increase that would be an additional 130,000 over these months in 2016.

The additional easyJet aircraft this summer should bring in around 150,000 extra punters, so that's 280,000 more without anything else being added.

Unless something completely unanticipated happens (which would then be likely to affect aviation generally) the source who says on this forum that 8 mppa will 'easily' be accomplished in 2017 should not be dismissed lightly. With good reason, that poster is well-informed and has always been accurate in the past with such predictions.

 

[Jerry]

The additional easyJet aircraft this summer should bring in around 150,000 extra punters, so that's 280,000 more without anything else being added.

To get over the 8 million mark they will then need either a lot more extra frequencies from EZY either flown in or a new aircraft same with Ryanair or a new airline which would be big for BRS or a possibility of all 3. Guess it's a case of wait and see.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I see Ryanair has announced significant route and frequencies increases at stanstead. I wonder whether we may see a bit of that here too ....

I'm never certain how committed Ryanair is to BRS compared with easyJet. I don't think they'd abandon the airport altogether - it's too wealthy a catchment to ditch - but how far they'd go there is something I'm not sure about.

Just under two years ago Ryanair's chief marketing officer said that BRS would feature in the airline's expansion into Germany and Scandinavia in 'the next year or two'. He also said that Ryanair wanted to be bigger than easyJet at BRS.

Towards the end of 2015 the Ryanair chief commercial officer said that BRS 'was right to be worried' (about APD devolution to Wales) as the airline could get twice the profit per passenger from CWL than from BRS if APD was cut in Wales (presumably to nil).

So mixed messages with the Germany/Scandinavia thing presumably dead in the water following Brexit although the Stansted announcement gives the lie to Ryanair's assertion that they would concentrate on expansion in Europe following Brexit, as does expansion at other UK airports beginning this year.

As for being bigger than easyJet at BRS, the only way I could see that happening is if easyJet imploded in some way.

I would not put much money on a significant Ryanair expansion at BRS but then again I don't bet.