Route Development & Rumours

[Jerry]

If we don’t get a certain to come in there is going to be big capacity drops primarily to Greece and turkey. Any signs easyJet and /tui can fill gaps for next summer ?

The problem for TUI will be aircraft though leased aircraft might be easier but they could maybe change which routes the Dreamliner operates?
I suppose with Easyjet it could be a case of how much they commit to filling at bigger airports like MAN. Maybe they'll look to shift the A321s onto Turkey? It be interesting to see what happens!

 

[Marko1]

One suggestion I have seen is that maybe tui could wet lease Norwegian 737s to fill capacity. Don’t know how true that may be . The question is that the bigger bases would need filling first

 

[Rob c DSA]

The big problem everywhere is the lack of airlines left in the UK everyone is fighting for the same few companies with a certain amount of aircraft availability. The past few years has really seen a boom and bust culture start ups with rapid expansion only to scale back or in other cases fail along with the well established carriers like Monarch and Thomas Cook ceasing trading. The last couple of months have been especially bad for airline failures.

Be it Bristol or Birmingham there are some airport managers scrambling to fill some pretty large network holes.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Part of the problem has been too much capacity on some routes (in the UK generally) leading to unsustainably low fares. It follows then that not all Thomas Cook lost capacity is likely to be replaced immediately (ie within the next year) even if there were airlines in a position to do so.

The airline that seems to have done most to step into the breach is Jet2, and even that airline can only do so much.

The speed with which Jet2 reacted suggests that they had plans ready in the event of Thomas Cook failing, which looked increasingly likely over recent weeks. easyJet, Ryanair and TUI (BRS's main airlines) appear to have done little if anything to address the situation whether at BRS or anywhere. Either they aren't as prescient as Jet2 (I can't really believe that) or they are deliberating longer to decide their response.

Although BRS has lost about 6% of its annual available seating and around 500,000 passengers annually with Thomas Cook's demise, there are larger airports - notably MAN, LGW and BHX - that will lose more seating capacity and more passengers per annum.

If airlines take the view that the larger airports with their greater loss of capacity will be addressed first then BRS might well be looking at significant lack of growth over the next two or three years..........but read on.

BRS is an unusual airport though. Its small physical size, difficult surface connectivity, troublesome weather at times and a not ideally situated site taken together suggest that its primary catchment should be nowhere near capable of generating its current nearly nine million passengers a year. What that fails to take into account is the relatively wealthy population within the catchment (although the city still houses some of the most deprived wards in the country) and Bristol's dynamic, booming economy - Bristol and London are the only English cities that produce more money for the Treasury than they receive. BRS also benefits from being midway between two other airport catchments that are not in themselves large enough to generate the same level of traffic and therefore destinations, hence many from those catchments use BRS.

GoFly recognised the opportunity at BRS and easyJet, after absorbing Go, continued to build and build, with the 'noughties' major recession only temporarily halting the almost continuous growth path. In fact, 2009 saw a drop of just over 600,000 passengers, only the fifth annual fall at BRS since 1970. 2020 is likely to be the sixth year but I doubt that the loss will be as many as 600,000 passengers. Since 2009 BRS's growth has been very substantial - from 5.6 mppa to the current 8.9 mppa. That's a rise of 60%. If the next ten years grew at the same rate over 14 mppa would be reached by 2029.

Growth won't be at that rate though, not least because most of the future apples will be from the more difficult higher branches of the tree, and anyway the airport might be artificially stunted well below 14 mppa because of political decisions.

The point is though that in 2009 few predicted that BRS would grow as it has done over the subsequent ten years. 2020 might be difficult but the airport's track record over half a century suggests that it won't drag its feet for too long. Even in the loss-making days of the 60s and 70s it was still growing its passenger numbers most years - it just wasn't making any money then.

 

[Jerry]

I've no doubt Bristol will recover the lost passengers either by it's current airlines expanding or most likely a combination of a new airline arriving and it's current airlines expanding even if they have opportunities elsewhere.

 

[Marko1]

Reading this morning that there are plans to close Ryanair’s girona base. Given the fact that Bristol 4 aircraft are already fully utilised I’m guessing we could see either girona reduced or stopped . Given that tui has also dropped its service for summer 2020 and we know what’s happened to tcx that’s a loss of 8 weekly services to one destination alone. Quite depressing if true.

Also I’ve read this week about how quickly lufthansa has filled the loss of services following the collapse of Adria on its flights from both fra and muc. Given that never happened after the loss of bmi routes I would question if lufthansa is even interested in returning to Bristol. It certainly not down to lack of aircraft is it ?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Reading this morning that there are plans to close Ryanair’s girona base. Given the fact that Bristol 4 aircraft are already fully utilised I’m guessing we could see either girona reduced or stopped . Given that tui has also dropped its service for summer 2020 and we know what’s happened to tcx that’s a loss of 8 weekly services to one destination alone. Quite depressing if true.

Also I’ve read this week about how quickly lufthansa has filled the loss of services following the collapse of Adria on its flights from both fra and muc. Given that never happened after the loss of bmi routes I would question if lufthansa is even interested in returning to Bristol. It certainly not down to lack of aircraft is it ?

I'd assumed that Girona had already been pulled by Ryanair given that it's not bookable beyond this month. To reinstate it if only partially with BRS-based aircraft would mean a reduction elswhere from the airport unless (very unlikely) a fifth aircraft was to be based. With Ryanair's BRS-Reus route disappearing a year or two ago, although that one has come and gone over the years, there is no Ryanair route from BRS to Barcelona as the airline insists on calling Girona and Reus. I don't know if easyJet's double daily/14 weekly BCN route is part of the problem. Load factors on Girona were always very high - perhaps though it was one of those routes that according to a poster and Ryanair shareholder on another airport thread on F4A was losing the airline money per passenger.

Ironically, before the BRS base opened almost exactly twelve years ago Ryanair operated three routes into BRS from other bases: Dublin, Girona and Shannon. Two of the three seem to be disappearing within the next few weeks.

There is a lot of talk in the BHX threads about that airport's performance with one thread listing routes that have disappeared since 2000 and are no longer operated - the total is 99. I've asked if they were all scheduled routes or a mixture of both. I might try to do a similar thing for BRS.

There is no doubt that commercial aviation is going through a difficult period at the moment with airlines ceasing to operate because of saturated markets and unsustainable business plans, the shadow of Brexit, fears of a major world recession, climate change pressure increasingly making itself felt being just some of the factors.

Apart from the odd appearance from a new airline such as Laudamotion (Ryanair in its hiking gear really) it's difficult to see where significant growth will come from over the next couple of years - that is significant growth from the lower base that will undoubtedly occur because of Thomas Cook. Jet2 looks the best hope but it seems not yet, if at all. Even then it's now largely a holiday airline that will do little for the region's economy outside the relatively few aviation associated jobs that would eventuate.

Apart from some smaller airports where a small increase in passenger numbers can generate good-looking percentage monthly/annual percentage rises, the growth trend generally is now largely static or minimal and in some cases depressed. That doesn't take into account the Thomas Cook effect which will accentuate the pattern.

 

[Jerry]

Also I’ve read this week about how quickly lufthansa has filled the loss of services following the collapse of Adria on its flights from both fra and muc. Given that never happened after the loss of bmi routes I would question if lufthansa is even interested in returning to Bristol. It certainly not down to lack of aircraft is it ?

It is interesting that they don't seem interested in Bristol. You'd have thought that a daily Munich in the least would've been a good option for them

 

[Marko1]

I will start off some lost routes whilst I got a minute:-

Munich
Dusseldorf
Frankfurt
hamburg
Stockholm
Gothenburg
Oslo
Riga
Bratislava
Shannon( soon)
New york
Toronto
preveza
Zadar
Bastia
Girona (?)
Kosice
Goa
Agadir
Banjul
Teeside
Londonderry

There’s a start

 

[TheLocalYokel]

It is interesting that they don't seem interested in Bristol. You'd have thought that a daily Munich in the least would've been a good option for them

If LH was interested in BRS you would imagine the primary reason would be connectivity via their hubs. I remember that in 2008 when LH vie Eurowings Bae146-300s (3 x daily/21 x weekly) operated BRS-FRA for a year they stated publicy that after the first six months of the service passengers from BRS had used every worldwide conenction at FRA. That being the case I would have thought that FRA would take precedence over MUC. Whether FRA or MUC I can't see a single daily being enough for many of the connections without entailing hours waiting at the German airports or in some cases waiting overnight.

That might be part of the problem - finding aircraft of a size that could viably operate at least a 2 x daily service. The 146-300s operated then by Eurowings were probably too big for a 3 x daily service. Perversely, bmi regional suggested that their E145s were too small for their FRA route - so something in between would possibly be required.

 

[Marko1]

Interestingly it is Lufthansa’s crjs that have been scheduled to replace adria at short notice so it’s not aircraft size .

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Interestingly it is Lufthansa’s crjs that have been scheduled to replace adria at short notice so it’s not aircraft size .

On what routes?

 

[Jerry]

Whether FRA or MUC I can't see a single daily being enough for many of the connections without entailing hours waiting at the German airports or in some cases waiting overnight.

Well they seem to be offering a daily service at Newcastle using the A319. I think it depends on what market they may want to target. For the Far east a daily afternoon service might be a good start.

 

[Marko1]

They are using the city line crJ s on both Frankfurt and Munich to Ljubljana

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I will start off some lost routes whilst I got a minute:-

Munich
Dusseldorf
Frankfurt
hamburg
Stockholm
Gothenburg*
Oslo*
Riga
Bratislava
Shannon( soon)
New york
Toronto
preveza
Zadar
Bastia
Girona (?)
Kosice
Goa
Agadir
Banjul
Teeside
Londonderry

There’s a start

Thanks for that Marko. I've added some of my own. I've now set them out in an alphabetical list including yours so any further ones can be slotted in easily. I've acknowledged your contribution with an asterisk against the routes you originally listed. I make the total so far to be 64.

List of routes from BRS no longer served (scheduled and regular charter) mainly from 2000

Agadir*
Almeria (lost with TCX)
Banjul*
Bastia*
Belfast City
Bratislava*
Bremen
Brescia
Bydgoszcz
Cagliari
Castellon (switched back to Valencia by Ryanair)
Dinard
Dusseldorf*
Eindhoven
Frankfurt*
Figari
Florence
Gatwick
Girona*
Genoa
Goa*
Gothenburg*
Hamburg*
Izmir
Kavala
Kosice*
Leeds-Bradford
Lodz
Londonderry*
Luxor
Manchester
Monastir
Munich*
Newquay
New York (Newark)*
Norwich
Oslo*
Pau
Perpignan
Plovdiv
Plymouth
Preveza* (lost with TCX)
Puerto Plata
Punta Cana
Riga*
Rijeka
Rimini
Scilly Isles
Shannon*
Sharm el Sheikh
Stockholm*
Szczecin
Teeside*
Toronto*
Toronto Hamilton
Treviso (Ryanair switched to Venice MP)
Trieste
Toulon
Varadero
Varna
Volos
Zadar*
Zurich
Warsaw Chopin

* In Marko's original list

 

[superking]

Girona has been dropped from all UK airports with the exception of STN by Ryanair.It seems Ryanair has a problem with Girona and shutting the base as well.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

A regular poster on the Dried Fruit who works for Jet2 and who says he is in a position to know has posted that there will be no new Jet2 bases in 2020.

 

[Marko1]

It’s no surprise that given they have consistently said there will be no new bases prior to the sad demise of Thomas cook . To be honest the longer I think about it I’m starting to doubt that jet2 are interested in setting up new bases in the sw UK. What they could do is simply encourage you to fly from Bhx or stn and if you wanted to go on holiday with jet2 you simply could do that .

 

[Jerry]

I'm sure that they will end up at Bristol if not sooner then later.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

It’s no surprise that given they have consistently said there will be no new bases prior to the sad demise of Thomas cook . To be honest the longer I think about it I’m starting to doubt that jet2 are interested in setting up new bases in the sw UK. What they could do is simply encourage you to fly from Bhx or stn and if you wanted to go on holiday with jet2 you simply could do that .

They certainly advertise their BHX programme a lot in the West Country with, for example, the local edition of Metro often carrying adverts.

There might be something in your suggestion especially now that TCX has gone, and with TUI perhaps not adding that much in the future to compensate there might be limited options locally for West Country travellers seeking inclusive holidays, although it remains to be seen how successful and how big the easyjet holiday initiative will become.

I seem to remember easyJet trying something like that in the past. We once went on a short break to Majorca using easyJet and their hotel partner at the time.

I'm sure that they will end up at Bristol if not sooner then later.

Might be quite a lot later if it does happen. I don't know what the slot situation would be at Gatwick. If they wanted to cover further south and Gatwick wasn't readily available they might have to look at Severnside or the south coast such using BOH.