TheLocalYokel
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- Jan 14, 2009
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- #601
Daily departure numbers are down to the low 20s most days at the moment with Tuesdays and Wednesdays lower than that.Looking at the arrival/departure boards for today. There is 12 flights expected and 14 to depart. I have not counted the Easyjet that landed at 12.30 ish local time.Either 2 aircraft not returning to BRS or the boards not complete with the information. It can sure tell winter season just around the corner as a lack of flights,but the covid 19 dont help matters.
In normal times the last two thirds of November and the first part of December can see as few as 45-50 departures on Saturdays before the ski season kicks in. This winter will be lucky to see half that total on any day of the week.
If we look back to early summer easyJet had increased both EDI and GLA to up to 6 x daily and 5 x daily departures respectively. November is now showing no flights at all to either EDI or GLA on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays (with EDI it's for the last half of November). On a number of other days during the week in this period both routes are still showing double daily.......at the moment.
All this goes to show how impossible it is for airlines to make any sort of remotely accurate projection when it comes to routes (and even frequencies) whilst the pandemic is doing its worst. Clearly back in early summer easyJet had calculated that the pandemic effects would have no bearing in early winter, at least on some domestic routes, and would even lead to increased passenger traffic on them over previous winters.
With potential passengers also unsure which flights would actually operate when they looked to book perhaps a month or two or even longer beforehand, it's no surprise that many won't book at the moment.
We have a holiday tour that commences in Glasgow next May (it should have been last May but did not operate so we elected to carry over the deposit to next year). We have to get to Scotland to join the tour and normally would probably have already booked our easyJet flights. Not this time as we can't be sure whether the holiday will go ahead or if it does whether any easyJet flight we have booked will still operate.
We've decided to wait until almost the last minute before we make up our minds how to get to Scotland (assuming that Ms Sturgeon is allowing such trips to her country next May and Mr Johnson isn't stopping people leaving England). If we have to we will drive to Scotland but it's not something that would be our favoured travel option. I expect there are a lot of hesitant bookers like us which won't help the airline industry recovery one bit.