Movements, Logs & Head Up

[mullion]

It will do as they and Jet2 both cancelled flights a few days ago to all Spanish destinations

 

[kraktoa]

In the past week numbers have crept up remarkably. EZY flights from Amsterdam, spanish and french destinations are regularly topping the 130 mark. The polish flights are above the 150 mark. Biggest disappointment has been the Turkish and Greek flights that are still below 100. Faro, Porto is also below the 100 i believe a Rhodes flight had 200 plus TUI. Yesterday, for the first time in 4 months, the departures lounge was full enough that all the seating was occupied. Big step forward me thinks.

 

[kraktoa]

Quick Question

Are all the major operating airlines from Bristol Airport selling tickets for destinations from 2021 as per the 2019 schedule.

For eg I can see that TUI Cancun is on sale. Are EZY and RyanAir also operating a full service for 2021 as far as ticket sales are concerned.

I hear predictions that the airports will recover to only 50% of the 2019 timetable but operators at BRS appear to have a full timetable next year as if COVID19 never happened.

Or have I got this wrong.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Quick Question

Are all the major operating airlines from Bristol Airport selling tickets for destinations from 2021 as per the 2019 schedule.

For eg I can see that TUI Cancun is on sale. Are EZY and RyanAir also operating a full service for 2021 as far as ticket sales are concerned.

I hear predictions that the airports will recover to only 50% of the 2019 timetable but operators at BRS appear to have a full timetable next year as if COVID19 never happened.

Or have I got this wrong.

TUI seem to have reduced their programme in terms of the number of flights per week to some destinations next summer . Cancun is still currently 2 x weekly whereas Sanford has been reduced to one a week. Broadly it looks as though six aircraft will be needed by TUI next summer instead of the original seven.

Ryanair has several routes not yet bookable for summer 2021.

A couple of months ago the airport said it anticipated between 6.5 million and 7 million passengers next year down from the near 9 million in 2019. That could only have been a vague estimate because no-one could have known and still not know the degree to which the pandemic will affect air travel next year. Current circumstances would suggest that to be an optimistic projection.

Whatever flights are put on sale for next summer will obviously be subject to a large extent to the virus situation then. We've already seen numerous flights sold by easyJet this year subsequently cancelled even after the partial programme restarted, and Ryanair have axed some flights for September (next month) that were on sale until fairly recently.

The messages coming out the industry at the moment generally appear to indicate a longer recovery time than was first thought. Last April, for example, many commentators believed that 2019 passenger levels would be regained by 2022. Now it's common to read 2023 or even longer.

If a reliable vaccine was discovered that would likely alter the situation again - for the better.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Sunday 6 September 2020

There are 54 departures today which I think is the highest number since the lockdown and other virus restrictions began. In terms of airline movements 54 is around 50% of the usual movements at this time of the year. However, a check with seat selectors (admittedly not entirely reliable but useful for indications) shows that loads are all over the place. I've put in some examples at the end of this post.

Furthermore, with Ryanair and easyJet reducing some frequencies and/or temporarily suspending some routes in September and October the number of departures is likely to to reduce over the next few weeks, with winter also cut back significantly.

This is the breakdown of today's 54 departures:

easyJet (32):

Bodrum, Gibraltar, Tenerife South, Split, Malaga, Faro, Rhodes, Lisbon, Krakow, Bordeaux, Nice, Inverness, Palma, Glasgow (x 2), Dubrovnik, Berlin Schoenfeld, Bilbao, Edinburgh (x 2), Antalya, Paris Orly, Belfast Int (x 2), Amsterdam, Madrid, Geneva, Barcelona, Toulouse, Alicante, Paris Cdg, Newcastle.

Ryanair (14):

Wroclaw, Bologna, Palma, Chania, Malta, Girona, Milan Malpensa, Malaga, Faro, Alicante, Vienna, Venice Marco Polo, Krakow, Dublin.

TUI (4):

Heraklion, Kefalonia, Dalaman, Larnaca.

KLM Cityhopper (3):

Amsterdam (x 3)

Blue Islands (1):

Jersey

The random seat selector checks I did today showed the results set out below. I could only check flights that departed later in the day as earlier flights had already departed or were too close to departure for booking. Domestic destinations seem to be doing much better but, unsurprisingly, those to countries on the quarantine list are struggling. For instance, there are numerous flights to Spain and its territories today, but the loads that I was able to check were fairly low. This is in contrast to the high loads (often sold out) to Spain and its islands in early August before Spain was put on the quarantine list.

Paris, usually heavily booked, is dreadful with the same applying to Vienna, with Geneva not much better.

easyJet

There are two flights to Edinburgh today departing within half an hour of each other at 1410 and 1440. The first is a 320 with 152 seats occupied and the second a 319 with 131 seats occupied. The return flights show respectively 179 seats and 145 seats occupied.

There are two Glasgow flights (I was too late to check the first) but the second shows 157 seats northbound and 155 seats souhbound occupied.

Belfast International has two flights with 183 and 165 seats occupied on the outbound and 162 on the second inbound with the first sold out.

Newcastle has one flight with 161 seats occupied on the northbound and 171 on the southbound.

I also checked some other easyJet routes outbound with the following seats occupied:

Aicante 87
Toulouse 65
Paris Cdg 32
Paris Orly 26
Amsterdam 100 (I don't know how this compares with the three KLM flights today)
Madrid 86
Barcelona 39
Geneva 66
Antalya sold out

Ryanair

Alicante 80
Krakow 80
Dublin 114
Venice MP 123
Vienna 32
Faro 109
Malage 88

This is just a snapshot at one airport but it does illustrate how the need to quarantine on return is seriously affecting passenger numbers to those countries on the list. Even the threat of joining the list is inhibiting some people from travelling as is evidenced with Ryanair's Faro. I was too late to check the numbers on today's easyJet to Faro and Lisbon.

Airlines can't go on operating with loads like this. I doubt very much that BRS is out of kilter with most other airports. If BRS, arguably the most successful of the UK's smaller regional airports, is struggling in this way it paints a worrying picture for the sector as a whole.

 

[IanFarquharson]

BRS certainly busier than BHX today (49 departures), shows you the benefits of having a big easyjet base - well done BRS

 

[Marko1]

The one thing that is not helping is the uncertainty of whether a destination will or will not be an air bridge plus the airlines themselves swapping and changing flights. I transferred a flight from Easter to the end of October and now it’s disappeared off the booking system . To gain confidence to book you must have some consistency somehow. The winter season could be absolute dire if for example the Canary Islands air bridge is not resumed. There be little point in tui operating from Bristol otherwise

 

[TheLocalYokel]

BRS certainly busier than BHX today (49 departures), shows you the benefits of having a big easyjet base - well done BRS

easyJet was more cautious than Ryanair when airlines began to get back into action. For example at BRS on 2 July there were 15 Ryanair departures and 2 easyJet. On 18 July 16 Ryanair and 9 easyJet.

easyJet also tends to cancel more flights in bad weather than Ryanair and other airlines at BRS. It's not unknown for easyJet to cancel their programme for an entire morning or afternoon/evening, and sometimes an entire day if weather looks iffy such as snow when other airlines operate, often on the same routes that easyJet has cancelled.

Anyone who has the time and inclination to look back in the BRS Weather & Technical Diversions, thread will find many examples over the years.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Thursday 1 October 2020

The cutbacks by easyJet in October are reflected in tomorrow's departure board. In August and September daily departures averaged in the high 40s with the highest being 54 and the lowest 40.

Tomorrow there are just 29 departures shown on the BRS website departures page.

easyJet (16):

Malaga, Belfast International (x 2), Tenerife South, Funchal, Gibraltar, Alicante, Palma, Dalaman, Edinburgh (x 2), Antalya, Glasgow, Bodrum, Faro, Newcastle

Ryanair (9):

Arrecife, Venice MP, Palma, Tenerife South, Malta, Bergamo, Krakow, Faro, Alicante

KLM (2):

Amsterdam (x 2)

Blue Islands (1)

Jersey

Loganair (1)

Aberdeen

Nothing at all from TUI (there were four TUI departures today)

 

[kraktoa]

If not mentioned on other threads

Bristol Airport has announced closure of the airport for all flights from 00:00 until 06:00 hrs from 1st Nov until 31 March 2021.

Due to reduction in flights. This means no night movements.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

If not mentioned on other threads

Bristol Airport has announced closure of the airport for all flights from 00:00 until 06:00 hrs from 1st Nov until 31 March 2021.

Due to reduction in flights. This means no night movements.

There were few airline movements pre-pandemic between those hours in winter anyway. From the airline perspective it will probably make little difference, especially as things are likely to be much quieter outside these hours this winter than is normally the case. Delayed flights might have a problem though.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Friday 9 October 2020

RAF C17A Globemaster just landed at BRS having flown the short hop from Brize Norton. I know at the beginning of the pandemic there were a lot of military visitors doing approaches etc. I don't know if that carried on throughout the main part of the summer after the airport became busier with passenger flights.

I was doing some work in the house when my wife said, "What's that going into the airport?" I then checked with FR24.

Addendum

Stayed at BRS for 15-20 minutes before departing at 1720. Now climbing out over the Brecon Beacons in a northerly direction.

 

[superking]

Ryanair learjet 45 landed at 05.55 local time this morning. It came in from Stanstead,i dont know if it brought in crew or spare parts.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

We were chatting earlier in the CWL forum about the high number of regular sporting (mainly rugby and football) charter flights at that airport. There are four teams in the rugby Pro-14 who play regular games and receive opposing teams from Scotland, Ireland and France, who use CWL. In addition Cardiff City and Swansea City seem to fly to more away matches than Bristol City although they are in the same division, and Wales's international sides (men, women and under 20s) all use CWL several times a year, as do visiting international teams.

As I have already said Bristol City rarely fly to away matches and few if any League One clubs do which rules out Bristol Rovers. The local major rugby teams (Bristol and Bath) have no reason to in the Premiership unless they are playing at Newcastle who will be back in the Prem next season which is due to begin next month. Rugby is usually concerned only with flights in connection with European cup matches with Gloucester also using BRS on occasions for this purpose.

Anyway the coming seven or eight days should see a bit of action.

On Friday evening Bristol play Toulon in the final of the European Rugby Challenge Cup at Aix en Provence. Bristol travel on Thursday to presumably Marseille Airport.

On Saturday Exeter will play Racing 92 in the final of the European Rugby Champions Cup at Ashton Gate, Bristol. I would imagine that the French team will fly in from Paris.

On Wednesday week Middlesbrough play against Bristol City at Ashton Gate in a Championship football match and almost certainly will fly from Teesside Airport.

If anyone spots any news of the team buses for these fixtures perhaps they would post details here. Many thanks.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Wednesday 14 October 2020

The culling of easyJet and Ryanair routes this month is beginning to bite.

Today there were just 19 airline departures:

easyJet 11
Ryanair 4
KLM 2
TUI 1
Blue Islands 1

This contrasts with August and much of September when daily departures numbered in the 40s and 50s.

 

[Severn]

Thu 15 Oct 2020

CityJet - CRJ-900LR (EI-FPD) arrives at 12:20 from DUB as BCY351P.
It will depart with the Bristol Bears to MRS at 14:00 as BCY9352 where they meet Toulon for the final of the 2019/20 European Challenge Cup tomorrow night in Aix-en- Provence.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Friday 16 October 2020

BRS website arrivals page showing an Enter Air from Figari, Corsica due to arrive at 1600 today.

No doubt this will be a Boeing 737-800 and will be carrying the Racing 92 party that is due to play Exeter Chiefs tomorrow afternoon at Ashton Gate in the final of the European Rugby Champions Cup competition. Paris-based Racing 92 have been attending a training camp in Corsica.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Tuesday 20 October 2020

BRS website departures page showing an Eastern (no aircraft type shown) departure at 2300 to Teesside. No doubt the Middlesbrough party returning home after this evening's Championship match at Bristol City.

 

[NOSIGWX]

Tuesday 20 October 2020

BRS website departures page showing an Eastern (no aircraft type shown) departure at 2300 to Teesside. No doubt the Middlesbrough party returning home after this evening's Championship match at Bristol City.

E145 G-CISK arrived yesterday afternoon & currently parked up on stand 14.

 

[superking]

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.