Fly BMI

[superking]

Does that passenger count include Airbus staff ?
i think they are classed as charter pax.so if they are then yes they will be in the figures.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Does that passenger count include Airbus staff ?

It would include all passengers whether Airbus or aviation-related staff or the general public. As this is a scheduled route open to anyone to fly on all passengers are shown under the scheduled heading in the CAA stats.

The bmi regional-operated Airbus Corporate shuttle operation to Toulouse and Hawarden is shown elsewhere in CAA stats but under the charter passenger heading unlike the other bmi regional routes so far operating from BRS (ABZ and HAM) which are scheduled routes.

In February the Corporate Shuttle carried 2299 passengers between Bristol and Toulouse and 634 between Bristol and Hawarden. January figures were 2039 and 521 respectively.

In addition easy Jet carried 6137 passengers between Bristol and Toulouse in February and 5093 in January on its scheduled services.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Hamburg this evening

The late afternoon flight operated (shown as departing on the BRS website and arriving on the Hamburg Airport website).

However, the return was shown as cancelled both on the HAM and BRS websites

Presumably it was some sort of technical problem. Since operating out of BRS as an independent airline bmi regional seem to have been very reliable.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Mayfly next week

Monday 8 April shows BMA 9411 departing BRS at 0745 for Agadir via Santander. I don't know whether this is Airbus shuttle-related or a charter.

Five BMA departures are shown within a 75-minute period on 8 April morning:

0630 Toulouse (Airbus shuttle)
0700 Aberdeen
0700 Hamburg
0745 Agadir via Santander
0745 Toulouse (Airbus shuttle).

The 0745 to Toulouse arrives from Hawarden at 0715 but the others appear to be based aircraft: 3 x 145 and 1 x 135 (Hamburg).

Later this spring when Frankfurt goes to double daily and Hannover, Milan and Munich commence there will be at least five BMA departures before 0800 on most weekday mornings, including Airbus shuttle flights.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Frankfurt

BRS-FRA resumes today after a four-year absence. LH [Eurowings] last operated the route ending April 2009. Before that the BA franchisee operated it for a decade.

http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/media-c ... s-off.aspx

 

[Aviador]

I was speaking to some BMI airline staff at LBA recently. They said the withdrawal of the aircraft from Leeds was to enable the new Bristol operation. Needless to say, they weren't happy bunnies.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I was speaking to some BMI airline staff at LBA recently. They said the withdrawal of the aircraft from Leeds was to enable the new Bristol operation. Needless to say, they weren't happy bunnies.

The BRS network is quite an extensive one for a newly independent airline, although perhaps the continuation of the airline name at present will have some resonance, and it will be interesting to see whether it works out.

The operation is underpinned to an extent by the Airbus Shuttle which presumably provides some solid foundation although they would doubtless have had to be competitive with their bid to get it.

The routes flown or to be flown are all routes that have operated in the past except Hannover which is actually one of Bristol's twin cities. That's the route that some people have their doubts about.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

bmi regional has been getting some work at weekends with rugby and football club charters.

This week I noticed a flight to Biarritz on Friday morning having noted an inbound on Wednesday or Thursday (I forget which).

Almost certainly the flights were connected with a rugby match where Biarritz played at Gloucester on Thursday evening. Interesting that a French club should use a British airline in this way.

 

[tpm]

The airport's "Inner Circle" newsletter from today contained the following bit about the Hannover link:

[T]he Hannover flight will be well used by Forces families visiting relatives based in the nearby region of North Rhine-Westphalia.

According to Wikipedia there are around 21,500 soldiers based on the region, with families around 40,000 people, although half of those will be withdrawn by 2015, and the rest by 2019.

If that's enough to justify twice daily I don't know, but it seems a bit more plausible now. I presume the army has regular military flights between bases for their own personnel.

 

[Aviador]

They will have to get the price right if they want forces families to use the new flight. On another note the BBC reported a few weeks ago that the government was looking to slimline or close some military bases in Germany.

 

[alphagolf]

If that's enough to justify twice daily I don't know, but it seems a bit more plausible now. I presume the army has regular military flights between bases for their own personnel.

The Bristol - Hannover route is not twice daily, its once daily Monday to Friday and one on Sunday, so dependant on the aircraft it be ok. I would suggest bmi regional will use the E135.

 

[tpm]

Thanks for the correction alphagolf. For some reason I thought all routes were going twice daily from May, but it seems it's only Frankfurt and Hamburg (I hope I have got that right now).

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Hamburg passenger figures, March 2013

CAA stats show that in the first full calendar month of this route 706 passengers were carried.

Assuming all rotations operated this gives an average load of 16.8. If there was no Good Friday flight (I don't know) it rises slightly to 17.6.

This is a trifle disappointing even though it is a new route, and it's less than the 18.6 average load of February which was a part month. Mayfly showed the equipment as ERJ145 in March but now an ERJ135 in April.

There are some big advertising posters around the airport for the bmi routes and I've also seen a city taxi or two bearing adverts.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

There are some big advertising posters around the airport for the bmi routes and I've also seen a city taxi or two bearing adverts.

I've also seen some large advertisements for the new routes on some First buses in Bristol and in Bath over the last couple of days.

It's good to see the routes are being given every chance. The business community has been crying out for more German routes so if they don't use them they've only themselves to blame if things don't work out. Most of the routes ought to succeed (hopefully, all will) but the business sector needs to put its words into action.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The BRS airport web site is showing free car parking at the airport for all bmi regional flights booked out of BRS within the next 48 hours.

I hope this is part of what appears to be a concerted marketing push for the airline and its routes from BRS rather than an indication that bookings are not what might have been hoped.

 

[tpm]

I suspect bookings might not be as good as hoped for judging from the prices I got from a few test bookings.

I must also say I'm not impressed at all with the marketing effort so far, I have only seen advertising by the airport (e-mails, newsletters) and a taxi or two around town. People I talk to generally don't seem to be aware of the new routes (incl. people who fly to Milan every second week from Heathrow or Gatwick). Perhaps I run in the wrong circles though and there's a campaign targetted specifically at select businesses underway.

Another thing I was wondering: is it possible the new routes are not listed in certain booking systems used by professional travel agents? The kind of travel agents many companies rely on to handle bookings.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I hope you are wrong about the bookings but I fear you might not be.

Although there are some adverts on some taxis in Bristol and some quite large ones along the side of some First buses in Bristol and Bath, I find the design not very striking and not that easy to read. Furthermore, the fact that the routes are from BRS is shown in fairly small lettering.

I know that even after five years of the CO route to Newark it was still a surprise to many travellers, including some local business people. After a couple of years of its operation I asked my son who was based in the Bristol area and who worked then for a major US financial group and travelled frequently to the USA why he didn't consider using the Bristol service.

He's not interested in aviation and his reply was that he didn't know it existed. His employers used a corporate booking agency and the BRS-EWR route never featured.

He was of sufficient seniority to have himself booked on some of the BRS-EWR flights after that (one of the valuable front cabin brigade too) but on some occasions it was still quicker to fly from LHR direct rather than a long wait at EWR for onward connections across the USA.

Maybe the new bmi regional routes are not as well known to the local business community as they ought to be.

 

[Ray Finkle]

I hope you are wrong about the bookings but I fear you might not be.

Although there are some adverts on some taxis in Bristol and some quite large ones along the side of some First buses in Bristol and Bath, I find the design not very striking and not that easy to read. Furthermore, the fact that the routes are from BRS is shown in fairly small lettering.

Sounds similar to BMI regional's advertising here. There are adverts on billboards and the side of buses with the destinations written in huge letters but the fact that it's a route by BMI Regional and from BHX is in tiny writing, which is practically unreadable on a moving bus. On first glance I thought it was an advert for the city rather than the route.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

[textarea]The Bristol Post Business Awards 2013 to showcase city's ambitions for growth

Another prestigious organisation to sign up to the awards is the airline bmi regional. Laura Mitchell, from the airline, said: "Connectivity is vital for businesses of all shapes and sizes, providing access to new customers and suppliers. Our route network from Bristol Airport helps hundreds of companies to compete on a bigger stage, saving them time and money in the process.

"That is why we are proud to support The Bristol Post Business Awards and, in particular, the Small Business of the Year category."

Established in June 2012 with headquarters at East Midlands Airport, bmi regional currently operates 450 weekly flights on four domestic UK routes and 19 routes linking nine regional UK hubs to Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany and Switzerland – most of which were previously operated by the regional division of bmi. New routes launched since its launch include Bristol to Aberdeen, Frankfurt and Hamburg, and the airline’s first intra-continental route, Bremen to Toulouse.[/textarea]

Full report at: http://www.southwestbusiness.co.uk/news ... or-growth/

It's good to see bmi regional getting involved in the business life of the city.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

http://www.incentivetravel.co.uk/news/v ... cover-bath

Bath Tourism together with VisitBritain and UKinbound is putting on an event in the city this week to encourage more high spending visitors to the area.

This is another example of the work being put in locally to promote the new bmi regional routes as this paragraph from the linked report shows.

Yet another coup for Bath Tourism Plus, this event is just the latest in series of overseas and travel trade activity: the organisation has been promoting Bath and North East Somerset at major national and international exhibitions over the past few weeks and has been working on a joint marketing campaign with bmi Regional and Bristol Airport to support a number of new direct flights from Germany now coming in to Bristol.