Bristol: KLM News & Flight Discussions

[superking]

TY localyokel that cleared a lot of points up.Used to take my son up the airport on a Saturday night and always the 3 Yugoslavias in,made good watching them depart. Also the Netherlines came in dropped off pax and any luggage,reloaded luggage and pax and departed back to AMS. It did not night stop on a Saturday but I can not say if they did the other days of the week.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The reduction by KLM Cityhopper on some of its flights to/from Amsterdam is being discussed again on various aviation message boards as previously announced reductions, and possibly new ones in one or two cases, are now in sight at a number of airports. In most instances the reductions are for a limited period and reportedly are the result of runway work at AMS.

In January this year I posted the position as far as BRS is concerned, as under:

BRS is affected for part of the summer to the extent that the early morning outbound KL1046 and the late evening inbound KL1057 will be operated by an E175 instead of an E190 between 8 July and 2 September. Frequency will remain at 4 x daily (28 x weekly with all other flights on the E190).

However, from 8 September until 27 October there will be only 3 daily rotations on both Saturday and Sunday. From 28 October the service will revert to 4 x daily (28 x weekly although it seems that one of the Saturday rotations will be an E175).

Looking at the KLM booking engine the period 8 September to 27 October seems to have reverted to the usual 4 x daily, albeit one rotation is an E175. The 4 x daily continues through the winter each weekday but with two of the rotations on E175s and the other two on E190s. The weekends are a bit of a mess with Saturday seemingly at 4 x daily apart from January and the first half of February when it drops to 3 x daily. Sunday is 3 x daily from November until mid February. From mid February the service is 4 x daily every day (28 x weekly), although some rotations are on E175s.

Next summer's programme shows the usual 4 x daily (28 x weekly) from mid July - Saturdays are only 3 x daily until then. One of the Saturday and one of the Sunday rotations are on the E175 throughout the summer with everything else on the E190.

 

[Jerry]

I'd imagine that BRS is one of a few airports across the UK that they'd only reduce if really needed but a reduction would overall effect it less than an airport like Cardiff. It does look like Inverness are effected as well losing their 737 flight and going down to a daily flight.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

easyJet expanded its BRS-AMS service this summer to 12 x weekly with an additional rotation. It's double daily except Wed and Sat which are both single daily. This frequency is set to continue right through the coming winter. I don't know if this had any effect on KLM's minor changes at BRS.

I can remember a time in the pre-easyJet years when CWL had more weekly KLM Cityhopper AMS flights than BRS. That was the time of the airline's F50s and the early days of the F70s. At one time one of the daily flights operated AMS-BRS-CWL-AMS. That would have been in the later 1990s. I used that flight from AMS to BRS once - it left AMS during the late afternoon. It was the first time I'd been on a KLM Cityhopper F70.

 

[superking]

I have only used Cityhopper once. It was out bound on a FK 100 and the return flight was a FK50. The fk50 was a right shed compared to the FK100.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I have only used Cityhopper once. It was out bound on a FK 100 and the return flight was a FK50. The fk50 was a right shed compared to the FK100.

When I started using KLM Cityhopper at BRS they operated Saab 340s. They were quite fun to ride in for a short distance with AMS being about as far as I'd want to go in one. On one of my early flights the captain was a young woman who looked about 20 (I'm sure she was older but she looked young). Her co-pilot looked about 16 and I remember he was introduced by the captain as 'Oscar'.

I entertained a thought that the captain had decided to take the day off to play golf or something and had told his daughter to fly the aircraft to Bristol and to take her younger brother with her.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/fault-klm-ibiza-sparks-nightmare-1884474

This tale seems a bit odd. Doesn't make it clear whether the passengers booked a through ticket from Bristol to Ibiza via Amsterdam with KLM or partners. If so KLM would have got them there somehow even if delayed. It seems they were not prepared to wait until their aircraft was fixed and said it was untenable to get to MAN which is what they say KLM offered (even though a part to repair the u/s aircraft was being flown to BRS that lunchtime).

So they appear to have stumped up more money voluntarily to fly to Barcelona (presumably with easyJet's early afternoon departure from their stated teatime arrival time in Barcelona but it's not made clear) from where they still had to get across the water to Ibiza.

Makes you wonder why they didn't book a direct flight from BRS to IBZ in the first place.

 

[Jerry]

Makes you wonder why they didn't book a direct flight from BRS to IBZ in the first place.

I had a quick look and surprsingly only TUI have flights to Ibiza on Thursdays so if the group was only able to go on Thursdays then they only had those options and KLM were probably the cheapest option.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

What they fail to mention is they would be entitled to EU compensation for the delay and likely a refund of the KLM ticket, which was probably more than the flight to BCN.
You can buy a through ticket on KLM to IBZ on a Thursday but looks like it's only a daily flight, so probably if kept with KLM would've meant a 24 hour delay and overnight in BRS or AMS, so wouldn't have been worth waiting for the delayed flight unless there were other options from AMS later in the day which KLM could book them on (E.G - Can only use selected carriers - Not low-cost)

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I don't know if it's still the case with 'legacy airlines' but with many airlines it used to be that if you failed to use the outbound leg of a return journey you forfeited the right to the return leg. These passengers would undoubtedly be due compensation for the delayed outbound but might have to fork out for a new flight home. After all, they seemed to have been offered an alternative way of reaching Ibiza by KLM but decided not to take it.

 

[Foxlimayankee]

It still applies with most I think, but delays/cancellations are exempt provided the Airline is made aware that the return will still be used. Ultimately in this situation it is KLM's fault the outbound may not be used.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

There has been talk of equipment upgrades at some other regional airports with KLM Cityhopper's routes to Amsterdam. LBA is being suggested for a B 737 to replace some of the E190 rotations.

BRS had a record month for the AMS route in July with 40,084 passengers carried. The route is served 4 x daily (28 weekly) by KLM Cityhopper and 12 x weekly by easyJet. KLM usually uses the E190 on all rotations but this summer has seen E175s on one rotation per day at least. easyJet operates a mixture of A320s and A319s to AMS.

I took Mayfly's list of aircraft types for each rotation in July and worked out that across both airlines approximately 94% of available seats were taken. I discounted at least three cancelled sectors in July which would have put the overall average loads up by a tiny bit. Of course, it's not possible to ascertain each airline's split of the loads.

Over the last decade BRS-AMS passenger numbers have been rising steadily after a drop at the time of the recession.

These are the annual figures from 2008 to 2017 in 000s: 244, 230, 224, 289, 310, 321, 350, 384, 408, 410.

The figures for 2018 (Jan-July incl) are 250,061 compared with 237,282 in the same period in 2017. That's an increase of 12,779 or 5.4%. A similar percentage increase for the whole of 2018 would give an annual total in the region of 432,000 passengers.

 

[Marko1]

Surely it must be time for a capacity or frequency increase on this route. Was there any special reason for the big increase in Julys figures ?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Surely it must be time for a capacity or frequency increase on this route. Was there any special reason for the big increase in Julys figures ?

I don't think so. Apart from March and April every month this year has seen increases over 2017 of between 1,000 and 3,000 a month. April was just around 700 up but March was about 1600 down, the result of major snow closures at both BRS and AMS for several days.

one of the easyJet BRS-AMS sectors is sold out tomorrow and next Monday all four sectors on the two easyJet flights are already sold out. This seems fairly common as it does with CDG and some of the other popular routes.

 

[Jerry]

If there is to be a capacity increase then i'd imagine it will be via bigger aircraft as AMS is slot restricted.
The only thing is that BRS has been growing for a while now and if KLM wanted to use 737s i'd i have thought they would be already.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

If there is to be a capacity increase then i'd imagine it will be via bigger aircraft as AMS is slot restricted.
The only thing is that BRS has been growing for a while now and if KLM wanted to use 737s i'd i have thought they would be already.

I suppose that could be said about other airports too where there has been growth but no commensurate increase in aircraft size or additional rotations. AMS seems to have been growing at a number of airports this year which might be seen as a touch perverse given the temporary cutbacks seen at some of the airports, eg BRS has been growing but has seen some E175s this year whereas in recent years it's been all E190s.

 

[Marko1]

It is interesting to see that a number of business type destinations are increasing nicely - Dublin, Frankfurt, Munich , Brussels and even Paris which must indicate there is demand for more of these services. I find it strange that we have not seen KLM increase their services so far or for that matter why easyJet hasn't been tempted with say a 3 daily service.

 

[superking]

There was talk towards the end of last year early this year that KLM were going to up grade aircraft to A 320 size of aircraft,which was suppose to have happened in this summer season. All gone quiet on that one for what ever reason.

 

[Marko1]

Anyone know how the loads are on the klm Amsterdam service. Just wondering why we have not had an upgraded service like Cardiff , Norwich and Aberdeen.

 

[Jerry]

Anyone know how the loads are on the klm Amsterdam service. Just wondering why we have not had an upgraded service like Cardiff , Norwich and Aberdeen.

Competition from Easyjet I'd imagine. Competition they don't have at the airports mentioned. Not just on AMS but their direct city routes as well.