Bristol: Airport Route Development & Rumours

[TheLocalYokel]

Rome (FCO)

It seems the Italian charter flights are back again this summer meaning that on Wednesdays BRS will have two FCO flights - the other being the daily easyjet.

In 2012 the series of flights operated in July and the first half of August, believed to be for students, possibly language students - perhaps someone knows for certain.

The first flight arrived today with a Mistral Air Boeing 734 which then departed from BRS for Olbia according to Mayfly (presumably a positioning leg).

Next week the aircraft is shown on Mayfly as an A 320 with an AZE ICAO code. We had this Mayfly anomaly last year. AZA is Alitalia's ICAO code. AZE relates to a German carrier with small aircraft.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Gibraltar?

A report today in a Gibraltar newspaper - see below link - suggests that Gibraltar's Minister for Tourism, Commercial Affairs, Public Transport and The Port (busy bloke!) is in discussions about possible flights from Bristol and a Scottish airport to the Rock.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/gi ... 2013_07_12

 

[User0001]

Well, they do have a nice new shiny terminal to put to use so not beyond the realms of possibility.

Easyjet serve GIB, so having a large base at BRS means they are the best fit.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Well, they do have a nice new shiny terminal to put to use so not beyond the realms of possibility.

Easyjet serve GIB, so having a large base at BRS means they are the best fit.

Indeed. I suppose that Gibraltar might make some concessiosn to airlines starting such routes as the report suggests they are keen to expand their network.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

[textarea]Airport teams up with Destination Bristol at World Route Development Forum

Bristol Airport is teaming up with Destination Bristol to promote the city’s attractions to airlines from across the globe at the aviation industry’s annual route development forum.

The World Route Development Forum takes place in Las Vegas from 5-8 October and provides airports and tourism authorities the opportunity to meet with airlines to make the case for new air services. More than 3,000 delegates from over 100 countries will be in attendance, with airlines taking the opportunity to evaluate a range of new route opportunities.

As well as attending face-to-face meetings with airlines, delegates also have access to the industry’s decision makers through a busy programme of briefings and panel discussions, including a dedicated Tourism Summit focusing on the visitor economy.

Following a successful partnership with Bristol Airport at the Routes Europe event in Budapest earlier this year, Destination Bristol will have a presence at the annual global event for the first time. Bristol will also feature prominently in Visit England’s stand, which will promote regional airports as convenient gateways to the UK.

Destination Bristol and Bristol Airport have already teamed up at trade shows for conference and business tourism in the last twelve months, attending the IMEX and EIBTM events. The two organisations have also worked closely to promote Bristol to the travel trade and tour operators in Germany following the launch of new routes by bmi regional.

Shaun Browne, Aviation Director at Bristol Airport, said:
“Competition for routes is intense, with airports and cities across the world recognising the value air links deliver to local economies by encouraging trade and facilitating inbound tourism.

“Tourism and aviation are inextricably linked. By working closely with Destination Bristol we can ensure we make the best case for new services, demonstrating how the city’s attractions, and those of the surrounding region, can attract tourists and help fill flights.”

Kathryn Davis, Head of Tourism at Destination Bristol, said:
“Developing new routes and maintaining existing routes into Bristol Airport are critical for the long term success of Bristol’s visitor economy, worth over £1 billion. Bristol has continued to maintain its position as one of the UK’s top ten cities for international travellers with overseas visitors contributing over £143m to the local economy.

“At the same time, Bristol is gaining a reputation as a great short break destination as well as having the potential to deliver more international conferences and events. By working in partnership, we are able to deliver a really strong message about the city’s ambition to be one of Europe’s key destinations for business and leisure travel.”

The number of foreign residents using Bristol Airport has almost trebled in the last decade, with over a million journeys made by overseas visitors from 82 different countries in 2012. Analysis of the latest data from the Civil Aviation Authority Passenger Survey shows that 18 per cent of the Airport’s 5.9 million passengers last year were resident outside the UK, indicating an upsurge in visits to Bristol and the South West.[/textarea]
Airport press release at: http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/media-c ... outes.aspx

Surprised that the Bath tourist unit (VisitBath) didn't go too. I believe they've featured with BRS and Destination Bristol in the past at such events.

Always a chance that a rabbit will be pulled from the hat following these events.

 

[alphagolf]

Stockholm

SAS to commence flights between Bristol and Stockholm from Summer 2014

Full story on SAS - Scandinavian Airlines thread............

 

[TheLocalYokel]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-25547503

This link to a BBC report regarding the Romanian Government appointing one of its diplomats to be Romanian Consul to Bristol contains an assertion from him that he wants to strengthen the city's economic links with Romania and set up a direct flight there from BRS.

Although only 1,000 Romanians live in the city at present there will obviously be more in the wider catchment and the Polish experience might suggest there is a chance of at least one route in the future. There are nine Polish routes at BRS.

 

[Aviador]

EasyJet: No rise in passengers from Romania or Bulgaria

This report seems to suggests there's no need to increase flights to Romania with the relaxation of the immigration rules having little effect to the airlines bookings so far. Is there anything in Romania that could prove popular for tourists heading the other way?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

This report seems to suggests there's no need to increase flights to Romania with the relaxation of the immigration rules having little effect to the airlines bookings so far. Is there anything in Romania that could prove popular for tourists heading the other way?

Perhaps not to the degree that would warrant a service.

I'm as certain as I can be that BRS has never had regular flights to Romania, charter or scheduled.

When I mentioned Poland I was thinking more of Ryanair than easyJet. Ryanair operates eight out of the nine Polish routes form BRS with easyJet just doing Krakow.

As for Romania Ryanair seems to have a very limited Romanian network with other UK cities not currently served probably ahead of BRS.

The only point I would make is that the new Romanian Consul is a diplomat employed by the Romanian government and not an honorary consul (often a local business person or similar with connections to the country in question) as is sometimes the case with provincial cities. Then again, it depends on how much the Romanian government really want a West Country link and what they'd be prepared to do to get one. It's more likely talk, the sort of thing a new man would be expected to say to the local press.

Bulgaria does enjoy some inward tourism from BRS in that there are winter weekly ski fights to Sofia (used to be to Plovdiv as well) and summer weekly sun flights to Burgas which probably takes care of the touristy things to that country.

 

[Sherburnflyer92]

Just a thought for route developement, re the easy about developement of their network and possible 3rd low cost carrier, what about Wizzair? What is the west countys eastern european population like?

Surley 3 or 4 daily flights each day with varied eastern european destiantions will help pull BRS past that 6mmpa or even 7.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Just a thought for route developement, re the easy about developement of their network and possible 3rd low cost carrier, what about Wizzair? What is the west countys eastern european population like?

Surley 3 or 4 daily flights each day with varied eastern european destiantions will help pull BRS past that 6mmpa or even 7.

Bristol is fairly set up with Polish destinations. Last summer Ryanair operated to Warsaw, Poznan, Gdansk, Wroclaw, Rzeszow, Lodz, Katowice and Scezecin with easyJet flying to Krakow.

This summer Lodz, Scezecin and Katowice have been dropped. Katowice is the major surprise because it's been operating year round and last summer the main summer months saw monthly load factors in the high 80s and mid to high 90s per cent. Lodz was a bit lower than that but still got up to 91% and 95% in July and August respectively. Scezecin was easily the worst performer with its best month August at 86% and it was a surprise to see it brought back for 2013 after a poor performance several years ago.

The six Polish routes that remain all had very high load factors last summer - the high 90s% in peak summer.

Ryanair also flies to Kaunas in Lithuania and Budapest. It also flew to Bratislava but that's been dropped for this summer after monthly load factors last summer from May to September of 81%, 87%, 95%, 96% and 90% respectively. It goes to show that high load factors don't always satisfy airlines.

Wizz Air announced a BRS-Warsaw route in the spring of 2010 that was due to start in September that year. easyJet had dropped Warsaw a year or so beforehand. Within five or six weeks of the announcement, and several months before the first flight was due to take off, Wizz Air cancelled its BRS route. It seemed very strange because there hadn't surely been enough time to gauge forward bookings. When Modlin opened Ryanair began flying to that from BRS and load factors have been very high - but with the caveat of the final sentence of the previous paragraph.

BRS is already past the 6 mppa barrier - it's currently at 6.169 mppa. Its best ever year was 2008 (before the recession began to bite) with 6.229 mppa. 2009 saw a near 10% fall in passenger numbers but since then it's consistently been rising each year being the only top 20 UK airport to see gains in each of the years 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
BRS was adversely affected by the recession later than most regional airports and began its recovery sooner than most.

Since 1982 there have only been three years when passenger numbers have fallen - 1990, 1996 and 2009 - and each time the economy has been in recession. So it has a long track record of near continuous passenger number expansion.

 

[Ray Finkle]

According to the Inghams website Cityjet will be doing the Saturday Innsbruck flight From BRS next year.

According to the article below they may use one of the new Superjet SSJ100's.

The Executive Chairman added: “We intend introducing the SSJ100 on charter activity in 2016 and will place it on our London City route network in 2017. We believe our customers will love this jet,” he added.

https://www.cityjet.com/news/cityjet-to ... j100.shtml

 

[TheLocalYokel]

2016?

A year or two ago aviation message boards and even the national travel media were awash with rumours that BRS would be the next UK airport to welcome a Turkish Airlines service to Istanbul with the ongoing connections to the east that this brings.

I also read that Istanbul was somewhat slot restricted which might have impacted adversely on any plans that Turkish might have had for BRS.

However, today it's been announced that Turkish Airlines will increase its frequencies from both Birmingham and Edinburgh airports to Istanbul. If IST is slot restricted this might suggest that the airline is concentrating on building its existing UK bases rather than open new ones.

What else might appear for next summer (which is getting ever closer if anything new is to be announced)? easyJet seems to have found uses for all its aircraft including the new based one (number 13) so there might not be much scope there.

Ryanair's summer schedule is already in the public domain so not much hope of anything new there.

What about Wizz? There will be four routes by the time summer arrives: Katowice, Kosice, Sofia and Warsaw Chopin. In my eyes Kosice passenger numbers have been slightly disappointing albeit the route only started this autumn. Katowice began with 94% load factors for its first two (summer) months but inevitably the winter months have seen lower load factors although not bad.

I know that yield is the important thing but a fairly regular look at Kosice fares suggests they have not been high.

The other regular scheduled airlines into BRS are unlikely to offer any dramatic increase. I hope that WOW is supported.

So any significant announcements might have to be in the WOW category (sorry about the pun but this airline was, I would suggest, a huge surprise to most people when it decided to operate into BRS from next year).

Whilst looking towards 2016 I wish all BRS contributors and lurkers a very Happy New Year as I do all members of Forums4Airports.

 

[Marko1]

many happy returns to all who visit this site and wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2016.

I read somewhere a few weeks ago a shopping list of destinations that Turkish are eyeing up in 2016 and sadly Brs is not on that list - however I cannot remember the link - must be having a senior moment !!

I was slightly disappointed when the full easyjet schedule was released not to see new routes or any significant expansion of frequency on some of its more popular routes. Does anyone know what the make up of the fleet will be next summer. An increase in the number of a320s would help boost capacity.

As for Ryanair I don't hold much promise. They promise loads but never deliver the goods so to speak . There will be five based a/c next summer however . However long term I question the commitment when regular sound bites regarding apd and cwl don't bode well .

I wonder whether we can get thomson to return to long haul flying with the release of the summer 17 brochures in the spring . I cannot help but think that once one starts regular Dreamliner services from Brs others would take note - even a w leg to/from pmi would help.

I would like to see full service carriers continue to prosper too particularly bmi . I would like to see klm continue to improve capacity and would love to see the return of SAS and Swiss to Brs .

Ok some dreams now - Vueling to Barcelona , Seville and Valencia, wizz to Bucharest and Riga , Norwegian to Spanish destinations and westjet or air Canada rouge to Toronto .

Finally the arrival of wow in May , does this mean the desire to obtain the return of a non stop nyc service has been quietly put aside as I note wow does not serve the nyc area

 

[TheLocalYokel]

As for Ryanair I don't hold much promise. They promise loads but never deliver the goods so to speak . There will be five based a/c next summer however . However long term I question the commitment when regular sound bites regarding apd and cwl don't bode well .

Ryanair might move into CWL if APD is devolved to Wales as they like to be able to boast about their lowest headline fares. The short haul rate from next April (£13 per passenger over 16) would certainly give scope to reduce outbound fares significantly if Wales did abolish or reduce APD rates to zero. I doubt that they would pull out of BRS altogether, and Ryanair seems to have accepted this, as they would be abandoning a substantial and wealthy market.

I do think though that long haul would be likely to be affected more if Wales gained APD responsibility. At £73 per adult (economy rate) from next April that would be a large saving and an airline could do a lot with that. It would also affect the likes of KLM and Aer Lingus Regional as the £73 would apply to passengers flying from BRS on long haul via AMS and DUB; long haul via FRA, BRU and KEF would be similarly affected.

I've suggested previously that this might be the reason why airlines are holding back on long haul routes from BRS. If the government would make a decision one way or the other the uncertainty would be removed. Given their hesitancy over LHR we might have to wait a while.

I read somewhere a few weeks ago a shopping list of destinations that Turkish are eyeing up in 2016 and sadly Brs is not on that list - however I cannot remember the link - must be having a senior moment !!

Was it this?

http://www.anna.aero/2015/12/17/istanbu ... ew-routes/

Turkish seem to be concentrating on Africa in a big way. Another report quotes them saying that African yields are two or three times the size of European ones.

In the linked anna aero report above the article quotes a Turkish Airlines presentation in the third quarter of 2015 where 25 future routes were mentioned (some already with a starting date): nine in Africa; eight in Europe; six in the Americas; one each in the Far East and the Middle East. None of the eight European routes featured the UK with one each in Germany, France and Spain and the rest in the former Eastern Bloc.

I was slightly disappointed when the full easyjet schedule was released not to see new routes or any significant expansion of frequency on some of its more popular routes. Does anyone know what the make up of the fleet will be next summer. An increase in the number of a320s would help boost capacity.

I don't know how many 320s will be at BRS in the coming summer.

I looked at the easyJet Gatwick network and the following airports from there are not served by easyJet from BRS (some as at BRS are seasonal).

Agadir
Ajaccio (Corsica)
Almeria
Antalya - BRS charter destination
Athens
Bari
Bastia (Corsica) - BRS charter destination and previously flown by easyJet
Biarritz - previously flown from BRS by easyJet
Bologna - now flown by Ryanair from BRS
Brindisi
Brussels - now flown by bmi regional for Brussels Airlines from BRS
Budapest - previously flown by easyjet from BRS now flown by Ryanair
Cologne/Bonn
Chania - now flown by Ryanair from BRS
Larnaca - BRS charter destination
Dusseldorf - now flown by bmi regional from BRS
Figari (Corsica)
Freidrichshafen
Gran Canaria - BRS charter destination and also currently flown by Ryanair
Hamburg - now flown by bmi regional from BRS and previously flown by easyJet
Hurghada - supposed to be starting with Thomson but who knows with the Egyptian situation?
Izmir - once flown as a charter destination from BRS
Ivalo - sometimes a Santa destination from BRS
Jersey - now flown by Blue Islands from BRS
Kalamata
Kos - BRS charter destination
Luxembourg
Malta - BRS charter destination and also currently flown by Ryanair
Milan Linate
Milan Malpensa - now flown by bmi regional from BRS and previously flown by easyJet
Montpellier - previously flown by Ryanair from BRS
Moscow Domodedovo
Munich - now flown by bmi regional from BRS
Mykonos
Palermo
Preveza
Pula - BRS charter destination
Rhodes - BRS charter destination
Santiago de Compostela
Santorini - BRS charter destination
Seville - previously flown by Ryanair from BRS
Sharm el Sheikh - BRS charter destination but the Egyptian situation!
Sofia - BRS charter destination, also about to be flown by Wizz Air
Strasbourg
Stuttgart
Tallin
Tel Aviv
Thessalonika - BRS charter destination
Turin - BRS charter destination
Valencia - previously flown at different times by both easyJet and Ryanair from BRS, the latter now switched to Castellon
Verona - BRS charter destination
Zurich - previously flown by BA Connect and Helvetic from BRS at different times

Perhaps there are not too many obvious contenders for new routes. Basel and Vienna (the newest easyJet routes to begin at BRS) were disappointing in November so far as loads are concerned and the seat selector for December didn't show an obvious improvement. Perhaps easyJet is waiting to see how these do before committing to other new destinations. Bilbao was also brought back early last year after a long absence reportedly as a year-round route. However it was removed for the current winter and will not return until June.

 

[conns757]

I would be interested to know what members think will be the passenger total to the year end 2016?

I hope a new airline will be announced early 2016 !!

Lots in the pipeline....

 

[Aviador]

A complete guess but 7.2m subject to Turkey keeping a good presence in the charter and scheduled holiday scene. :dunno:

Happy New Year to all on the BRS forum by the way!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

As things stand at the moment between 7 and 7.1 mppa but if a significant announcement or announcements is/are made then higher. I think I've already underestimated the BHX total for 2016 because since I made my prediction (guess?) more announcements have been made for that airport.

 

[Ray Finkle]

7.4 million :smile:

I'm basing that figure on a new airline, or two, and hopefully a couple more routes from Wizz.

Happy New Year to everyone.

 

[Marko1]

I'm going to go for 7.2 million in 2016. Let's hope we see some really good news soon !!!