Bristol: TUI Airways Route News & Base Updates

[Jerry]

Interesting plan isn’t it. I had kind of worked something out in my head re the schedule but hadn’t noticed only 4 needed on thurs. I wonder what 2 morning and 2 pm have been dropped from the original schedule. The gap on Friday pm is filled with bourgas rather than sat so I can only guess that one of sat am will be dropped to leave 5 used short haul aircraft .Same applies to Friday am too.

is Bristol one of the worst affected ? Looking at Bhx and cwl we certainly look it.

It looks like they are possibly rolling back the extra capacity they added when TCX went bust. BRS and Exeter got a big increase if I remember.
BHX and CWL not so much. So that might explain why it looks like BRS is more harder hit.

 

[Marko1]

Jerry you may be right. If I remember though I thought easyJet had applied for loads of tcxs slots at Brs. Did they use them ?

 

[Jerry]

Jerry you may be right. If I remember though I thought easyJet had applied for loads of tcxs slots at Brs. Did they use them ?

I don't think they used them all if i remember correctly.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Jerry you may be right. If I remember though I thought easyJet had applied for loads of tcxs slots at Brs. Did they use them ?

easyJet acquired six summer slots and one winter pair formerly used by Thomas Cook. As BRS is level 3 slot co-ordinated only in summer (BST) and then only from 2300 to 0700 these slots would mainly have been useful for the departure period 0600-0700.

The coronavirus means that events have overtaken the situation for this year at least.

BRS is currently applying to become level 3 co-ordinated 24 hours a day for the entire year and, as far as I know, the application is still being considered by the DfT despite the rundown in operations brought about by the virus.

The purpose of the current application is to enable the airport's night time noise and movements restrictions to be more effectively managed.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Severn's post of August 2019 (see below) shows 68 TUI flights each week in August 2019. Despite recent reductions there are still 73 weekly flights shown for August 2021 although as I said in an earlier post things can change rapidly at the moment, whether positively or negatively.

If BRS and EXT have seen a larger proportion of flights axed than other TUI airports it begs the question, why is this so?* With or without the TCX 'replacements' TUI must have calculated pre-coronavirus that they had put in place an appropriate programme for their various airports.

Without having detailed information for all the TUI airports it's difficult to be certain which ones have seen more cuts from the original summer 2021 programme, and as the airports are not of the same size when it comes to TUI's presence it would have to be calculated as a percentage.

* obvious reasons include below average forward bookings (compared with the TUI network as a whole); a need to rebalance aircraft utilisation; TUI originally miscalculated the market

Summary of TOM Routes - Summer 2019
Summer 2019 is upon us, and I realised there hasn't been a post about this summer for a while.
The based aircraft this peak-summer should have been 4x TUI B738 and a 5-day-a-week based B788, however due to the 737MAX groundings, the base is 1xB752, 3x B738s and the part-week based B788.
2019 sees the B788 operate some shorthaul flying, similar to LGW and MAN bases. This keeps BRS as the 4th largest TUI base in the UK and Ireland after LGW, MAN and BHX.

I've compared a week in August 2019 to the same week in 2018 of TUI Airways schedule from BRS.

-----------------------------------------------
Number of routes operating per week:
2018 - Total: 38
2019 - Total: 38

2018 - Shorthaul: 35
2019 - Shorthaul: 36 (+1)

2018 - Longhaul: 3
2019 - Longhaul: 2 (-1)
-----------------------------------------------
Number of flights per week:
2018 - Total: 65
2019 - Total: 68 (+3)

2018 - Operated by TUI: 62
2019 - Operated by TUI: 64 (+2)

2018 - Operated by other airlines: 3
2019 - Operated by other airlines: 4 (+1)
-----------------------------------------------
Number of aircraft based:
2018: 4 - (2x B752, 2x B738 and a B788 based 2 days per week)
2019: 4 - (1x B752, 3x B738 and a B788 based 5 days per week)
-----------------------------------------------
Weekly Frequencies: ('[+]' or '[-]' represents change from 2018)

4x Weekly
Ibiza (IBZ)
Majorca (PMI) [-1]

3x Weekly
Naples (NAP) [+1]
Corfu (CFU)
Rhodes (RHO)
Zante (ZTH)

2x Weekly
Antalya (AYT) [+1] *(2018: Flight operated by TUI // 2019: 1 of 2 flights operated by Freebird)
Kefalonia (EFL) [+1]
Cancun (CUN) - (B788) [+1]
Bourgas (BOJ)
Dalaman (DLM) - (B788 - operates 1 of 2 flights) *(2018 and 2019: 1 of 2 flights operated by Freebird)
Dubrovnik (DBV) - (B788 - operates 1 of 2 flights)
Gran Canaria (LPA)
Heraklion (HER)
Kos (KGS)
Lanzarote (ACE)
Larnaca (LCA) - (B788 - operates 1 of 2 flights)
Malaga (AGP)
Menorca (MAH)
Paphos (PFO)
Pula (PUY)
Tenerife (TFS)

1x Weekly
Marrakech (RAK) [NEW] [+1]
Thessaloniki (SKG) [NEW] [+1]
Alicante (ALC)
Bodrum (BJV)
Cape Verde, Sal (SID) *(2018: Flight operated by TUI B788 // 2019: Flight operated by TUI B738)
Chania (CHQ)
Faro (FAO)
Fuerteventura (FUE)
Gerona (GRO)
Hurgharda (HRG)
Malta (MLA) *(2018 and 2019: Flight operated by Air Malta)
Orlando Sanford (SFB) - (B788)
Reus (REU)
Santorini (JTR)
Skiathos (JSI)
Verona (VRN) *(2018 and 2019: Flight operated by Air Malta)

Dropped:
Enfidha (NBE) [-1]
Punta Cana (PUJ) - (B788) [-1]

Notes
The B788 is based 5 days a week (shared with EMA for 2 days) and operates the following schedule during peak summer:
Tue: CUN - 12:45
Wed: DLM - 13:40
Thu: DBV - 06:00 / LCA - 14:35
Fri: SFB - 10:20
Sat: CUN - 10:05

Capacity
2018 - 13,639 departing seats per week in peak summer (29x based B738 flights, 29x based B752 flights, 4x based B788 flights, 2x A320 w-patterns (1x Freebird, 1x Air Malta), 1x B738 w-pattern (Neos))
2019 - 13,939 departing seats per week in peak summer (44x based B738 flights, 14x based B752 flights, 6x based B788 flights, 3x A320 w-patterns (2x Freebird, 1x Air Malta), 1x B738 w-pattern (Neos))

 

[Marko1]

Essentially tui is more or less back to the 2019 level when tcx was still operating. So 2021 will at the moment see a loss of capacity but with the situation at the moment it’s no surprise. However I would note that given many have moved their holidays from 2020 to 2021 , I would suggest that choice at a reasonable price is going to be in short supply

 

[Marko1]

A fourth Zante and the return of Bodrum fill gaps on Thursdays next summer

 

[Marko1]

Antalya also returns to 4 weekly

 

[Marko1]

Orlando reduces to once a week next summer with a months gap . Cancun remains twice weekly

 

[Marko1]

21/22 cruise programme has been released - 2 to Barbados ( jan and March) , and Montego Bay (dec and jan ).

 

[Jerry]

It's a surprising that they're still offering long haul cruises from both Cardiff and Bristol. They seem to growing the cruises offered at Bristol while reducing Cardiff.

 

[Marko1]

Verona now marked as a “other carrier” for saturdays next summer

 

[Jerry]

Neos I'd expect.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Verona now marked as a “other carrier” for saturdays next summer

Neos I'd expect.

Neos operated the weekly summer charter for TUI for a number of recent years. Before that the carrier was Mistral with B 737-400s. Some summers there was an addtional weekly Saturday charter flight to Verona on behalf of Inghams, usually operated by the former bmi regional.

 

[Marko1]

I was racking my brains who used to fly Verona - need of course it is !

 

[superking]

Didnt Dan air do Verona for a couple of seasons.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Didnt Dan air do Verona for a couple of seasons.

If they did it would have been over 30 years ago. I know that in the 1980s Dan Air operated charter flights from BRS, sometimes with Boeing 727 aircraft. Whether they were carrying for Thomson I don't know.

Dan Air's HS 748s were also seen regularly at BRS in the early/mid 80s operating scheduled routes to such places as Belfast, Dublin, the Channel Islands and Paris Cdg. That obviously had no connection with Thomson. 🙂

 

[superking]

Perhaps my mind playing tricks with them doing Verona. They did Venice on a sunday afternoon with a big model 727 and that was a split load with Man. With some of the popular destinations you could say so and so did that route.Verona and a lot of the Italian routes are a strange one as not been very popular as spain jumping on te package holiday buisness more or less first.At 1 time and not all that far into the past TUI did not base aircraft winter time in BRS.
On a different note i was walking round weston yesterday and noticed all the TUI travel shops closed. Dont know if this is temporary due to covid 19 or a general cut back.It just seems rather strange this has happened. The only travel shop i could see in weston high street was Hays travel that has taken the TC travel shop.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Perhaps my mind playing tricks with them doing Verona. They did Venice on a sunday afternoon with a big model 727 and that was a split load with Man. With some of the popular destinations you could say so and so did that route.Verona and a lot of the Italian routes are a strange one as not been very popular as spain jumping on te package holiday buisness more or less first.At 1 time and not all that far into the past TUI did not base aircraft winter time in BRS.
On a different note i was walking round weston yesterday and noticed all the TUI travel shops closed. Dont know if this is temporary due to covid 19 or a general cut back.It just seems rather strange this has happened. The only travel shop i could see in weston high street was Hays travel that has taken the TC travel shop.

I remember the split load from Manchester on a Sunday afternoon which was certainly operating by around 1983/1984.

I was in Broadmead, Bristol last week (the first time for nearly six months because of the virus) and I noticed the TUI shop there was also closed. The nearby Flight Centre shop was shut too - according to the Flight Centre website all its shops are currently closed and staff are working remotely.

We might be in a minority but to us there is nothing like sitting face to face with a travel agent to sort out a holiday. Phones and the Internet don't suit us when it comes to arranging holidays unless it's something like a simple city break using a low-cost airline and a hotel booking. On our regular trips to Australia we've always found much better deals through travel agents (we've used both Trailfinders and the the Flight Centre) than booking direct online with the airline. It's the same with brochures. It's much more enjoyable and easier to flip back and forth through a brochure than try to get the same information on a website which is unwieldy.

The TUI website says the majority of its travel shops are currently closed because of the virus but then goes on to give a list of those that are open which seems to be nearly half the total. There are a number of TUI shops in the suburbs and satellite towns of Bristol that are open but not the main branch in Broadmead, nor the one in Weston-super-Mare.

https://www.tui.co.uk/destinations/info/tui-stores

In July TUI announced plans to close 166 of its travel shops leaving about 350 open. At the time it declined to name those stores under threat but said that none of those that have reopened since the lockdown will be amongst those permanently closed which at face value would put the Broadmead and Weston stores in danger. That there was no TUI shop in the main shopping areas of Bristol and Weston would lead to some head-scratching, especially when suburbs and small nearby towns might still have one.

Holiday firm Tui to shut 166 High Street shops

The UK's largest tour operator says the move is partly down to more people booking online.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[a300boy]

If they did it would have been over 30 years ago. I know that in the 1980s Dan Air operated charter flights from BRS, sometimes with Boeing 727 aircraft. Whether they were carrying for Thomson I don't know.

Dan Air's HS 748s were also seen regularly at BRS in the early/mid 80s operating scheduled routes to such places as Belfast, Dublin, the Channel Islands and Paris Cdg. That obviously had no connection with Thomson. 🙂