FlightriderBear in mind that £85+ of the £129 is tax and airport charges. You have £40 APD plus the other Gatwick departure charges; and most of the American taxes are charged on arrival (and there are an awful lot of them).
By comparing Oasis’ £75 one-way to HKG with Zoom’s £129 to JFK, you are not comparing apples with apples. Oasis’ £75 fare is before taxes and the actual price you pay for a one-way LGW-HKG is £152.30. Zoom’s £129 fare LGW-JFK includes taxes and the price you pay is £129.
It’s also not easy to get anything below £450 return on the big airlines between LON and NYC during July and August.
FlightriderMost of the big developments above (e.g. Transavia) have already been canned for the winter – they are not going to happen.
Thomson are operating a Sunday morning LGW-INI-LGW with the 737-800 this winter. Don’t think it’s on sale as a Thomsonfly schedule because it is a charter for Crystal and Thomson ski – no seat-only sales.
FlightriderMAN-BJL is a 757
LGW-BJL is a 737-800
MAN-CPT has been cancelled and isn’t happening at all. Looks like competition from Globespan means that this was headed off at the pass.
FlightriderJust to clarify two points:
a) The DC10-10s were operated by a separate division BCal Charter during the time of their service with BCal. All of these were ex Laker machines, and later went on to be operated by Cal-Air International, which then became Novair International. They took two BCal Charter DC10-10s – G-BJZD, G-BJZE – and added another ex-Laker aircraft G-GCAL – and these were all dispersed when Rank Group closed Novair down – think this was in 1991. [G-GCAL went on to become the Orbis flying eye hospital to replace the DC8 previously used.]
b) None of the DC10-30s operated by BA were ex-Laker machines. BEBL, BEBM, BFGI, BGAT, BHDH/I/J, DCIO were all new build aircraft acquired by British Caledonian. MULL and NIUK were acquired second-hand. NIUK was the ex Ariana Afghan aircraft and actually had the distinction of having survived a surface-to-air missile strike on approach to Kabul in the mid 1980s. The aircraft was luckily too low for the missile to have “armed” when it hit the DC10’s wing – it blew a hole in the wing on its way through, and NIUK had a metal plate along the underside and top-side of the wing as a repair thereafter, which it flew with for the rest of its days with BA. It was around one tonne heavier on the basic weights than the other DC10-30s.
Most (if not all) of the five ex-Laker DC10-30s (G-BGXF-J?) went to United and stayed there for the rest of their days until retired.
And onwards from there:
from memory, two of the BA / ex BCal DC10-30s did go on to be operated by Caledonian Airways [Caledonian was a very separate entity to Cal-Air]. The two were BHDH and NIUK, which were later used by Caledonian on the “Stamford” routes which were BA scheduled services to Nassau, Grand Cayman and Tampa. This batch of “beach routes” was later expanded and BA replaced the deal with Caledonian with a new joint venture, AML, with Flying Colours (later JMC) to operate three 777s.
The DC10s operated a wide range of routes during their time at Gatwick. Many of the BCal African routes like Accra, Abidjan, Lagos were either stopped or moved to LHR. The DC10s were used to launch Gatwick-Phoenix-San Diego and Gatwick-Denver. Stalwart routes on the -10 included Houston, Dallas, Atlanta and Bermuda. The first three were all ex-BCal routes which are still flown by 777s today.
The DC10-30s also flew Gatwick-Tel Aviv during their latter years, a route started using the ex-Dan Air heavyweight 737-400s and later moved up to the -10 as demand grew. The DC10 was even used on daily Gatwick-Faro services one winter season, replacing two 737s each day, before the route was handed over to GB Airways. Faro was a popular one – BA’s crew union agreements at the time meant that long-haul crews had to have two days off before and after every duty, and you therefore only operated one LGW-FAO-LGW roundtrip (BA2520 / 2521) in five days under long-haul scheduling agreement rules!
Eventual retirement for the -10s came due to a combination of increasing maintenance costs and fuel burns. They were usually very popular for the passenger – and one great feature was in Club World. Every BA long-haul flight has a “Raid the Larder” product for food + snacks, but the DC10s were unique in that they had a “Raid the Bar” facility with a drinks cabinet to one side of the forward galley, which was great.
All of the above is from what I can recall – I could go into much more detail if I got the books out, but hope this helps.
PS – before anyone asks, NIUK was registered as such because it stood for Nissan Investments UK, the leasing company which owned it. The “NIUK” title was nothing to do with its previous encounter with a missile!
FlightriderSmall aircraft = less seats to fill
Less seats to fill = less risk to start new routes
Less risk to start routes = tour operators will be more adventurous
On the other hand:
Big aircraft = concentrate only on big routes where you have sufficient volume to fill the seats.
It’s hard to be certain; but it’s very likely that LBA-Heraklion, Rhodes, Zakynthos, Taba and Banjul all would not have happened if a 757 was the only aircraft available to fly them. Don’t forget that MYT used to fly LBA-Rhodes with a 757 and dropped it; and that Thomsonfly flew LBA-Zakynthos last year with a 757 and dropped it. These Greek routes did not work on a 757 but are working quite happily on a 737.
If you want diversity of routes served, go for small aircraft. If you want maximum number of passengers on a smaller range of routes, go for large ones.
Flightrider737-300 does indeed op BE303/304 EXT-DUB-EXT on Saturday & Sunday only.
FlightriderNifty.
Is this is anything to do with the forthcoming James Bond film, some of which was shot at Dunsfold recently where XJ is resident?
FlightriderMost of the issues have been ATC related. The aircraft operated to IBZ on Friday followed by MAH and took a very long routing back from IBZ to avoid French ATC delays. This knocked into the MAH flight but the overall delay was lower than it would have been if the original routing was maintained.
Saturday VRN + ALC flights operated bang on time. LPA was delayed by 35 minutes due to a minor technical snag. A/c got back 20 minutes late from LPA and went to AGP this morning on time at 07:35, using the “buffer time” in the schedule to catch up this delay.
ATC then caused an issue ex Malaga (aircraft was on the ground for 1 hour 37 minutes versus a scheduled turnround of 50 minutes, norm for the 737) and then the AGP-LBA and LBA-LCA-LBA sectors have been delayed as a result.
There is realistically little that can be done about ATC and the delays seem to have worsened over the last two months since some airspace changes two months ago.
Hope this helps to explain what’s happening.
FlightriderI forgot the same details for the MAN-TFS flights in August – silly me!
MYT101 is an Airbus A321 and departs Manchester at 18:50 hrs local time, arriving in Tenerife at 23:35. Return flight MYT102 leaves Tenerife South at 00:35 and arrives in Manchester at 04:55 hrs on Wednesday mornings. There are also MyTravel flights to Tenerife on Tuesday nights from Belfast (A320) and Gatwick (A320).
Prior to operating this service, the aircraft operates MYT125 / 126 Manchester-Kefallinia-Manchester, leaving MAN at 09:05 hrs local time and arriving back at 17:40. Prior to that, the aircraft has at least four hours on the ground as the latest arrival of the three MyTravel A321s back at Manchester on Tuesday morning is at 04:40 from Las Palmas (the others arrive back from Bodrum at 04:05 or Ibiza at 01:30; and then operate Palma + Rimini or Malta + Alicante during their working day on Tuesday).
MyTravel has three A321s in its fleet during Summer 2006, all of which are based at Manchester. G-DHJH and G-NIKO were both built in 2000 and have been operated by MyTravel since they were delivered from the factory. G-SMTJ was built in 2003 and has also been operated by MyTravel since new.
How am I doing?
FlightriderI will make a valiant effort to kill this thread off for all time!
MON1288 / 1289 Manchester-Kos-Manchester is due to be operated by a Boeing 757 this summer. It is a 235-seat 757 and so not one of the aircraft reconfigured for operations primarily on Monarch scheduled flights.
The flight’s first operation is on 12 July and so the aircraft on which Tommy is travelling will be the first roundtrip of this particular series.
Wednesday mornings sees the aircraft operating a series of flights to meet a cruise ship. On 12 July, it will be operating a roundtrip Gatwick-Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen-Gatwick and then positioning as MON429P from Gatwick to Manchester to arrive 2 hours before the scheduled departure of MON1288 to Kos at 18:20 hrs local time.
On 26 July, the aircraft will be operating a roundtrip Gatwick-Barcelona-Gatwick before again positioning to MAN to then fly the MAN-KGS-MAN rotation.
MON1289 arrives back from Kos at 04:00 hrs local time on Thursday mornings. The aircraft then operates a roundtrip MON3128/3129 MAN-Salonika-MAN on Thursday mornings at 05:30 and following that, it flies another roundtrip MAN-Kos-MAN as MON5038/5039 on Thursday afternoons.
The airline operates seven B757-200s:
G-MONB, MONC and MOND were all built in 1983
G-MONE was built in 1985
G-DAJB was built in 1987
G-MONJ and G-MONK were built in 1988
Helpful?
Cheers
FR
FlightriderNo, not surprised. It looks as though you have been banned from Pprune for banale comments. Enough said.
FlightriderAEU 757 returned to stand to offload passenger who had become ill plus their bag. Onur is arriving empty to operate first outbound flight of the season. AEU have just advised their plan for tomorrow – FlyGlobespan 737 operating LBA-Faro for Astraeus tomorrow and Travel Servis 737-800 positioning in from Prague to operate LBA-Zakynthos first departure. Astraeus 737 should be here by late tomorrow night to operate Friday’s programme.
FlightriderWhat a kerfuffle.
Astraeus 737-700 G-STRH operated the Reus this morning; positioned back to Manchester to fly MAN-Taba-MAN and will be back tomorrow morning to fly the Palma + Heraklion. Blue Line MD83 operated LBA-CWL-FNC-CWL-LBA; will hopefully be back in LBA during the wee hours before positioning back to CDG.
They seem to be still waiting for aircraft to get out of maintenance. 757 G-OPJB is positioning Nice-Leeds tomorrow to nightstop and then operate LBA-Rhodes on Wednesday morning. 737 due to arrive by Thursday to operate the based programme.
FlightriderMonday’s AEU LBA-CWL-Funchal flight being operated by a Blue Line MD83 and Wednesday’s AEU LBA-Rhodes flight being operated by a 757. Both due to overrunning maintenance on the 737s. Rest should be operated by 737-700s being shuffled around for a few days until the hangar checks are completed.
FlightriderTUI will have a based unit at LBA in S07 and it will be a 757 again. One or two changes to the flying programme, but nothing too radical.
The engineering for the Thomsonfly 757 based at Leeds has been in a state of flux since MyTravel pulled out. The MYT engineers used to look after the Britannia 757 as well as their own A320 or 757 (whichever was based) but could not provide cover from Summer 2005 onwards due to closure of their own base. Summer 2005 was thus covered by Britannia seeking Manchester based engineers to work at LBA on temporary secondment. They have contracted out the maintenance instead for Summer 2006 on a short-term basis, presumably so that they can compare the two means of support for the based 757. Don’t read anything into the engineering side of the situation.
And PS – no airline can apply for its summer 2007 slots at any airport before November. Given that Leeds Bradford isn’t even slot coordinated, it can’t “apply for slots” at LBA anyway. Your best guide at this stage is the brochures coming out shortly.
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