Caught in the ATC delays

Being on the 1650 FlyBE flight Southampton-> Nice I was right in the eye of the storm. It did seem chaotic in terms of the information from NATS to the airport. In the space of 30 mins, our slot (time when the aircraft is allowed to take off) went from Indefinite Delay to 2050 then 2350 to 1755. The last change was amusingly heard over every Aviance Ground staff radio as "oh SH#t they bought forward the Nice to 1755 - get those OAPs moving" - before the flights was more formally announced on the Airport tannoy in the correct way.
To be fair to the Aviance/FlyBE staff they did manage to cajole the 100 so passengers (mainly OAPS) very fast onto the Embraer 195; only for the Captain to explain that although we had a slot, we could not fly because our flight was outside UK airspace ......mmh .....obviously NATS needs some geography lessons. We finally left Southampton 2 hours and 35 minutes late.

Silverjet finally goes under

Silverjet has finally gone under as the potential purchaser realised that the framework of the Business e.g. Aircraft leasing costs, could not be changed to make the business viable. hatip BBC.
Meanwhile Flyeb forges on with apparently low fares depsite invcreasing fuel prices.:

Southampton to... Alicante £59.99 Malaga £79.99 Nice £54.99 Paris (CDG) £59.99
Isle of Man £51.99 Frankfurt £34.99 Belfast City £39.99 Jersey £31.99 Rennes Brittany £49.99 Brussels £39.99 Amsterdam £53.99 Dusseldorf £34.99 Hannover £51.99 Manchester £29.99 Glasgow £55.99 Edinburgh £52.99 Dublin £27.99 Avignon £59.99 Brest Brittany £31.99 Palma £49.99 Bergerac £74.99 Aberdeen NEW! £51.99 Inverness NEW! £66.99 La Rochelle £54.99 Guernsey £34.99 Bordeaux £59.99 Leeds Bradford £29.99

You wonder how much longer Flybe will be able to sustain this level of fares given their costs of fuel etc (though on most of these fares would have extra costs + taxes). I guess though that passenger numbers may hold as to drive from say Southampton to Aberdeen would cost more that £85.

Cuts in US Flights

There are very mixed signals from the airline market. In UK airline market, Players such as Flybe & Jet2.com continue to expand their European routes, whereas in the US there are continued contractions on routes. One of my colleagues from Work only recently used a commuter service to Grand Canyon 2 months ago.
hattip NYT

How many more ?

You wonder in the days of high oil price and increasing inflation, how many of the UK's smaller Regional airlines will go under ?
I note Flybe stepped in immediately........
At Southampton airport, we have seen the a similar slimming of the market with Scotair withdrawing their Amsterdam return flights and Estern airlines their Brussels routing leaving Flybe only - great for competition right !....................



Euro manx airline goes out of business
May 10 2008 by Neil Hodgson, Liverpool Echo
ONE of the main airlines connecting Liverpool with the Isle of Man has ceased trading.
EuroManx blamed rising fuel prices as one of several factors behind the business.
The Isle of Man-based airline operated five flights a day between the island and Liverpool John Lennon airport.
It started flights in 2002, taking over from Manx Airlines. Last year it carried 140,000 passengers.
Passengers learned of the company’s failure yesterday morning.
Rival Flybe, which started flying the route on March 30, stepped in and offered free replacement tickets for Euromanx passengers.
Liverpool JLA spokesman Robin Tudor said: “Thankfully, they were accommodated by Flybe who have four flights a day from Liverpool. .”
Euromanx employed 70 staff and flew to Liverpool, Manchester, Belfast and London.

Hatip - Liverpool Echo

Hold the Front page - Flybe manage 2 consecutive on time flights

Well a fairly standard week judders to the end ....literally given the standard of my last landing on Eastern Airlines tonight - but with 5 flights in 4 days it's probably worth reflecting on couple of things.
Regular readers will know I am not FlyBe's greatest fan, however they did manage 2 on-time flights this week but it was the difference in the crew's attitude - Tuesday's flight to edinburgh the crew was attentive with their service and announcements and the landing was smooth. On the flight back from Frankfurt, the attendants spent the majority of 90 minutes chatting at the back of the plane, the captain was silent and the landing was fast, furious and spine juddering.
The Lufthansa Edinburgh Frankfurt leg of the week was brutally efficient and on time, but the sandwiches in economy were unpalatable ( I was even offered a second).
And tonight's flight with eastern airlines - the less said the better let's just say a Jetstream 41 was not made for family travelling with 3 kids under 5 - the smell of baby sick is not easily dispersed on such a small plane !

Fly(may)be- lets me down again

Top draw incompetence from my friends from Flybe - this morning went like this:
0600 check in for the 0715 Southampton to Brussels services. Offered emergency exit seat on an embraer 145.
0645 in aura restaurent with tuna wrap, cappucino and emails
0650 announcement: plane delayed by technical issues more 0730
0730 nothing - can see the engineers working on the plane problem with de-icing kit on left wing.
0745 - announcement that there will be more info at 0830 - all the early start planes to perhaps 12 locations have left....except for Brussels. - engineers have gone for breakfast
0830 nothing - engineers back from breakfast and have bits off the palne
0845 Flight delayed until 10:30 as plane is faulty and we have to wait for new plane
0915 making calls - doing emails - pilots come out after consultation with engineers get in plane and start it up i guess to fly it to Exeter for maintennace but it's a frustrating moment watching the plane you should have be on ...............fly away
0945 planes start coming in on morning return flights including embraer 145s, however no effort to try and shuffle planes to get our flight away.
1030 nothing
1045 we are going to board soon according to announcement
1050 Boarding but it's a Dash 8 - seating free for all because all our boarding passes were set up fro an embrarer 145 - how come Flybe couldn't have found us an earlier Dash 8
1105 Paperwork buggered because no doubt some people have given up & gone home
1115 still no paperwork - hold -re-opened to sort bagggage issue.
11.25 Door closed - push back
1320 (cet) land brussels
1345 in taxi to restaurent
1410 arrive 1 hour 10 minuts leate for lunch meeting with morning meeting completely blown.

Come on Flybe - How's about a spare plane at southampton or some decent ops people to shuffle planes/flights

Eastern Airways

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last month, I have been working hard on a project in southern England and Brussels. This means except for one flight my last 9 has been on Eastern Airways. I guess it is testament to their steady, on time services that Eastern run that I have had very little to post over past month. I could start writing horror stories about FlyBe delays and cancellations, frustrated tearful passengers etc. ; but actually I have spent every little time in airports because I have been arriving closer and closer to my Eastern departure time, and so I spending very little tome in departure lounges. That now means next Monday's flight will be a disaster !
One thing about Eastern they fly Jetstream 41s - I always try and sit in seat 6c next to the emergency exit (most room). Every time they brief us it's the same -pull the door in, turn the door on its side, throw it out FORWARDS, no other airline to my knowledge has ever specified FORWARDS, but no one can tell why.........

Change of carrier - can other countries keep track?

Those of us ex BA Connect travellers now with flybe are becoming increasingly confused as to actually which airline we are travelling.
Last Tuesday caught the flybe flight to Dusseldorf fromSouthampton - this route was announced before the BA Connect takeover. They have used mainly Dash 8 sprinkled with BAE146s on the routing, so I was somewhat shocked to suddenly find myself on a BA embraer 145 with obviously a BA crew on board; despite their uniforms, confirmed by the "why don't you check out our cheap flights on http://www.ba.com..... www.flyba.com.......I mean wwww.flybe.com ....",well she got there in the end.
( I actually asked the hostesses what it was like now they had crossed over to the "dark side" - they said it was ok but were shocked at the lack of attention to detail and disorganisation - they seem amazed that Flybe managed to operate a service at all).
Anyway on arrival at dusseldorf, it was the ground crew that amused me you could see all these Germans trying to work out what BA plane from Southampton was doing in that slot. Much shrugging of shoulders, mystified looks at paperwork, should they provide a valet service etc. anyway they figured it out in the end and got us on the bus without too much delay.

Update 21/4 - since I wrote this the last three domestic flights I have taken with Flybe have all used BA Connect Embraers - the crew still remain amazed at Flybe's disorganisation.

flybe - keeping people waiting

Scraped out of a foggy leeds bradford at 0700 arrived in southampton an hour later. Looked up at the southampton departure board and the early Flybe flight to leeds due to leave at 0720 was now due to depart at 1100!
Going back through southampton airport to get to brussels tonight and sat next to gentleman who had been the airport departure lounge all day:

• he was due to go on the above early plane but Flybe camcelled it at 11am.
• he was re-booked on the lunchtime flight - but that was cancelled due to lack of crew.
• 12 hours later, he had been put on the 1750 plane to Leeds which was 1hour 10 minutes late when I boarded my plane for Brussels.

I hope he made it - I marvel sometimes at the patience of fellow travellers

How good is your Chinese?

Travelled Flybe back from Southampton. Surprisingly it was an ATR42 plane (flybe normally use DASH8s) with emergency exit signs in Chinese! When you looked at the safety card it was in German, & Chinese and finally English.
The plane actually involved did not belong to Flybe but an airline called Air Atlantique. When I looked them up on the internet depsite their French name they are actually based in Coventry. Still does not explain the chinese emergency exit signs......

Low pay ?

2 flights so far this week, second of which was Southampton to Amsterdam. The flight nearly didn't go because of no crew. In the end a Hostess had been volunteered by the company. She was due to finish at 1400, on her flight into southampton from edinburgh arrival 13;30, she had been told she was on the 1400 Amsterdam. As she has a monthly salary she only receives an extra 1.70 an hour she is the air. There was a possibly an extra £30 payment but when she left Southamptoin the Captain of her previous Edinburgh plane was still arguing with Fly BE HQ about whether she was elligble for payment.
mmmh I wonder what BA Connect staff are thinking - my impression is they are voting with their feet.....