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Post by Humberside on Jun 29, 2013 11:27:10 GMT
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Post by devonian on Jun 29, 2013 16:42:45 GMT
Excellent. At last we'll get to see that an A320 can operate from SEN's runway over a long distance route. Unless they plan to tech stop of course....
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Post by tagron on Jul 2, 2013 22:22:20 GMT
It is an interesting development to see an A320 tasked with Southend-Bourgas (BOJ) which is a great circle distance of 1213 nms. Last year’s evaluation of A320 operations from SEN (Monarch ?) suggested a maximum full payload range equating to SEN- FAO which is 948 nms though the airways departure routing may add some 30 nms or so.
Assuming the aircraft configurations are similar I would guess the planning assumptions are different. An airline considering regular services, say daily or weekly, might want to use more conservative assumptions than one putting just on two flights because in the course of its operations it would be more likely to encounter adverse conditions and it certainly would not want to be involved in repeated tech stops.
The BOJ operation might well be predicated on more beneficial ambient conditions for departure and perhaps a tighter reserve fuel requirement. SEN-FAO planning would surely have to take account of possible headwinds whereas eastbound scheduling like SEN-BOJ in normal practice would be expected to benefit from tailwinds though there is no guarantee these would occur on the day.
The A320 performance data available openly through the internet is not suitable for detail route analysis though some general conclusions may be drawn. One point of note is that take off data for the A320 from the generic charts in the Airbus Aircraft Characteristics for Airport Planning Manual indicates that at ISA the CFM56 aircraft appears to produce a better RTOW in the order of 1800 kgs than the V2500 version from a SEN length runway, but that at ISA+15 there is little difference. According to their website Balkan operate both types.
In either case there will be potential range benefits from scheduling departures to avoid mid afternoon peak ambient temperatures. The published schedule gives the May departure time as 1105 in the bookings page (though the Flight Program page shows 0830) and the September departure as 2115.
So my guess is it is feasible without a tech stop or without restricting pax numbers but I cannot imagine any operator trying a longer route from SEN with existing specification A320s. Vary late edit: When making that last remark I was considering a midsummer operation and I had not thought there was a likelihood of a winter operation such as EZY's TFS route. The great circle distance is 1611nms and is made possible albeit with a load restriction by the performance of the CFM56 at lower ambient temperatures
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Post by expressflight on Jul 5, 2013 7:03:45 GMT
With there being so many variants of the A320 with nine different MTOWs and two basic engine types, both with several available engine power ratings, it's impossible to be more precise than tagron has been without access to individual aircraft Flight Manuals. Elsewhere it has been suggested that the IAE V2500 engined aircraft would have an operating advantage at SEN but I cannot see that from the available figures, as tagron seems to support.
Presumably both the airline and SEN will have studied the relevant performance figures relative to the airport and been satisfied as to the viability of the operation. It's possible, of course, that a slight payload penalty may be acceptable to the tour operator in this case.
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Post by EGMCfollower on Oct 28, 2013 11:16:01 GMT
These flights have been cancelled due to 'operational reasons' as have the planned flights from Cambridge.
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Post by tagron on Mar 28, 2018 20:15:26 GMT
Balkan Holidays now include SEN (again !)in their drop down menu of UK departure airports. Interrogating the website however does not produce any flights. It could mean anything...or nothing.
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Post by Humberside on Mar 28, 2018 20:25:03 GMT
Balkan use scheduled flights for their Croatia programme, so that may explain why they have SEN in their drop down
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