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Post by mrmoose on Sept 28, 2016 19:04:43 GMT
my first thought was "who??" Looks like it will either be an A319 or A320 - Hopefully the latter. Are they operating any other charters for Thomson do we know? Seems a long way from Tibet and somewhat Random - so presume they must be basing an Aircraft at TFS for the summer for charter work. On Wikipedia, their aircraft are mixed config (8 business class, 150 economy on the A320)
EDIT - Iv noticed that the ICAO code for Tibet Airlines is TBA. Although it does state Tibet Airlines on the Thomson website - could this be a mix up with the "TBA" code being linked up in the background somewhere to an airline? Seems unlikely, but then so does Tibet airlines operating our TFS route!
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Post by flyer on Oct 6, 2016 10:33:53 GMT
Spot on mrmoose - Tibet Airlines entry has now been replaced by "to be confirmed." Somebody at Thomson had thought TBA was an airline code!
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Post by kirmingtonuser on Oct 13, 2016 21:05:43 GMT
There as been some discussion on pprune on a change of operator at Norwich for Summer 2017. It is said that Thomson will operate there instead of Germania. On the Thomson website, Thomson Airways is now showing as the operator of the HUY/PMI route next summer. TOM 3212 arrives at HUY on Tuesdays at 14.15. TOM 3213 departs to PMI from HUY at 15.30.
This will result in an increase in aircraft capacity from 148 to 189 seats.
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Post by Humberside on Oct 13, 2016 21:23:31 GMT
Excellent news to have an extra 41 seats each way each week. Over a 26 week season that would be an extra 2132 seats. In reality I doubt all those extra seats would be filled (first inbound/last outbound will be empty for example), but the vast majority hopefully will be
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Post by pug on Oct 21, 2016 19:30:19 GMT
TFS axed I see? Clearly no space in the aircraft planning for HUY. Makes Ryanair more inviting.
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Post by mrmoose on Oct 21, 2016 21:06:21 GMT
Hope not, but regretfully looks to be the case. The DSA Tuesday flight to TFS, which was also showing carrier TBA is now showing as Travel Service Airlines. Hopefully its is a result of lack of aircraft availability and not poor sales. With the Flybe Jersey flight now in question too, its not been a good day for our little airport. Have Thomson confirmed the cancellation?
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Post by pug on Oct 21, 2016 23:08:03 GMT
I'm afraid these things will always knock on at small airports first. It's not necessarily poor sales as much as having the capacity to fulfil the schedule. If they start struggling to honour their program then it's the likes of HUY which suffer first.
Sign of the times, and reinforces the view that these services just aren't sustainable unless you entice a base operator, or the likes of Ryanair/Vieling etc.
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Post by kirmingtonuser on Oct 28, 2016 16:35:26 GMT
In view of the above, Humberside would benefit if it had one or two more charters next summer. Newmarket and Omega seem to be able to achieve higher load factors than JetXtra. Eastern have two E170 aircraft with apparent spare capacity over summer weekends. Omega are using an Eastern aircraft for one-off charters over a three month period. They must be happy with the seat-mile costs of the E170 for one-week holidays. Could Omega be persuaded to enter the season-long summer charter market and sell more routes from HUY?
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Post by pug on Oct 29, 2016 7:33:41 GMT
The Thomson TFS from LPL had been cancelled too by the looks of it. Suggests it is availability of aircraft as the reason for the cancellations.
Don't omega specialise in one off departures? If so I can't see them wanting to operate at a higher frequency.. For leisure these days you need a based aircraft or low cost airline, there aren't the number of tour operators that there used to be when HUY had 30+ flights per week.
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Post by mrmoose on Oct 29, 2016 8:19:26 GMT
The Thomson TFS from LPL had been cancelled too by the looks of it. Suggests it is availability of aircraft as the reason for the cancellations. Don't omega specialise in one off departures? If so I can't see them wanting to operate at a higher frequency.. For leisure these days you need a based aircraft or low cost airline, there aren't the number of tour operators that there used to be when HUY had 30+ flights per week. ..and there lies the problem, you really only have Thomson, Thomas Cook, and Jet2 that are of any size. Thomson - Currently expanding their HUY programme with year round departures, Hopefully next winter TFS will continue to operate and they will have another crack at TFS year round. Seems our most likely source of new charters at the moment, but proximity of their base at DSA will always limit HUY expansion. Thomas Cook - Seem to have reduced departures from our region, with no HUY, and very limited DSA and LBA programme, certainly by comparison to Airtours days, or even 5 years ago. I can't see them returning anytime soon TBH Jet2 - HUY seems to fit their portfolio, and were quite far from any of their other bases, as they don't operate from DSA, and with significant fleet expansion over the next couple of years, you never know. However - Expansion seems to be now focused on moving their brand South, rather than covering the north with more departure points, and TBH, I think if they were going to start a HUY programme, it would have started a couple of years back. Not sure who that leaves? Iv said before, I could see Eastern operating a limit series of 1-off departures to med sun spots, especially now they have the E170 in the fleet, say through the 6 week school holidays initially to test the water, such as: Week1 - Humberside -> Faro (POS Faro -> Humberside empty) Week 2 - Humberside -> Malaga (POS Malaga -> Faro) Faro -> Humberside Week 3 - Humberside -> Ibiza (POS Ibiza -> Malaga) Malaga -> Humberside Week 4 - Humberside -> Menorca (POS Menorca -> Ibiza) Ibiza -> Humberside Week 5 - Humberside -> Barcalona (POS Barcalona -> Menorca) Menorca -> Humberside Week 6 - (POS Humberside -> Barcalona), Barcalona -> Humberside
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Post by vicki1986 on Feb 9, 2017 15:19:35 GMT
Who will be doing the Palma flights as I've heard its not Germania for summer 2017?
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Post by mrmoose on Feb 9, 2017 21:28:47 GMT
I understand that Thomson are basing a Sunwing B738 at Norwich this year, which will be operating under Thomson crew/flight numbers etc - based on a recent post on Pprune.
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Post by flyer on May 24, 2017 20:48:52 GMT
The June and early July flights with Jetxtra to Alicante seem to have been removed from their booking engine. Can't believe the flights are all fully booked. Looks as if it's only going to be a peak summer season service as per the last couple of years. Bad news for HUY if so because Alicante is the second most popular destination in the very popular and fast growing Spanish market- they are missing out.
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Post by kirmingtonuser on May 25, 2017 6:52:26 GMT
British Airways are showing a returning ALC/HUY flight on 3rd June, but no outbound.
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Post by mrmoose on May 25, 2017 20:37:26 GMT
Really disappointing that JetXtra seem to be unable to expand their business again this year. Although its easy for me to be critical from behind my keyboard - I am beginning to wonder if they are using the right business model, and particularly what sort of work is going into yield management and setting the fares at the right level to fill the plane to the point where it at least breaks even. This is of course presuming that the issue is that sales have been poor.
If you presume that say, 50% of seats have sold, then using HAT to cobble together and promote some discounted packages that would have sold a big builk of those vacant seats - even if the seats are sold as seat only at bargain prices, that would reduce the losses, fill the plane, and hopefully lead to repeat bookings in the future. Then if you consider the costs of deadlegging the aircraft out to ALC from presumably Scotland empty on the 3rd June (And presumably pretty empty back to the UK on the 20th) which are likely to be considerable, and take a chunk of any profit made from such a short 3 week season in May. Even chartering a smaller aircraft (such as borrowing one of Easterns ERJ's) would have been preferable in order to save face and build up some regular customers?
If this decision has only been made in the last few weeks, which as they were promoting holidays using the early july flights around 2 months ago, suggests it has then no matter how well it has been handled with those who had booked , I know that if it was me that had booked a flight for my family's annual holiday, I would be very wary of booking with them in the future.
Just my 2 cents, and probably overly critical based on presumptions and guesswork.
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