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Post by expressflight on Sept 23, 2015 13:25:50 GMT
I cannot find an existing thread on this topic which perhaps shows how infrequent they are at SEN but I thought I would set the ball rolling.
On Monday there were two Luxair B738 departures to Pau in France carrying returning French Rugby World Cup fans. As far as I know these were the first ever B738 ATMs at SEN and they also probably broke the existing record for the number of pax on a flight, having carried 186 (plus 154 pieces of hold luggage) on the first flight and similar numbers on the second. The aircraft positioned in empty each time.
The Luxair aircraft's ability to operate from SEN doesn't mean that Ryanair could necessarily do the same as the latter have de-rated engines on their 738s and landing distance might be a problem with a full load in any case. From Boeing performance charts it looks as if the 738 can land at a weight of 130,000lb (dry runway) and 115,000lb (wet runway) with a departure RTOW of around 155,000lb.
These charters were booked some weeks ago so an early definite decision was made to use SEN rather than STN or LTN for example and whether this is a result of more aggressive marketing on the part of SEN I don't know. Hopefully the new CEO, Glyn Jones, has the background knowledge to market SEN effectively to the right customers, having been LTN MD until last year. Time will tell.
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Post by devonian on Sept 23, 2015 17:35:13 GMT
It's a positive sign. Let's hope it's a straw in the wind ....
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Post by expressflight on Sept 24, 2015 15:49:59 GMT
A IGA Skytaxi Saab 340, SP-MRB, operated a 33 pax charter from MAN to SEN on Wednesday late in the evening. It departed empty to Wroclaw in the early hours of Thursday. This was possibly connected with the Manchester United v Ipswich League Cup match as the aircraft had operated a Cambridge-Manchester sector yesterday afternoon.
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Post by devonian on Sept 25, 2015 8:07:29 GMT
That'll likely be it. In the old days it would have been a couple of Channel's Herons or a Dakota flying direct from Ipswich Airport.........
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Post by tagron on Sept 25, 2015 10:36:06 GMT
The achilles heel of the 738 at SEN is the landing performance. At a very rough estimate the OEW plus fuel remaining (i.e.unused minimum diversion fuel) would be approx 44 tonnes. So a Regulated Landing Weight of 59.1 allows a traffic load of 15.1 tonnes. For 186 pax this is only 75 kg per passenger including bags,i.e.not enough, so operators would have to restrict passenger loads accordingly. This may not be an attractive proposition.
If it were necessary to use wet runway data the available traffic load would drop to 8 tonnes - and I cannot see airlines accepting that. However it is permissible to treat porous surfaces in the same way as grooved runways, i.e. "Considered to be dry" in the rain. As long as operators accept this assessment of the SEN runway surface then the wet data will not be an obstacle and the "dry" figures above will apply.
But leaving aside the wet runway case an interesting consideration is the Boeing Short Field Design Package. The Boeing claim is that it increases payload weight off a 5000ft/1500m runway by 800kg for take off and 3600kg for landing for the 738. I had somehow thought that the package was only of interest to airlines using "exotic" airports like Santos Dumont. But a Boeing press release dated 2006 indicated they then had orders for 250 738s with this package on worldwide basis including Europe.
So by now there might be any number so fitted operating in Europe, although there seems to be no way of identifying them without inside knowledge. With enhancements such as above specific 738s would offer similar performance capability to the A320 at SEN. It's another example of the story that one size does not fit all.
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Post by EGMCfollower on Sept 30, 2015 14:29:33 GMT
The Transun Lapland charter flight planned for this December has been cancelled. No mention on the SEN website anymore and no longer bookable on their website. Pax already being refunded.
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Post by devonian on Sept 30, 2015 17:14:53 GMT
A shame, but it was a bit bloomin' expensive.......
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Post by Humberside on Oct 16, 2015 19:44:48 GMT
The Pau flights accounted for 366 passengers in the September CAA Provisional Stats
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Post by Thames Gateway on Oct 19, 2015 9:11:11 GMT
Re the "Santa flight", Saw this on twitter today:
Sam @samdansey 16h16 hours ago
@southendairport Are there Santa flights from Southend this year?
London Southend @southendairport 14h14 hours ago
@samdansey almost finished plans so once all confirmed tickets will go on sale!
Sam @samdansey 14h14 hours ago
@southendairport @cls1808 Get your debit card ready!
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Post by Thames Gateway on Jan 28, 2016 16:11:59 GMT
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Post by EGMCfollower on Jan 28, 2016 16:53:24 GMT
Apparently so! Never even saw this advertised, yet when SEN do advertise holidays or breaks they get cancelled due to a lack of demand!
Supposedly the following:
7th Feb arr 2010 S5891P, deps 2100 S53261 8th Feb arr 0010 S53261, deps 1920 S5891P
Small Planet A320
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Post by Thames Gateway on Jan 28, 2016 19:02:59 GMT
Thanks for the details. Yes, a bit of advertising or mention on LSA twitter/facebook would no doubt have helped, but who knows, it might already be pre-sold/full...
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Post by expressflight on May 30, 2016 8:47:15 GMT
Well it's not actually a charter flight but it's not really relevant in 'Progress' either.
There is this morning a Southend-Vagar flight by Atlantic Airways with A319 OY-RCI. It's really a scheduled departure that was due to leave from Gatwick today but has been re-routed for some reason to Southend. Atlantic announced a one-off scheduled flight to Gatwick in April departing Vagar on 27th May and returning on 30th May. The Gatwick departures board shows the flight as RC411 at 14:25 but with 'Enquire Airline' in the status box.
I know that SEN management did have Atlantic in their sights a couple of years ago when a weekly Vagar-Stansted flight was operated but this has since been terminated.
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Post by Thames Gateway on Oct 29, 2016 10:32:43 GMT
Anyone know what the DTR3671 OY-RUE from Billund is in for?
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Post by EGMCfollower on Oct 29, 2016 11:19:58 GMT
Not sure yet. It is night stopping though.
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