I apologise for the mass of figures below but I've set them down as a record for people to read as much or as little as they want.
I am surprised that they did not make a profit from it, Were the timings not suitable for office hours?
In summer 2006 (the main period of the short-lived easyJet Hamburg route) the flight left BRS daily except Saturdays at 1815 and arrived HAM 2100, leaving HAM at 2125 and arriving back at BRS at 2210.
easyJet's stated aim of carrying close to 100,000 per annum on this route is particularly surprising because at 90,000 annually at 6 x weekly an average load of around 140 would be needed all-year round (a load factor of about 90% on the 156-seat A319) to meet this figure.
In summer 2006 OLT's double drop to Bremen and Hamburg operated 9 x weekly (Mon to Fri only with morning and evening arrivals/departures in both directions except Mon which was morning only).
In May 2006 5,988 travelled between Bristol and Hamburg (easyJet and OLT combined figure) and 1,253 between Bristol and Bremen.
I thought it might be interesting to compare with Birmingham,
The Munich and Hannover flights from BRS were only part month of course as the routes didn't start until 13 May.
You're absolutely right about the connecting flights that LH offers. In the 13 months that LH (in the form of Eurowings) operated BRS-Frankfurt until the end of April 2009 at initially 3 x daily (21 weekly) with a 100 seat Bae 146-300, just under 100,000 passengers were carried. In May 2008 the route saw 9,441 passengers.
The route was ahead of LH's business plan, and had connected into all of LH's worldwide routes at FRA within the first six months of the operation, and is believed to have been pulled because the recession was beginning to bite and the airline was concerned about diluting its LHR and BHX operations to FRA, both of which were more mature than the BRS route.
The last full year of BACon to Germany from BRS was 2006.
In that year BACon operated to Frankfurt, Munich and Dusseldorf, with FRA and DUS at 6 x weekly (no Sats) and MUC daily.
MUC and DUS went out at late morning and returned mid afternoon whist FRA left mid afternoon and returned mid evening. FRA and MUC had been operated by the BA franchisee since the late 1990s and FRA had been double daily for a while.
BACon operated the ERJ 145 on these routes and a comparison with the current bmi regional passenger figures is easily accomplished.
In 2006 the FRA route carried 21,315 passengers, the MUC 19,331 and the DUS 9,993 but the last-mentioned route only commenced on 1 June that year.
In May 2006 FRA saw 1,874 passengers (average load 34.7, load factor 69.4%) and MUC 1815 (average load 29.2, load factor 58.4%). Because DUS didn't commence until 1 June I've set down the passenger numbers for that month which were 1,156 (average load 21.4, load factor 42.8%) By August DUS was carrying 1,785 (average load 33, load factor 66%).
I can't remember what, if any, connection availability there was at these airports through BA, certainly nothing like those with LH especially at FRA so the BA and bmi regional comparisons are perhaps more realistic, albeit BA was and is a better known airline name than regional.
I realise I've been talking about passenger numbers and not the yields which are the important factors but it does paint something of a picture of BRS and Germany in the past decade.
The profile of an airline is important. easyJet carries around 80,000 to Berlin most years and in 2012 165,000 to Geneva (there were another 10,000 ski charter airline passengers to GVA as well) whereas the lesser-known Helvetic, although steadily improving its BRS performance still struggles to get to 50% load factor after 18 months of operation between BRS and Zurich with 9,000 passengers in 2012.
