British Airways regional arm BA Connect and budget carrier EasyJet plan to resume flights at the UK's Bristol International airport tomorrow, following the airport's re-opening this morning. Bristol's runway had been closed dur to various airlines' concerns over insufficient aircraft braking friction.
Several airlines cancelled their services into the airport over recent days due to over the safety of its newly-resurfaced runway in wet weather conditions.
The airport subsequently closed the runway yesterday afternoon, to accelerate work on applying additional drainage grooving to temporary sections of the runway surface. Tests have this morning been carried out on overnight runway work and the runway has been re-opened. The first flight to land following the resumption, a Continental Airlines Boeing 757-operated service from New York Newark, touched down earlier today.
BA Connect had cancelled 38 of its 39 Bristol services today. It plans to resume operations from the airport tomorrow. The single operational flight is a Glasgow link, which is the airline’s last flight of the day.
BA Connect says its afternoon flights were cancelled as a precaution against the work overrunning. BA Connect will perform its own tests on the runway surface before resuming operations. It has cancelled at least 70 Bristol flights during the last few days and was unable to immediately estimate the financial impact of the disruption.
UK budget carrier EasyJet, which was the first to cancel services as a result of safety concerns, has also cancelled 40% of its Bristol operations today. The remainder will be diverted to Cardiff. EasyJet says the airline expects to resume normal operations tomorrow.
Continental Airlines, however, has maintained its five weekly frequencies to New York, Newark while the runway has been operational – though aircraft crews have had the option to divert, based on their judgment of actual conditions when landing.
Continental Airlines says: “We have kept operating all the days that we’ve been scheduled to, including yesterday. We have been operating taking account of the situation at Bristol, but we are confident that we are operating safely there.
“The 757 has a good braking capability. We have looked to adjust the landing procedures at Bristol to take account of the runway in wet conditions,” he says. “At no stage have we thought that the runway is not safe to land on.”
Despite confirmation from the UK Civil Aviation Authority that measures are in place to assure safe operations, and the airport operator pointing out that there is no requirement to groove a temporary surface, a number of carriers had refused to serve Bristol until the work – affecting the central third of the runway – is complete.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
