Route Development & Rumours

[Ray Finkle]

Give them time!!

I remember thinking the same thing about Orlando once

You are right though, still plenty of time for S19

 

[Just Birmingham]

I'm just reading that Ethiopian are starting from Manchester. Is this not the type of service that Birmingham should be attracting?

I appreciate that Birmingham will be in the box seat come HS2 but given it's 1.20 to central London will the 25 minutes saving really make that much difference ?

I worry that other services that were destined for Birmingham will be entrenched at Manchester and will in 10 years be immovable.

 

[Brum X]

I'm just reading that Ethiopian are starting from Manchester. Is this not the type of service that Birmingham should be attracting?

I appreciate that Birmingham will be in the box seat come HS2 but given it's 1.20 to central London will the 25 minutes saving really make that much difference ?

I worry that other services that were destined for Birmingham will be entrenched at Manchester and will in 10 years be immovable.

Nothing new there Just Birmingham, BHX will pick up the crumbs like we always have.

This isnt against MAN, this gripe is with the past leaders of our conurbation who just didnt have the balls to go BIG back in the 50/60s and now we are left with an airport that will play second fiddle always when an airline wants to expand outside London/South East.

This situation is likely to get worse not better in my opinion as MAN are now powering ahead with there updated terminal whilst BHX will still be bolting bits on to the original 80s terminal for the forseeable future, until we see a masterplan.

Apart from a few niche routes like India and hopefully a china route, i really cant see why an airline would choose BHX over MAN. Even though i fully support BHX when i can, im afraid more recently reality appears to be that BHX is not going to be the airport that i want it to be, not in my life time anyway.

Im sure we will still be talking about no flights to Las Vegas/Cuba/Orlando MCO and some European routes in 5 years time. Sad really

 

[Jerry]

I think long haul wise BHX stands a better chance of Eastern routes especially to the sub continent. As a side note i saw the Emirates A380 coming in to land at BHX and that is a pretty amazing sight!

 

[Ray Finkle]

I'm afraid that geography does not work in our favour.

Look at the UK from above, Birmingham overlaps the London catchment area and doesn't really do much for the north. Manchester sits far enough away from London not to have any major conflict and gives the whole of the north nice, easy access. It's also easy to get to from the Midlands, a perfect 'rest of the UK' option.

Many people in our region still have London as their default option for long haul travel and for those towards the north MAN offers so much more than BHX, often at a cheaper price too.

Last week two people in my office booked family trips to Florida for next year, both with Thomas Cook from MAN. One was 'because you can't fly to America from Birmingham' and the other 'because Thomas Cook are so much cheaper and Birmingham only has a one weekly flight which is no good'. For the second person this is her 4th trip to Florida each time from MAN, she said that she doesn't even check Birmingham anymore for the reasons highlighted. Thomas Cook and Virgin must be rubbing their hands.

Mr Kehoe once said that they are trying to change peoples behaviour and that is not an easy thing to do at all. It may be why they attempted the London over spill option.

As long as our catchment area is happy to use the M40/M6 not much is likely to change.

 

[Brum X]

However on a side note Primera Air have "growth plans" for BHX

 

[Ray Finkle]

However on a side note Primera Air have "growth plans" for BHX

Please not even more rotations to AGP/PMI/ALC/LPA/TFS.......

Long haul I'd like to see them get NY up to daily and if the aircraft can manage it, add Orlando.

Short haul wise Reykjavik could do with a 'proper' schedule rather than just turning a positioning flight into a revenue earner. Then there are routes such a Lisbon, Athens, Riga and Valencia that are there for the taking. Any of those may actually persuade me to think about making a booking with them

 

[58terminus]

I have a family member who visits from the USA regularly and often combines it with a short stay with another family member who lives near Nice. Guess what? This year she is having to travel to Heathrow to go to Nice.
I think BHX has more urgent priorities to work on than niche eastern routes.

 

[Jerry]

I have a family member who visits from the USA regularly and often combines it with a short stay with another family member who lives near Nice. Guess what? This year she is having to travel to Heathrow to go to Nice.
I think BHX has more urgent priorities to work on than niche eastern routes.

I'd imagine they are trying to work on both at the same time.

 

[58terminus]

I'd imagine they are trying to work on both at the same time.

I imagine they are and in reality if you accept Jet2s expansion is largely down to Monarchs demise are not
really succeeding on either front at the moment.

 

[airport66]

I don't think the geography is the really issue here, what explains the success of the current carriers particularly the long haul. Emirates is flying the largest aircraft on the planet twice a day, which is also is operating out of both LHR and MAN. Bhx appears to be managing just fine despite being squeeze between the two other airports. There are the other carriers incl Air India that seems to be be doing very well also, and all of the mainline European carriers, that Bhx currently has. The geography argument that i see so much discuss on here seems to contradict whats is actually happening at BHX at the present time particularly with the success of air india and emirates. The really issue here is that there are alot of destinations that are not being served that should be. And then there is the north american issue, ie no flights!! which hopefully will change at the end of this week. People only use LHR and MAN because they are force to, particularly for TATL flights and other destinations. Its kind of really strange that back in the 1990s, BHX had two daily flights to chicago and New York. and 20 years on we have nothing, the question is how did we get here?? Sorry I'm not being sarcastic or antagonistic it just does not seem to add up.

 

[rollo]

Personally if belive the geographic location of BHX is the single biggest reason for the disparity in long haul compared to MAN.my reasoning that after LHR airlines will look at the next biggest catchment areas and I reckon both Birmingham and Manchester have similar but not identical local catchments but MAN by the simple reason of being twice as far from London is able to increase its effective catchment area without butting up to the pull of London. For example MAN takes large numbers of passengers from Yorkshire to the east while BHX takes far fewer from say the East Mids while many people travel from East Mids to MAN and LHR so BHX ends up squeezed between the two and airlines have little incentive to operate from a third location ,Orlando is an absolute classic case with MAN processing approx twenty yes TWENTY times as many passengers as Birmingham.
Additionally over the years BHX has suffered with lack of ambition particularly in the1960's and 1970s and indeed today seems pretty rudderless.

 

[GliderPilot]

In my opinion, i think the strain seen on the airport during the peak of last summer shows that BHX is an airport playing catch up with its own expansion. The airport hasnt previously been developed at the same pace as the competitors north and south, but now rapid route development leaves ground staff stretched and delayed passengers annoyed. The airport doesn’t have the infrastructure for much more than what it has now.

BHX needs a masterplan and some money throwing at it basically :/

 

[IanFarquharson]

Orlando is an absolute classic case with MAN processing approx twenty yes TWENTY times as many passengers as Birmingham.
THe above is actually worse than 20 times !
2017 BHX was 16,645 and MAN 528,052 so try 32 times more pax !

 

[rollo]

Orlando is an absolute classic case with MAN processing approx twenty yes TWENTY times as many passengers as Birmingham.
THe above is actually worse than 20 times !
2017 BHX was 16,645 and MAN 528,052 so try 32 times more pax !

Never was that good at sums apart from money, anyway thanks for those correct figures Ian you've cheered me up no end

 

[Coathanger16]

When it comes to long haul I think geography does play a part - if BHX was twice as far from LHR and MAN I'm sure we'd be seeing more flights - but geography doesn't explain the disparity between East and West.

Currently our flights to the East (Dubai, Doha, Delhi, etc) perform very well compared to our flights to the West (USA, Canada, etc). Considering MAN is approximately twice as big as BHX (2.14 times), MAN carries approximately twice (2.08) as many passengers as BHX does to Eastern destinations, so I'd say for its size BHX is more than holding its own.

Looking West however is where things go bad. MAN carries over 9 times as many passengers West as BHX does. In fact MAN carries more passengers to Orlando alone than BHX does to the entire N.American continent!

I think its fair to say the majority of passengers going to N.America from MAN are carried by either Virgin or Thomas Cook, both of whom have expressed no interest in flying long haul from BHX. On the other hand, many of the airlines that fly East from MAN (Emirates, Qatar, PIA) also fly to BHX.

I think at the end of the day it comes down to how willing/cautious airlines are to launch long haul flights in general (not just to BHX). Without a based carrier flying long haul (until Primera starts anyway), BHX is reliant on foreign carriers for its long haul flights. The trend over the last decade has been of N.American carries withdrawing from smaller markets and focusing on is main routes, while Middle & Far East carriers have been expanding. BHX is a perfect example of this having now lost United, American, Air Transat & Icelandair, whilst the likes of Emirates, Qatar, Air India & Turkmenistan are thriving. That suggests its not so much an issue of catchment, but more to do with the airlines.

I've seen comments many a time along the lines of "there's more choice from LHR/MAN". In that case how come Emirates/Qatar are doing so well from BHX? Not including European connections, people travelling from the Midlands to say Hong Kong have the choice of 3 carriers (Emirates, Qatar, Air India) and 28 weekly flights from BHX, compared to at least 10 airlines and over 60 weekly flights from LHR. Much more choice from LHR, yet many passengers are more than happy to fly from BHX. Why should it be any different for N.America?

The evidence seems to suggest there is demand for long haul flights from BHX & the Midlands, but that it takes the right airline to make it work. I can't help but feel that if one of the N.American carriers had put a proper wide body (B767 or larger) on the BHX to JFK/EWR route, it would have performed well and still be here.

 

[rollo]

Interesting the difference between going east or west from BHX with all of the airlines going east effectively being an arm of the state where profit does not seem to be the only or even main consideration look at Air India who's recent welcome increase to Amritsar appears to be a government demand/instructionfollowing strong lobbying from regional politicians however all four airlines appear based on loadings seem to be going well particularly Emirates and Air India.

Meanwhile just about any airline going from the U.K. to North America is subject to the rules of capitalism and need to turn or maximize profit or they dissappear, which is pretty much what's happened at Birmingham up to now.

 

[Jerry]

I think the Eastern bound airlines get the bonus that there are much more options for people to fly to via their hubs. Looking at the US the main destinations will be New York Florida and the West Coast which unfortunately are saturated from the airports north and south of BHX and may not be able to generate the inbound traffic that the Eastern routes can.

 

[IanFarquharson]

Hopefully there will some news soon about more seats going West

 

[Ray Finkle]

I've seen comments many a time along the lines of "there's more choice from LHR/MAN". In that case how come Emirates/Qatar are doing so well from BHX? Not including European connections, people travelling from the Midlands to say Hong Kong have the choice of 3 carriers (Emirates, Qatar, Air India) and 28 weekly flights from BHX, compared to at least 10 airlines and over 60 weekly flights from LHR. Much more choice from LHR, yet many passengers are more than happy to fly from BHX. Why should it be any different for N.America?

If you fly Emirates or Qatar from BHX you have roughly the same product that is available from LHR. There is no real advantage gained from making the journey down the M40.

When it comes to America we had AA flying those old 757's once daily to JFK which, when compared to a variety of airlines using numerous daily wide bodies from LHR, cannot compete. I personally never used the AA service but reports from those who did were not good.

The Middle Eastern airlines have enough financial clout to put a brand new wide body aircraft on a new route and sit back until it matures.

Thomas Cook and Virgin are two airlines often mentioned, Mr Kehoe (and others) have said on more than one occasion that they had no interest in BHX as they were concerned about diluting yields at MAN. Surely a true indicator of overlapping catchment areas?

It's a sad state of affairs when they can't even get a second weekly SFB service out of TUi