Birmingham: EasyJet Flights, New Routes & Base Updates

[58terminus]

As with any business, BHX followed a strategy which hasn’t been as successful as MAN

Can we please stop referencing MAN. It is Europe's 20th busiest airport BHX is 47th and falling.
Their strategy seems to have been in place since the 1950's. Ours if there was one since the late 1980's
Whilst people keep comparing progress with MAN they are always going to be dissapointed.
Birmingham as a city may be larger and better and and doesn't have to pretend that every town within a 30 mile radius is part of it to make us look big ,but the airport debate has long been lost.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Why has Bristol boomed when anyone living more than 20 miles north of the city would probably find BHX easier to get to?

By coincidence my alter ego has just addressed in another forum the BRS regional passenger breakdown. I relied on the last CAA passenger survey involving BRS which was in 2015 but it broadly confirms other surveys before and since.

It showed that 76.4% of BRS's passengers had an origin or final destination in the South West, ie the government region of the South West with its seven counties: Gloucestershire, Bristol, Somerset, Wiltshire, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall/Isles of Scilly.

90.4% of that 76.4% came from other South West counties other than Gloucestershire, the South West county nearest BHX, with Bristol itself providing the highest number at 32.5%. Furthermore, it's likely that a good proportion of the 'Gloucestershire' passengers travelled to/from the unitary authority of South Gloucestershire much of which is urban and abuts the Bristol city boundary in what is sometimes called North Bristol or the North Bristol Fringe.

Some Wiltshire residents might also find BHX more convenient but Wiltshire provided only 8% of the 76.4%, with the likelihood that most originated or had final destination in West Wiltshire in the Bath city region.

So it seems that those living/visiting 20-30 miles north/north-east of Bristol don't use BRS in any great numbers now.

 

[Jerry]

Can i ask what the obsession is with getting easyJet in?

Well they seem to have an attraction for people. In south wales there is a virtual obessesion about them with many people. In the end they are a massive brand and many other airlines like Flybe are considered sub standard in comparison.

 

[Sherburnflyer92]

Well they seem to have an attraction for people. In south wales there is a virtual obessesion about them with many people. In the end they are a massive brand and many other airlines like Flybe are considered sub standard in comparison.

A massive brand maybe. But really what will they offer above, like i say, a good Ryanair, Jet2 and Flybe combination?
Okay - they have nailed the UK-BFS and UK-AMS P2P market so they will offer BHX additional capacity & services there but what else?

Having easyJet maybe good from an element of growth; but it will also be bad as they dilute yields on bucket & spade routes. This could lead to a reduction in capacity; or even a total withdrawal of the route by easyJet as they struggle to make it profitable. easyJet have made in no secret - when they are open up a route/operate a route they intend to be No.1 or No.2 on that route.

Take PMI as an example for S19. Currently operated by Jet2 (19 P/W), Ryanair (11 P/W), Thomas Cook (4 P/W) and TUI (11 P/W). easyJet would have to either operate above 19 flights P/W to PMI to be No.1 or anything between 12 and 19 to be No.2 position. An addition of that sort of level would be disastrous for all carriers on that route and as like i've said above would lead to a withdrawal of the route by either easyJet or another carrier; or reduction by easyJet and other carriers. In turn - bad for the airport due to a reduction of pax numbers and bad for the airlines; and easyJet it's self.

 

[Ianbutty]

Whatever the airline is: BHX needs to connect every single major economic hub in Europe and beyond with Birmingham. The plastic bucket and spade brigade will always be well served. A major airport should be a major economic driver and the BHX bossses are right to focus on excellent City to City business travel. It has been BHXs strength and should continue to be so.

Is Easyjet can do that great. If not, then either a series of national carriers or the rejuvenated FlyBe/Virgin.

 

[58terminus]

Take PMI as an example for S19. Currently operated by Jet2 (19 P/W), Ryanair (11 P/W), Thomas Cook (4 P/W) and TUI (11 P/W). easyJet would have to either operate above 19 flights P/W to PMI to be No.1 or anything between 12 and 19 to be No.2 position.

If Easy came in and announced a raft of Spanish sun routes then i and i suspect others would just give it up as a bad job.
The BHX forum might suddenly become a very quiet place.

 

[andrew.clarkson]

Hi there 58terminus, yes I understand your point you are making about Manchester Airport, but you see its like this, went ahead in the late eighties, extended its runway because its saw a demand and gap in the market, set out its plain straightforward business plan for the future that is easy to understand and what do you get, well, success, on the other hand, what did Birmingham Airport do when it built its current airport in the early eighties, didn't look further than its nose, didn't bother with expansion and extending its runaway like Manchester did, just sat on the fence and fell asleep into a dream, then finally woke up some twenty plus years later and thought, ahh let's expand, but didn't start to extend the runway till after 2012, and now the runway doesn't get used for long haul as it's doesn't do direct flights now to the US.. So now it will take years to get back to where it needs to be, probably 2050, that's some thirty years too late... Andyc

 

[Coathanger16]

I think the obsession with easyJet comes from the fact that people view them as the only airline that could possibly connect BHX with the growing list of unserved/underserved destinations across Europe.

- TUI & Thomas Cook don't serve city destinations, only holiday destinations really
- Jet2 serve some city destinations, although most were served by another airline at BHX before Jet2 came along
- Flybe have already announced cuts to their destinations further afield in Europe from their smaller UK bases. Flybe's market is domestic and near continent (CDG, AMS, etc). Anything more than that and there's too much competition for them to do it and make any money.

The only other airline with a large base at BHX is Ryanair, who have for many years now been only reactionary in their route launches at BHX. Ryanair could connect BHX to all those European destinations we lack, but instead they wait till another airline launches a route then they themselves launch it as well.

BHX's only real options are to either get Ryanair to massively change gear at BHX or to get easyJet to open a base here. Unless Jet2 change their business model to more closely align with the likes of easyJet or Ryanair (which is unlikely) or Virgin turns Flybe into a much larger European airline (again unlikely), BHX's fate really does rest with Ryanair & easyJet.

 

[58terminus]

Hi there 58terminus, yes I understand your point you are making about Manchester Airport, but you see its like this, went ahead in the late eighties, extended its runway because its saw a demand and gap in the market,

Hello Andrew. I agree completely about the 2 airports planning and strategy but MAN saw a demand in 1950's and by the 1960's was comparatively as far ahead of BHX as it is now. They really cannot be compared like for like since they were grass airstrips..

 

[Jerry]

Take PMI as an example for S19. Currently operated by Jet2 (19 P/W), Ryanair (11 P/W), Thomas Cook (4 P/W) and TUI (11 P/W). easyJet would have to either operate above 19 flights P/W to PMI to be No.1 or anything between 12 and 19 to be No.2 position. An addition of that sort of level would be disastrous for all carriers on that route and as like i've said above would lead to a withdrawal of the route by either easyJet or another carrier; or reduction by easyJet and other carriers. In turn - bad for the airport due to a reduction of pax numbers and bad for the airlines; and easyJet it's self.

But Jet2 is more like TUI and TCX now than EZY so i think they would more than likely be against Ryanair.
If you look at where EZY operate in the UK at BFS, GLA, NCL and MAN they operate against FR, Jet2, TUI and TCX and at EDI against all of them except TCX, BRS against FR, TUI and TCX so i don't see why they can't live with them at BHX, Flybe might be different if they looked at the domestic routes. I think it all depends on where BHX sees itself going as an airport, if you look at the route network at BRS if they could even replicate even part of it then BHX as an airport will move forward.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Athens, Basel, Bilbao, Gibraltar, Lisbon, Seville, Stockholm, Brindisi, Genoa, Marseille, Olbia, Reykjavik, Tel Aviv, Bergamo, Riga, Cologne, Kaunas, Vilnius, Bologna, Valencia, Granada, Mykonos...... some of the routes served by easyjet and/or Ryanair at other airports that are long term absent at Birmingham.

There is also under capacity to the likes of Rome, Venice, Milan, Berlin etc.

Something has to give.

 

[Nethercote2019]

I did hear a rumour that RYR wanted to add more flights this year but the airport said no !

 

[thunderchild]

Another good reason to have EasyJet - imagine if Virgin/Flybe closed the BHX base tomorrow? Edinburgh, Glasgow, Berlin, Milan, Stuttgart and others would be added to the unserved list, capacity to Paris and Amsterdam would also be down. BHX would still have flights to Belfast thought thanks to EZY but as Ryanair fly hardly any U.K. domestic routes they couldn’t be relied upon to fill the BHX-EDI/GLA void. The benefits EZY could bring to BHX are endless.

 

[Ianbutty]

Another good reason to have EasyJet - imagine if Virgin/Flybe closed the BHX base tomorrow? Edinburgh, Glasgow, Berlin, Milan, Stuttgart and others would be added to the unserved list, capacity to Paris and Amsterdam would also be down. BHX would still have flights to Belfast thought thanks to EZY but as Ryanair fly hardly any U.K. domestic routes they couldn’t be relied upon to fill the BHX-EDI/GLA void. The benefits EZY could bring to BHX are endless.

You could be right but I would hope that the new FlyBe bosses are keeping BHX bosses informed of any plans and the BHX are in talks with other airlines who will be interested. Birmingham is an important and rapidly growing economic centre (now a Beta world city) and I doubt that routes would be unserved for too long. They are the core of the airport's business.

We thought that Monarchs demise would not be filled and it has largely been. Plus we have a huge through put of business visitors coming into Birmingham rather than just people leaving. Those visitors will not want to trek up or down motorways.

 

[Jerry]

I would hope that the new FlyBe bosses are keeping BHX bosses informed of any plans

I somehow doubt that they will be!

 

[andrew.clarkson]

Hi there Ray and all, all those destinations that you have mentioned in your last post, none of those routes are served by bhx, so if you added all there populations together for all those unserved cities or towns listed, total would be 17 million people, so what portion of that 17 million is Birmingham not getting... Andyc

 

[Sherburnflyer92]

Okay... easyJet would add a lot to BHX. Just a fear of adding way to much capacity on the bucket & spade routes.

As for EDI/GLA, would easyJet really operate these? BHX, BRS, LTN- GLA/EDI maybe a bit to much capacity for the “triangle” of catchment to absorb.

 

[Ray Finkle]

I did hear a rumour that RYR wanted to add more flights this year but the airport said no !

The rumour I heard was 'several' more aircraft?

 

[Nethercote2019]

Sounds strange for the airport to say no or of course the price wasn’t good enough, but turning away routes does seem odd & the thought that the route development team must be pulling their hair out !

 

[IanFarquharson]

Sounds strange for the airport to say no or of course the price wasn’t good enough, but turning away routes does seem odd & the thought that the route development team must be pulling their hair out !

Logitics in T2

But with Flybe potentially cutting back maybe it could work in the future ?

Or will we see a new carrier in T2 and the existing inmates moved ?