Beijing Capital Airlines

[Jon Dempsey]

The guys at Manchester have been working on this service for years though. IMO, it's nothing to do with some (imagined) incentive, its down to hard work.

If you look at the demographic, Greater Manchester has a far higher Chinese population than Greater Birmingham and so has a greater VFR potential.
Business-wise, GM and GB are similar.

The killer, I think is the location. Existing services can be accessed quite quickly by a run down the M40, this is not the case in Manchester / Liverpool / Leeds / Sheffield and points north.

Just an opinion.

 

[User001]

Thanks Jon,

I think what we need to focus on now, is not speculation about how Hainan got into Manchester, but, how BHX can recover this situation.

Like I say, regardless as to whether people had a bad feeling about BCA, the sheer fact is, there is unlikely to be any China flights this summer.

What now?

As the way route applications are processed, if these flights were indeed viewed at the China end as scheduled flights, HNA now own the slots and means a carrier would have to lodge with the CAAC to get those slots back due to the one airline rule.

It can be done, Air China held the MAN-PEK ones for years and Hainan now own them, but, it does mean there is an extra hurdle. Will HNA keep them to protect the MAN flights? As unfair as that sounds, the Chinese do not work the same way we do here, fair-schmare as far as their concerned.

Who do we think can operate BHX-China now? China Southern and China Eastern are ripe for the picking, personally I think Air China can get too entrenched at LHR to the south and MAN to the north.

 

[JF57]

Unfortunately BHX will always be at a disadvantage compared with MAN due to proximity to London.

A simple fact of geography. Having said that I much prefer flying from BHX. We live in Mansfield.

 

[Aviador]

The Chinese have probably pulled it in response to the Queen's rather public blunder last week saying the Chinese were rude. In all honesty the Chinese economy isn't doing all that well and the UK economy isn't exactly booming either. It maybe that they have decided to wait until a more appropriate time to launch the flight?

 

[Ray Finkle]

As the way route applications are processed, if these flights were indeed viewed at the China end as scheduled flights, HNA now own the slots and means a carrier would have to lodge with the CAAC to get those slots back due to the one airline rule.

I got shot down for expressing my concerns that this is exactly the situation that we may find ourselves in 🙁

The more I think about it the more I reckon that BHX has been well and truly stitched up. I don't blame HNA at all, they would simply be protecting their new route and rightly so, but if this is the case then Birmingham's desperation to get that 'scheduled' flight at all costs may have been their downfall.

As for the future, Mr Kehoe did say he was 'confident of a service in the near future' but that may well have been just to save face. There are always options and we don't know what, if anything, has been happening behind the scenes.

As ever time will tell.

 

[User001]

As for the future, Mr Kehoe did say he was 'confident of a service in the near future' but that may well have been just to save face.

I think it was to save face.

After all the work put in to get these China flights, it would strike as odd if another carrier just happened to be waiting in the wings and ready to go, especially if there are issues with slots at Beijing.

 

[Butty]

User. I am sorry for myths but anything with George Osbourne's involvement stinks to me. I am sure that the MAN team worked hard and my comments were not to them. I agree if it was a PR coup then it was a very well orchestrated one by the British government at the time.

Birmingham needs to focus on being a city with an airport not an airport with a city. So for now forget the Chinese market, it is only a one way market anyway, and focus on the needs of the area: Business and tourism both into and out of the region.

 

[Brum X]

Yeah i agree that once the dust settles on this news which is a shock to the system, BHX needs to get back into action and get those missing routes that an airport of its size should have, ie Las Vegas, More Florida, More Canada and more Leisure Long Haul. Stop Fannying around with the China "Obsession" Eventually China will come to BHX, lets be patient and stop getting so worked up about it. To me BHX an airport of 11 million in 2016 now has bigger priorities.

 

[Kevin Farnell]

the fact it was announced during the Chinese PM's visit was just a pure piece of PR genius for Hainan and MAN.

Without wanting to cause any offence, I have to ask -

Really? 'genius' is when you come up with something that no one else has thought of or considered. Surely even the slowest person working in PR could come up with that. I did and I've never been involved in that industry. Or am I in the wrong job?

Regards

Kevin

 

[nwoody2001]

To my mind, this is an issue of competition and risk. We all know that whilst there is demand for flights from the regions to China, there is s big risk associated with them.

BHX could only secure charter flights in the first instance, and then Manchester were able to secure the first scheduled services 2 years later. If demand was so strong, or the markets so willing, schedules flights would have started a lot sooner.

The reality is HNA are the only company willing to take that risk at the moment, and no disrespect to MAN, it's a big risk. The fact that charter seats are being sold on the MAN route suggests the flights are filling up enough with scheduled pax and as such, it makes sense for HNA to put their efforts into the MAN route. It would appear that the demand for both routes isn't great enough for one business to risk, which is a great shame.

In my view, if the likes of Air China of China Southern had got into MAN first, then maybe HNA would have had a great chance at BHX. The fact is, for HNA to start 3 routes to the UK regions when no other airline has done in the past is a big ask!!!

 

[richard winterbourn]

There really is no point in getting our knickers in a twist over the axing of these China flights. There were those who maintained the flights were schedule and others who maintained they were charter and at the end of the day there were not that many.

But, if Hainan seeks to protect its new service by supplementing it with those who would have travelled into BHX with BCA, then de facto they could also have the same question posed to them: a true scheduled service or charter?

But that is semantics. There are far more important things for PK and the BHX team to concentrate on. Building stronger links with European capitals and major cities and creating new services to the strong business cities 'stateside' ie Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia - two of which have been previously served from BHX. Birmingham and the West Midlands is a strong, commercial region, perhaps the strongest of the UK regions outside of the South East.

We don't want 'vanity' services, we want the services that our businesses and our community are crying out for.

China will come, when the market is ready.

 

[User001]

Hi Woody,

In terms of filling the MAN flights, I think the telling thing for me was the relatively quick up gauge to the A330-300. This, to me, states that the normal A330-200 capacity was to be sold a scheduled, and then the extra A333 seats handed to Caissa. That was the best of both worlds.

By all accounts, flights have been selling well in the scheduled market. There was an initial issue as for some reason the flights were not available on many GDS systems, but, since that has been rectified, they are selling well indeed. The fact they are going daily in January says to me somethings obviously hit the mark.

China will eventually come to BHX, I have no doubt at all about that. I think we can speculate until the cows come home, but, until Caissa came forward and tell us what went wrong, we don't know what forces transpired to cancel these flights and just what it is BHX can do to rectify the issue.

Whether it's PR I don't know, but it seems even Paul Kehoe doesn't know what's happened, therefore, an answer is needed more than ever.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Yeah i agree that once the dust settles on this news which is a shock to the system, BHX needs to get back into action and get those missing routes that an airport of its size should have, ie Las Vegas, More Florida, More Canada and more Leisure Long Haul. Stop Fannying around with the China "Obsession" Eventually China will come to BHX, lets be patient and stop getting so worked up about it. To me BHX an airport of 11 million in 2016 now has bigger priorities.

Totally agree mate 👍

I've not said anything but to me this whole episode seems as if it's just Paul Kehoe desperately trying to keep up with MAN. The charters were great and have hopefully provided some data which may come in useful in the future, but this Beijing Capital business just seems as if he couldn't stand the fact that MAN had secured a scheduled service and tried to get BHX one at all costs. I don't know why though as the two airports are in different leagues and, in my opinion, not comparable. As we have seen in the past, if MAN does well then BHX will follow. Not that I blame them for trying though.

I think Brum X has hit the nail on the head in that there are far more pressing priorities including those that he has listed. When it comes to Asia I would have thought that one of the large hub cities such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok etc, with the connections offered, would be much more beneficial than a weekly flight to Beijing?

 

[IanFarquharson]

Ray

If a couple of the rumours come off - I will be happy 🙂

 

[Ray Finkle]

Me too mate, me too 😉

 

[thunderchild]

Why? PK might be guilty of over exaggerating what these flights actually were but I don't think he's responsible for them falling through - MAN lost a whole Greek summer programme earlier this week and while not as high profile as flights to China it just goes to show that for whatever reason these things happen.

 

[Paulsstrange]

Ray / Ian ref the rumours - me too.

Like I said something will be being worked on have faith.

 

[richard winterbourn]

Carl W, i can understand your disappointment at the news re China, but applying a knee-jerk reaction is really not the solution. Airport CEOs are not football managers, Birmingham Airport is not a football team, and long may that continue. In the last 12 months PK and his team have transformed BHX both in its profile and in the development of new and exciting services. I am sure this will continue, but for it to continue it needs a stable management structure in place. Sacking someone on the base of one 'away' defeat is not the answer.

 

[User001]

The thing I was thinking about with these flights, but, were they actually officially announced?

I know BHX released the news, however, what strikes me, is that the airline/Caissa didn't release anything. Normally, any press release contains a quote from the airline, such as 'we look forward to working with Birmingham' etc at the very least.

The flights were never actually put up for sale, so, did Paul Kehoe jump the gun and it backfired? I know there were flight numbers and schedules, but, they could have been preliminary. Plenty of times I've seen schedules posted in the ACL reports for LGW/STN/MAN and they didn't actually materialise. Pegasus SAW-MAN being a prime example, they have times, flight numbers and aircraft listed in the ACL, they have not happened for one reason or another however.

To me, it seems that PK was so rattled about Hainan/MAN coming to Birmingham to advertise the HU route (we was very public at his annoyance of this), and, I don't think it was any co-incidence the Beijing capital news was released a few days later.

It seems that PK sat down with the board, and, feeling the flights were reasonably certain, took the executive decision to announce the routes and try and stem any more limelight to HU/MAN.

Obviously, what has gone wrong since is still open to interpretation, but, it does seem these flights were not actually confirmed, and Caissa have now said that they can't run the flights.

 

[jfy1999]

Some may interpret this as sour grapes, but I always felt the China charters were kind of surplus to requirements while being a nice bonus. I never thought they should be highest on the priority list for the route development team, for all the reasons Brum X mentioned. I can only hold up my hands and agree with what Ray and Richard have said - there are so many markets closer to home that are in desperate need of growth.

Once the route development team have got services on routes like Oslo, as well as sorting out the need for more USA, more Canada and more long haul leisure, then I think they'll have earned the right to battle for the China market.