Birmingham: Route Development & Rumours

[58terminus]

Interesting posts. Prove you cannot keep Brummie optimism buried for long.

 

[Butty]

A very interesting and worthwhile debate. for my tuppence, the problem with BHX is simply that it fails to maximise the catchment, but also that it serves what remains the part of the UK with the lowest propensity to fly and a population who are every conservative when it comes to destinations. Hence the endless stream of the usual sun and ski destinations.

However, we have an ace and that is one of the fastest growing economies in Europe. BHX is a very significant business traveller airport. It's Brum to capital network is very impressive with few gaps in Europe. Filling those gaps and links to major economic centres should remain the priority for the routes team...the airport after all serves the regional economy not just the regions holidaymakers (who take expenditure out of the region and the UK).

What I would like to see is a growing network of either UK airlines - like Flybe and Monarch - or national carriers linking Birmingham to those missing centres or increasing competition on under served routes.

So for me more to or routes to Toulouse, Berlin, Vienna, Geneva, Turin, Oslo, Helsinki, Zagreb, Lisbon, Minsk, Riga, Tallinn, Malmo etc and further afield to the growing economic cities such as Tehran, Toronto, Calgary, South America (the next big thing), Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai and Guangzhou and Mumbai. That will do me fine.

 

[Jerry]

smaller catchment area like Bristol

But is Bristol's catchment area smaller than BHX's or does it get more syphoned off by London.
Bristol draws from the whole of the South west, South Wales, all the way to Swindon and maybe even as far down as Bournemouth. What's BHX's West Midlands, Birmingham, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire? I'm not sure of the numbers but they may be closer than people think.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

BHX does have a significantly bigger catchment than BRS, even allowing for the secondary BRS catchments that you mention.

I don't know why easyJet has ignored BHX, apart from the odd route operated by aircraft from other bases. Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense although a major base at BHX would probably dilute BRS to some extent, albeit CAA stats suggest that the percentage of BRS travellers starting or finishing their journey in the BHX catchment is not large.

 

[nwoody2001]

Dear Lord Ray, you have every right to want the best for BHX as ever, context is needed.

It's pretty evident that BHX has gone through something if a rebirth in the last 2-3 years with growth which has never been seen before.

In 2013, BHX carried just over 9.12m Pax, just 3 years later, we are likely to pass 11.55m Pax, an increase in 27%. By comparison, BRS has only grown 14% in that time, EMA only 11% ...EDI up by 23%. That is proof that our market share is growing, especially with regard to airports like BRS and EMA that cut into our catchment.

And what do we have, in 2013, we had barely any new announcements of major scale, in 2017, we have a new base starting (the first in over 10 years), over 35 new routes starting, and all this in times still considered as challenging in the aviation industry.

...*sigh*

 

[Ray Finkle]

All fabulous numbers. Double digit growth, 11.5m pax, a growing list of airlines. The stats sure make for great headlines.

Lets look at some realities though and these are just from my own recent experiences.

- Back in August friends of ours had to travel via FRA with Lufthansa and Croatia Airlines as there are no direct flights to Split. Next year they have booked with Jet2..............from EMA.

- Next year we are planning to go to a friends house in Valencia. The options are transiting AMS, turning a 2.5 hour journey into a 7 hour journey (not too appealing with small children) or..............going from EMA.

- The amount of people I speak to on a weekly basis who holiday in Morocco. I can't think of a time that anyone has said they started their journey at BHX.

- Our very own Richard Winterbourne who is a regular traveller to Bergamo but uses other airports as Ryanair canned the BHX flight.

- Don't even get me started on how many Orlando pax we must haemorrhage each year.

So, 47 airlines and passengers are still forced to use other airports, 47 airlines and there are still big holes in the network, 47 airlines and we still can't get destinations that other airports (smaller and with less airlines) are getting, or have had for years.

After all of the good work of the last two years the question I'm asking is; are we now at the point where we need to work closely with one or two airlines to grow their bases year on year and add, not only extra sun routes but also the destinations that people can only access from elsewhere?

 

[Karl C]

Hey all,

Whilst accepting both sides of this argument to be true, I tend to lean towards Ray's thinking. I can only speak from experience, clocking up my 70th flight of the year last week. Most of my flights have been from BHX making good use of the airport closest to where I used to live. There have been occasions where I've used LHR, LTN and sadly LGW.
Three weeks ago I used Pegasus to the UK (STN), good airline but SAW is an horrific airport and wouldn't use again. Flight price £111 return. Turkish Airlines to BHX £266. No brainer as I was transferring to a flight to TFS and FR fly from both, so I flew from STN to TFS.

Each time I have looked for a TK flight to BHX in Y it's been silly money, on the odd occasion I bit the bullet and took it.

My father goes to Bosnia every year. When there is a Split flight from BHX he uses it. This year he flew FR MAN-ZAD. I questioned him on this and his reply was that that was the right price to the right place. Why didn't you fly to Dubrovnik from BHX instead I asked.....Didn't know there was a flight son. After spitting my dummy out, i said I would arrange his flights from now on.

The nub of it all is that whenever my dad has traveled to Split or Dubrovnik it's nearly always been with Easyjet from STN or LGW or a different airport.
If BHX had Easyjet or a forward thinking Ryanair then the destinations that Ray is talking about may well already be at BHX.

I may just be talking out my backside, but as a regular user of BHX, the amount of times I've had to use other airports is very annoying.

A week today I'm flying on the TK1985 to LHR......could I have used BHX? Yes...If I'd paid £200 extra. Crackers!!

Cheers

Karl

 

[nwoody2001]

You both have valid point. The more seats we have and the more routes we have, the more people we can attract. The point im making is that what is more important with regard to attracting market share and growth in volume. At the end of the day as PK rightly says, airlines take note of growing airports…

We can all think of example of where people of have used other airports. This is always going to be the case when an airport doesn’t utilise its full catchment. Even LHR doesn’t utilise its full catchment with people shunning LHR on grounds of congestion and cost. For whats its worth, I can throw is some other opposite counter examples.

1) friends who live in Humberside – Looking to fly to Madrid for a friends wedding. Looked at HUM, DSA, LBA, MAN and EMA… but BHX won out, flying out on Norwegian and back on Iberia, a winner both with timings of flights and cost.

2) Me and my 6 friend who all live in Leeds, last year flew to KEF for a pre - Christmas break. MAN is a 50 min drive away but flights were ridiculous, BHX is 2hrs away but price and availability won out. Hello 6 new PAX to BHX. A number of those other friends who had never flown from BHX before has flown from there on occasions since

3) My parents (Birmingham Based) flying on city breaks to KEF and PRG in the last 12 months, on routes that weren’t even available from BHX 3 years ago!!!!

4) My employer. We have a corporate account with QR and many clients in the middle east. We have 9 offices across the country, and whilst EK flew 2x daily from BHX at the time, we would be offered MAN/LHR for the QR link and busses their appropriately. Suffice to say, the people on our B,ham, Bristol and Cardiff offices are much happier that QR now fly daily from BHX

All these are prime examples of where BHX has started to expand and utilise its catchment, not only to increase the Pax figures at the airport (+13.5% this year) but also bite into the catchments of competing airports.

However, what I’m questioning is where the priority should lie in what the airport is seeking to secure in order to achieve growth in the future.

Looking at your useful list ray, I have looked at the CAA stats for August to look at the following routes….

High Volume Routes

PARIS – MAN (53,000 pax) – EMA (Unserved) – BHX (34,000 pax) - showing quite a notable under capacity on this route. Thankfully with VY adding a 6x weekly link to ORY, I think would could meaningfully increase capacity/market share on this route by circa 10,000?

ALICANTE – MAN (98,000 pax) – EMA (47,000 pax) – BHX (44,000 pax) – Ok, we might have 6 airlines next summer operating this route, but as of this summer, an airport a 3rd of our size down the road carried more passangers, and MAN carried 3x more passangers than BHX!!! We there is easily a market of circa 20-25,000 additional pax on the route to my mind?

Under Served Routes

BUDAPEST – MAN (11,500 pax) – EMA (2,300 pax) – BHX (4,300 pax) – yes when you look at MAN, you can see there is potential for more pax on the route, but we are already the biggest route in the region more than double that of EMA. I suspect another 3-4,000 could be carried out of BHX?

NAPLES – MAN (15,500 pax) – EMA (3,300 pax) – BHX (3,500 pax) – similar to the above, although looking at MAN, I suspect another 3-5,000 more could be carried?

Unserved Routes

RIGA – MAN (4,600 pax) – EMA (4,900 pax) – BHX (0 pax) – Looking at the load and route map and obvious missed opportunity which a 2-3 weekly link could utilise providing 3-5,000 pax???

SPLIT – MAN (7,200 pax) – EMA (0 pax) – BHX (0 pax) – Looks like there is no link from the midlands and as such a much more captive market, again I suspect 3-4,000 monthly pax could be accommodated on this route?

So I appreciate, this sciene behind all this is a little sketchy and a bit of guess work, but the point im making is, in order to achieve growth -> increase market share -> pull people back to BHX -> attract more airlines and routes to the airport, based on the broad number above the following can be suggested. Even if we utilised existing markets on Budapest, Naples, Riga and Split, we may only increase Pax levels and market share to BHX by between 12,000-18,000 passanger a week. However, on the flip side, if we utilise the market on the already high frequency routes and bringing down prices through competition to the likes of Alicante and Paris, we could add circa 35,000 passengers a week back into the BHX catchment!!!

Remember, airlines take notice or growing airports. The more we grow, the more airlines will take notice of us. The based on the numbers above, it shows that we would have to attract a LOT of smaller niche routes to achieve the growth only 1 or 2 major routes could achieve. There are indeed many ways to skin a cat, and to my mind, I can’t see why we don’t do both (and I think we are… hello Moldova!!!) , but im a very happy is VY want to come in an serve BCN, AGP, ALC, TFS and ORY.. that is where we will find growth!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Dear Lord Ray, you have every right to want the best for BHX as ever, context is needed.

It's pretty evident that BHX has gone through something if a rebirth in the last 2-3 years with growth which has never been seen before.

In 2013, BHX carried just over 9.12m Pax, just 3 years later, we are likely to pass 11.55m Pax, an increase in 27%. By comparison, BRS has only grown 14% in that time, EMA only 11% ...EDI up by 23%. That is proof that our market share is growing, especially with regard to airports like BRS and EMA that cut into our catchment.

And what do we have, in 2013, we had barely any new announcements of major scale, in 2017, we have a new base starting (the first in over 10 years), over 35 new routes starting, and all this in times still considered as challenging in the aviation industry.

...*sigh*

BHX and BRS are completely different animals. One serves one of the most populous regions in the UK whilst the other, in the words of anna aero, serves a peripheral region of the country.

For its size (both catchment and physical airfield) BRS excels as a short haul airport served mainly by locos. Realistically, it can never be much more than that, and does and will continue to rely on airports such as LHR and to an extent BHX for most of its region's direct long haul travel. BHX aspires to be a significant long haul player as well as a prolific provider of short haul services. Lulsgate is a very constricted site, with a short runway, over 600 feet AMSL with often poor weather, no rail link and challenging road connectivity.

What BRS does have going for it is the wealth in much of its catchment - both business and particularly leisure. Barbara Cassani (what a loss she was to the industry) recognised that when she plumped for BRS as Go's second base after Stansted in the face of competition from around the UK and on the continent.

Incidentally, if you are taking the passenger numbers from the end of 2013 to the end of 2016 BRS will have increased by around 22% in that time. It was 6.125 mppa in 2013 and is on course to reach around 7.5 mppa at the end of this year.

 

[nwoody2001]

Oh there was no suggestion BRS isn't doing well or that it is or should be comparable to BHX. Also thank you for the clarification on numbers. It was purely discussed as it is a reasonable sized, growing airport that overlaps BHXs catchment...

 

[Coathanger16]

Whilst having many airlines is good for competition, it seems that, on the whole (there are exceptions) the airlines then choose to compete with the others by expanding the popular sun routes, rather than add destinations that are currently unserved from BHX. Correct me if I'm wrong, but its seems a lot of the routes to previously unserved destinations were launched by airlines either completely new to Birmingham, or airlines that have launched from Birmingham in the last few years, rather than existing airlines.

I do quite strongly agree with Rays view that we need to have 1 or more airlines grow their bases at BHX. 10+ years ago I imagine Ryanair was in a good place to do that, and probably had plans to. I imagine the arrival of other LCC forced them to focus more on competing and maintaining their base rather than expanding it. Going forward, Jet2 may offer that larger base we've been waiting for.

Whilst many hail the arrival of Jet2 at BHX as a good thing, and on the whole I agree, I do wonder what impact it will have say on Monarch. As everyone is well aware, the airline has been struggling in recent years, and I'd hate to see the expansion of Jet2 happen at the expense of Monarch.

I do also strongly agree with the notion that airlines take note of growing (and larger) airports. Barring any major setbacks, BHX will be around 30% larger by 2020 than today. A 15mppa airport is much more attractive to an airlines than a 10mppa airport. Whilst the airport management will be doing as much as they can to attract airlines to Birmingham, I think particularly for the long haul routes, its a matter of waiting till BHX grows to a more attractive size.

For N.America, I feel it would almost be better to have United as the sole operator - for now anyway. That would give them space to grow their Newark service, and would give them confidence in Birmingham as a TATL market. In time, they many offer Chicago as well. I've written on the United thread in the past about BHX-NYC demand vs capacity. Over the last year, there were enough people travelling with United & American to operate not just daily flights to New York, but in the peak summer months, there were enough passengers to fill a daily B777. I've read elsewhere that some people think the reason for American cancelling their JFK service was solely due to lack of demand. Given what the stats show about at least summer demand that seems unlikely.

Unfortunately, whilst we all wish that BHX was a larger airport with more routes than it has today, its just a matter of waiting. Management are constantly seeking new routes, and as the airport grows, that will only give airlines more confidence in offering routes to/from BHX.

 

[Jon Dempsey]

Personally, I believe the team at Birmingham are doing a great job.

The largest shareholders are being squeezed for cash and would therefore be conservative (small 'c') about calls for investment.

Mr Kehoe would need to produce a costed business plan to squeeze any extra cash from the owners, in my opinion.

If you look at the developments which have taken place over the last few years, I would say he, and the team, have done a bloody good job and deserve all the applause they receive.

 

[flymetothemoon]

Personally, I believe the team at Birmingham are doing a great job.

The largest shareholders are being squeezed for cash and would therefore be conservative (small 'c') about calls for investment.

Mr Kehoe would need to produce a costed business plan to squeeze any extra cash from the owners, in my opinion.

If you look at the developments which have taken place over the last few years, I would say he, and the team, have done a bloody good job and deserve all the applause they receive.

 

[flymetothemoon]

Absolutely agree with this, any growth over the the next 2 years post Brexit
will be excellent. The routes team are doing a great job!

 

[58terminus]

I feel it would almost be better to have United as the sole operator - for now anyway. That would give them space to grow their Newark service,

How long have Continental/United been flying to Newark from BHX?

 

[Ray Finkle]

How long have Continental/United been flying to Newark from BHX?

I may be wrong but I'd say that we're around the 20 year mark (give or take a year or two)?


It seems as if the chance of getting Ryanair to Valencia are gone, for the foreseeable at least. They announced big expansion from their VLC base including 13 new routes, sadly not to us. EMA and GLA get increased frequencies though

I wonder if Vueling would consider it?

 

[58terminus]

I may be wrong but I'd say that we're around the 20 year mark (give or take a year or two)?

Just wondering.How long it takes to grow a service?

 

[Coathanger16]

Just wondering.How long it takes to grow a service?

I suppose my point was United needs space to grow its service back to peak levels and further.
View attachment 4280

At its peak in 2005, on average 235 passengers flew United to Newark every day.

 

[58terminus]

Apologies if it came over a dig at United.If any airline deserves to be encouraged for their loyalty to the airport it is them.
Maybe not enough traffic at the moment for two airlines flying daily to New York but i think this year has shown that one could operate with a larger aircraft.
United's figures held up quite well against the competition so they seem to have a loyal customer base.
Lets hope they get the same incentives from the airport to grow as some airline starting a 3 times a week 737's to Somewhere NYS.

 

[jfy1999]

A few days ago somebody on another forum said Flybe are rumoured to be looking at a possible return to Waterford.

With Rotterdam looking like it has been axed there are likely to be gaps in the schedule where routes like Waterford and Londonderry (also rumoured) could be slotted in no problem.