Recent content by Ash

While expected, after plotting it out I was surprised just how strongly the EWR pax figures correlated with the £/$. With the £ even lower today than at the time the route was pulled, I don't see much of a chance of a successful return of a similar route unless it recovered to around the 1.55...

Definitely something cooking. The SV booking engine used to push you onto their codeshare on AF via CDG, now it just returns "No flights found" for any date. Looking forward to using this service as a frequent traveler on BHX-JED for work, the one-stop options via CDG/IST are very tedious. I...

Do you really think that is not a function of ???

Of course economics are relevant, they are the greatest driving factor in airline route planning decisions. Anyway I never claimed that was the sole reason BHX can't sustain a TATL flight, in fact I listed many other points which other users have also made, but when passengers in city X have...

Sorry but you can't just ignore macroeconomic factors I'm afraid. Airline travel is almost entirely a discretionary purchase (barring the small % of business passengers) so demand for flights is inextricably linked to the wealth of the catchment. From ONS data the West Midlands (region not...

1. General population and average disposable income is much higher in London and the SE. 2. M40 provides easy access to Heathrow. 3. Negligible inbound tourist demand from Americans to BHX. 4. Virtually nil onward connecting opportunities available at BHX. 5. But most overlooked IMO is the...

I would just take the LH flight personally. I have been travelling back and forth to FRA continuously throughout this whole pandemic and the service has been very reliable. Entry formalities are a breeze even with COVID in FRA compared to the horrendous (and incredibly rude & hostile) Border...

Just had an interesting job ad pop up on my Linkedin feed published 2 days ago.... Looking for immediate interviews. Any guesses?

I have the European OAG guide from October 2017, so should be pretty representative of the whole Winter 17 program. If you want I can get some pics for the ZB BHX schedule for now. The whole network is there, but its a 1000 page thing like a phone book so it will take some time to get the rest...

Having been through BHX a couple of times this year during lockdown, it's been a pretty surreal experience each time. Although from what few flights I have been on (KL/LH) the loads were not great but they were surprisingly not as abysmal as I had expected (about 50-60%). It does feel now...

Also don't forget the GBP/USD rate has basically never recovered since it crashed in 2008. For London this doesn't really matter as the traffic is balanced and flowing both ways but BHX is driven mostly by UK based outbound travellers making the US much less appealing price-wise than it once was.

Same reason that Rotterdam doesn't, same reason Cologne doesn't, same reason that Antwerp doesn't etc etc. These are all large and wealthy European cities with their own airports, within easy driving distance of much larger intercontinental airports (Amsterdam/Dusseldorf/Brussels).

In other news.... The bizarre recurring tradition of Russian carriers applying for (and probably not using) route permissions to Birmingham continues. This time Aeroflot subsidiary Pobeda is the culprit for a 4x weekly Moscow-Birmingham. As per latest Rosaviatsiya press release for Dec 20.

I like how the equipment magically changes on turnaround...

About time, admittedly I was surprised they left the route all to Ryanair to begin with! Haven't they been at BHX continuously since the around the end of WW2? The other long-timer KLM managed to keep going throughout lockdown with a skeleton service at least.