Birmingham: Route Development & Rumours

andrew.clarkson · May 27, 2026

Hi there Ian, my post about Birmingham airport management, goes back to when the current terminal was built, land was available to acquire and to extend the runway, yet no opportunities were taken, just sat on fence without looking at airports like heathrow or Gatwick, instead Birmingham airport management decided to do nothing, this then allowed Manchester airport to, forge ahead with any future vision of expansion, now 30 to 40years later, while Manchester airport grows further, Birmingham is not growing any faster, the likes of other airports have over taken Birmingham airport, which is now learning Birmingham airport, chasing shadows.

HPsauce · May 27, 2026

andrew.clarkson said:
Hi there Ian, my post about Birmingham airport management, goes back to when the current terminal was built, land was available to acquire and to extend the runway, yet no opportunities were taken, just sat on fence without looking at airports like heathrow or Gatwick, instead Birmingham airport management decided to do nothing, this then allowed Manchester airport to, forge ahead with any future vision of expansion, now 30 to 40years later, while Manchester airport grows further, Birmingham is not growing any faster, the likes of other airports have over taken Birmingham airport, which is now learning Birmingham airport, chasing shadows.

Manchester Airport received a huge cash Government handout in the 1980's which it used to improve in
many areas. At BHX we were rather left behind following, but have steadily increased our offering over the years.
Our runway incidentally, is one of the longest in the country.

Birmingham Aviation · May 27, 2026

Andrew please give up.Your as bad as me but worser

Finger66 · May 27, 2026

Mmmmmmmmmmm............

whateverg · May 27, 2026

IanFarquharson said:
Saudi maybe ending BHX at end June

But showing as 3pw in the Winter

Are you able to share your source for them potentially ending?

Karl C · May 28, 2026

Birmingham Aviation said:
Greek islands
Mainland spain
Turkish routes
Italy towns

However I think bhx needs to sensibly sensible where they aim to boost network with easyJet.

Cape Verde-Demand from tui is there
City-Madrid,Zurich,Porto,Copenhagen
Scandinavian-Oslo,Malmo,Copenhagen

Malmö and Copenhagen would be pointless as they're very close to each other. People from Malmö normally use the bridge/tunnel and go from Copenhagen...better connections.

Jon Dempsey · May 28, 2026

HPsauce said:
It also has the advantage of the London 'tag' to help it draw customers.

And the fact that almost 10 million people live in "close" proximity.

IanFarquharson · May 28, 2026

whateverg said:
Are you able to share your source for them potentially ending?

Removed from Saudi website and GDS

Quote

According to the GDS Saudi are to finish the Jeddah service on Sunday 28 th June.
They are showing 3 a week in the winter but time will tell

Birmingham Aviation · May 28, 2026

IanFarquharson said:
Removed from Saudi website and GDS

Quote

According to the GDS Saudi are to finish the Jeddah service on Sunday 28 th June.
They are showing 3 a week in the winter but time will tell

Any new rumours coming through yet about this new airline/Route you mentioned just a month ago

IanFarquharson · May 28, 2026

Birmingham Aviation said:
Any new rumours coming through yet about this new airline/Route you mentioned just a month ago

No update, I suspect if it happens it will be S27 @ 4pw

AdamHussain07 · May 28, 2026

IanFarquharson said:
They are showing 3 a week in the winter but time will tell

Hope the situation in the ME gets sorted out. Got a flight on the 15th December on SV250. But as you say, time will tell.

andrew.clarkson · Tuesday at 12:23 AM

Hi there all, just been doing some checking and researching, I think that Birmingham airport is losing out on 35 potential new routes that should already be using the airport from Athens, Mexico, Algeria, Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Beijing, Belgrade, Seattle, Tokyo, Chicago, Miami, NY-JFK, Phila, Seoul, Vietnam, Baku, Sofia, Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai, Zagreb, Atlanta, Boston, Cairo, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Bangkok, Helsinki, Reykjavik, Warsaw. If you take just 1%, from each of the listed above, the number of extra passengers and business that the airport would be bringing in for the local area, economy and jobs, would be astronomical.

jfy1999 · Tuesday at 7:29 AM

andrew.clarkson said:
Hi there all, just been doing some checking and researching, I think that Birmingham airport is losing out on 35 potential new routes that should already be using the airport from Athens, Mexico, Algeria, Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Beijing, Belgrade, Seattle, Tokyo, Chicago, Miami, NY-JFK, Phila, Seoul, Vietnam, Baku, Sofia, Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai, Zagreb, Atlanta, Boston, Cairo, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Bangkok, Helsinki, Reykjavik, Warsaw. If you take just 1%, from each of the listed above, the number of extra passengers and business that the airport would be bringing in for the local area, economy and jobs, would be astronomical.

Well, Manchester used to have most of those routes to North America and has sadly lost them so I don’t see them happening here

Reykjavik, Athens and Warsaw are already served.

We keep hearing that the route development team are trying to get airlines to serve Cairo and Helsinki and Hong Kong. I think those are needed now more than ever as it’s clear we need an alternative to the traditional Middle Eastern hubs.

Of the remaining ones, Zagreb is on Ryanair’s network so seems realistic. Bangkok might be doable with a 1 weekly seasonal service from TUI or Norse. I can see Algiers maybe happening at some point in the more distant future.

gulftraveller · Tuesday at 7:47 AM

I can’t see Norse on BKK given it has pulled Manchester, in spite of stellar loads. TUI may expand HKT but not BKK. I wonder if Thai Asia X is a possibility.

Algiers will be one season at MAN and then AH will retreat back to LON, I guess. Definitely not enough demand for MAN and/or BHX. CAI would be a good addition.

Now would be the time for CX but it does not seem to be on their radar. That said, the ME carriers will be back to some kind of normality in 6 months or so. The advantage for FE carriers may therefore be short lived.

andrew.clarkson · Tuesday at 8:44 AM

Hi there all, regarding the route development team at Birmingham airport, it really makes me wonder, as to what they do all day, mode and function of business is, we are a bigger airport than Glasgow or Edinburgh, yet Edinburgh seems to be doing very well thank us, flights to the US. I wonder why Birmingham doesn't attract them, must be a good reason, yet Birmingham hasn't quite caught on yet.

Finger66 · Tuesday at 8:57 AM

Birmingham suffers some similarities to the problems we have here at LBA.
In BHX's case it's the relative close ISH proximity to LHR (and London in general) whereas for LBA we have the MAN issue, as does BHX to some degree.
That said both our airports are growing but it takes a massive amount of time to change perception that has existed for such a long time with the travelling public.
Add into this that airlines won't want to risk diluting market share with an airport that they know prospective pax will use one they already fly to.
It can be painfully frustrating for us supporters of our local airports but is a frustration we have to live with.
I don't know pax growth at BHX but when I was growing up (many many years ago) I could only dream of LBA hitting the 1mppa mark and now we exceed 4mppa with expansion targeting 7mppa. I am sure BHX had also seen relative growth so if you put things into perspective it probably ain't half bad - however frustrating certain things may seem sometimes

gulftraveller · Tuesday at 9:12 AM

I am sure the route development team are working very hard. New routes are not decided by airports but are for the route strategy teams at the airlines to decide. Airports can nudge and facilitate, but not much more.

Ray Finkle · Tuesday at 6:18 PM

andrew.clarkson said:
it really makes me wonder, as to what they do all day

Whilst it's always nice to see the 'glamour' routes in the last few years we've seen Jet2 steadily growing with new destinations, significant expansion from Ryanair after years of relative stagnation and finally a base from easyjet which has grown every year. For an airport like Birmingham that is your bread and butter and will bring in a hell of a lot more pax than a single daily A321 to New York.

Maybe it's just me but under the extremely challenging circumstances I think they're doing okay.

andrew.clarkson · Wednesday at 8:26 AM

Hi there all, as I mentioned in my previous posts about lost opportunities for Birmingham airport in the 90s, there was an local incitive called Advantage West Midlands agency was created by Central government as a funding tool for all regional and local businesses to help to create and expand local businesses, so with three billion funds available, why didn't the airport apply for any funding needed, like runway extension across a45, via tunnel, no they came up with excuses, which let other airports like luton and Edinburgh, just walk straight past, so the council, Councillors and airport board and management are at fault for big missed opportunities, this has resulted in lack of growth in the area and prevented the airport being in a much stronger position than what it should be.

Ray Finkle · Wednesday at 10:12 AM

We did get the runway extension albeit with a diverted A45 rather than tunnelled.

I do agree that it came much later than it should have, just like much of the terminal redevelopments (new piers etc). However, the extension has been in place since 2014 and apart from a few summer flights to China and a one season wonder to Phuket the long haul haul offering hasn't dramatically expanded.

I'm sure the long haul carriers that we have do benefit though and I wonder if we'd have seen the volume of cargo flights that we do now without it.

Birmingham: Route Development & Rumours

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