Birmingham Airport - General Thread

[Ray Finkle]

We potentially have an interesting few weeks.

Jet2 have started releasing S18 and have said that they have 'big plans' for Birmingham. Monarch now have 'S18 coming soon' on their website and Thomson are due to release their S18 programme on April 20th (I'm away next week but will check on here to see what we have, if anything).

Hopefully all three will be in expansion mode

 

[58terminus]

I know nothing about crew rostering and have often wondered if the crews of the night stopping European airlines
at BHX also crew the early morning departure?
Prompted to ask by the United incident.

 

[Jerry]

I know nothing about crew rostering and have often wondered if the crews of the night stopping European airlines
at BHX also crew the early morning departure?
Prompted to ask by the United incident.

From what i believe with KLM at CWL the 21.30 arrival crew fly out as the following morning at 10 am. The crew that flies the 16.45 arrival will then overnight and fly the 6 am departure. I believe crews have to have 11 hours off overnight.

 

[58terminus]

Thank you Jerry.
Still a bit confused.Presuming only 1 overnight aircraft what do the crewe of the 0930?arrival do and who crews the 1715? departure. Are there locally based crew?

 

[Jerry]

Thank you Jerry.
Still a bit confused.Presuming only 1 overnight aircraft what do the crewe of the 0930?arrival do and who crews the 1715? departure. Are there locally based crew?

Sorry forgot about them! I believe the crew of the 09.30 arrival fly back the 17.15 departure. There are no locally based crews. I think some of the more bigger airports used to have them but KLM have shut them down and they operate out of AMS now.

 

[Matt995]

Long Haul Flights From Birmingham

Whilst the passenger numbers are still increase at Birmingham, and European destinations are doing well, over the last 10 months, we have seen a long haul decrease, Qatar down from 8 flights to 7, Pakistan down from 4 to 3 flights, a reduction of United flights in winter, American axing JFK, and now Emirates going down to 2 daily flights from September, no Chinese flights, and a token weekly Toronto flight by Air Transat and a weekly Orlando flight by Thomson.

I appreciate that flights across the pond are struggling, but I don't see Manchester & Edinburgh cutting back on long haul, in fact both seam to be growing.

So why cant Birmingham attractive enough passengers? Price? The Heathrow and Manchester effect? Lack of marketing on these routes?

Realistically I cant see any major improvement in the next year, are we kidding ourselves that BHX can ever compete with LHR and MAN?

 

[Coathanger16]

The Heathrow and Manchester effect? Lack of marketing on these routes?

I think a combination of both. I've lost track of the number of times I've heard stories of people not flying from Birmingham because they didn't realize it had a direct flight, or of travel agents booking people from Manchester/Heathrow when there are viable alternatives from Birmingham.

Also bear in mind how big an airport BHX actually is. Look around Europe at other airports around the 11/12mppa mark and we actually do pretty well. Hopefully by 2020, BHX should have surpased the 15mppa mark and should appear on a few more airlines 'scopes'.

 

[Brummiegem]

While it is not that surprising,it is still disappointing the news about Emirates.
However if 2 flights are operating full or close to full then that is probably better than 3 operating at 50% to 80% full.
Obviously without knowing the financial figures for each flight it is difficult to judge,but I would still rather have the 2 flights than none at all.Plus we still have the A380 service,which I am sure there are airports around Europe would love to have.

Looking at it from a wider perspective the political picture right now is possibly leading Airlines to reviewing their operations.I would like to think that Airlines are still looking at the UK and BHX in particular as a good source of income,but being realistic,this could change very quickly,especially if there is a change of government in a few weeks time.

Although I doubt if anything will happen there is also a threat to the global stability that we have been enjoying.Despite the terrorism threat and North Korea's posturing and the US also having it's say,the main economies of the world remain strong.

I think the long term picture is still good,but the next few weeks are going to be very interesting indeed.

 

[TM3]

Even if Emirates goes down to 2 daily, 2 large widebody ops, one of which is on an A380 is still pretty strong, it's more a question of why that kind of traffic isn't replicated elsewhere.

I don't think it's necessarily about route advertising maybe more that when new long haul routes come they are often low frequency, on oddball airlines or on old equipment, sometimes they are hyped and don't materialise at all. For this I think Biman, Beijing Capital, the AA NYC flights, I'm sure there are others I could name. These things don't help to build the success of a route. If you look for a route in a booking engine but you can't find it because it's on the wrong days etc you don't look again. Weekly seasonal China flights as have been tried will never build up any sort of regular customer base.

IMO the AA flights were a PR disaster for BHX as they were nothing more than a speculative use of some old equipment, that was retired after the route was axed. After all of the launch hype people didn't find the service that impressive and then we had to have the news on Midlands Today etc about "flights to New York being cancelled". No wonder people think there is no demand for flights or they don't run at all.

Despite the reduction I think Qatar are doing well out of BHX as the fares are now more expensive, it's also pretty difficult now to get a reward redemption on the BA website for those flights, where as it was once easy. As a launch of ops that is really the way to do it, they have come in with new equipment on at least daily services. Their product is better than EK's so I think Qatar arriving has put a bit of a cramp on Emirates' growth at BHX.

 

[nwoody2001]

To put BHX in context of similar airport airports of a similar size in Europe (excluding tourist destinations) BHX still looks good in the long-haul stakes.....

(Italics states when an airline has a national base at the airport)

Stuttgart - 10,512,225 pax in 2016

Transatlantic Routes (1):
Delta – Atlanta

Middle Eastern Routes (1):
Turkish – Istanbul

Other Long Haul (0):
None…..

Bucharest Airport - 10,982,967 pax in 2016

Transatlantic Routes (0):
None…..

Middle Eastern Routes (3):
Flydubai – Dubai
Qatar – Doha
Wizz Air – Dubai World Centre

Other Long Haul (0):
None…..

Budapest Airport – 11,441,999 pax in 2016

Transatlantic Routes (0):
None…..

Middle Eastern Routes (4):
Emirates – Dubai
Pegasus – Istanbul
Qatar – Doha
Wizz Air – Dubai World Centre

Other Long Haul (1):
Air China – Beijing

Birmingham Airport - 11,645,334 pax in 2016

Transatlantic Routes (8):
Air Transat – Toronto
Thomson – Barbados, Cancun, La Romana, Montego Bay, Orlando, Punta-Cana
United - Newark

Middle Eastern Routes (3):
Emirates – Dubai
Qatar – Doha
Turkish - Istanbul

Other Long Haul (5):
Air India – Delhi
Pakistan International – Islamabad
Turkmenistan – Ashgabat
Thomson – Goa, Phuket

Cologne Bonn Airport - 11,910,138 pax in 2016

Transatlantic Routes (17):
Eurowings - Cancún, Havana, Las Vegas, Mauritius, Miami, Montego Bay, Orlando, Puerto Plata, Punta Cana, Seattle/Tacoma, Barbados, La Romana, Santo Domingo, Seattle/Tacoma, Barbados, La Romana, Santo Domingo

Middle Eastern Routes (2):
Turkish – Istanbul
Pegasus – Istanbul, Ankara

Other Long Haul (4):
Iran Air – Tehran
Eurowings - Bangkok–Suvarnabhumi, Cape Town, Windhoek–Hosea Kutako

Edinburgh Airport - 12,348,425 pax in 2016

Transatlantic Routes (9):
Air Canada Rouge - Toronto
American Airlines – JFK
Delta – JFK
Norwegian – Hartford, Newburgh, Providence
Thomson - Orlando
United – Chicago, Newark

Middle Eastern Routes (3):
Etihad – Abu Dhabi
Qatar – Doha
Turkish - Istanbul

Other Long Haul (0):
None…..

Warsaw Chopin Airport - 12,836,510 pax in 2016

Transatlantic Routes (8):
Air Canada Rouge – Toronto
LOT Polish – Cancun, Chicago, Cuba, JFK, Los Angeles, Newark, Toronto

Middle Eastern Routes (2):
Enter Air - Dubai
Qatar – Doha

Other Long Haul (9):
Air China – Beijing
Enter Air – Colombo
LOT Polish – Antananarivo, Bangkok Beijing, Ho Chi Minh, Mauritius, Seoul, Tokyo

 

[jfy1999]

That number may well have increased by tomorrow, fingers crossed

#Thomson

 

[Brum X]

And you never know, even though the EK news is a bad news story for BHX it may finally make Qatar or Air India expand there operations.

Its BHX tradition that we have some bad news and then some good news.

 

[58terminus]

Realistically I cant see any major improvement in the next year, are we kidding ourselves that BHX can ever compete with LHR and MAN?

We just might be.What is needed is one committed airline with a good advertising dept. that uses based aircraft to offer multiple destinations..A cross between Thomas Cook and Jet2.
Someone to start the ball rolling.
But as Matt995 said i think i'm kidding myself.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Lack of marketing on these routes?

I speak to many people about their travel plans and it shocks me just how many still use other airports as they don't believe that there are flights from Birmingham. Florida and Morocco are two of the most mentioned at the moment but last week I spoke to a chap flying to Budapest from STN because "they don't fly to Budapest from Birmingham!"

For many 'they' is Easyjet or Ryanair and we aren't really a major focus for either.

Look at the fuss made over the A380's arrival, it was all over numerous media channels yet I still hear people say that Birmingham can't handle big planes as the runway is too short???

The question is why is it still happening? We've all seen the advertising thread on here, it is out there but the message just doesn't seem to be sinking in?

Don't even get me started on so called travel agents.

Mr Kehoe did say that a change in how people think is needed, it appears as if this is going to take a very long time.

The Heathrow and Manchester effect?

Unfortunately this will always have a massive bearing on any long haul progress. A huge swathe of our potential catchment area to the south, including affluent parts of Warwickshire, Oxfordshire etc have LHR as their default option and with the sheer amount that Heathrow has on offer it'll be extremely hard to get them to change that. It's also relatively easy to get to Heathrow from the Greater Birmingham area and again, many people are ingrained to automatically use London for long haul travel.

Airlines already operating into Heathrow but maybe looking for another UK destination to spread their presence will know that Birmingham and the surrounding area lies well within their London pull and most probably won't see any reason to dilute that. Manchester sits a nice distance away and is able to capture the northern population without having too much of a detrimental effect on the London routes. Sadly Birmingham is positioned right where these two catchment areas meet and whilst people are prepared to travel to other airports nothing will change.

Why would a business go to the expense of bringing their product to the people when the people are perfectly prepared to travel to them?

When passengers use connections from Birmingham the journey will go down as BHX-XXX and will show that the demand to XXX is there and growing. With this information to hand the airport can use it to bolster their attempts for direct services. Sadly when other airports are used it doesn't say that the passenger originally travelled from Birmingham by car/train/coach, just that they flew from LHR etc. It's much more difficult to track surface journeys.

So we need to convince people that they should potentially pay more, suffer from a lack of choice when it comes to flight timings and/or frequencies, possibly be prepared for a product vastly sub-standard when compared to elsewhere and also be prepared to connect even when direct options are available a short drive away, if this happens airlines will then see the potential and start adding services to cater for these passengers!

Mr Kehoe has done tremendous things for Birmingham and the airport but I still think that we have only just scratched the surface. With one of the worlds biggest airports only 100 miles to the south and a rapidly growing MAN only 90 miles to the north it's going to be a huge task.

If anyone can do it then hopefully Mr K can

 

[Ashley]

Whether you like Mr K or not he has been a brilliant ambassador for the airport and the region in whole. Politics have hardly helped this region, one of the lowest earning and some of the most deprived areas in the country. So much for the equality.Had the development of the last decade taken place in the 80's maybe it could have been different. Taken everything into consideration still glad with the services we got.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Very true.

For so long the people of our region almost had no option other than to travel from elsewhere, I think over the years many have just become accustomed to it and consider it the norm. Things are slowly changing but it's going to prove very difficult to get people to completely change their mindset, especially when the only real advantage Birmingham has over Heathrow is convenience. If passengers don't really mind an hour or so drive down to London then they have a variety and choice available to them that nowhere else can compete with.

It's only anecdotal evidence but I know of people living along the M54 corridor who travel semi regularly with Emirates (in the premium cabin no less). They use MAN for their flights because 'it's so much easier than that god awful M6 through Birmingham'. These people have been using MAN for years, it's comfortable for them, they now book from there out of habit. Birmingham will most likely never be able to gain their custom despite it being closer.

Changing human behaviour and breaking old habits is going to be a very difficult thing to do and will most likely take a very long time.

 

[58terminus]

I know of people living along the M54 corridor who travel semi regularly with Emirates (in the premium cabin no less). They use MAN for their flights because 'it's so much easier than that god awful M6 through Birmingham'.

Pretty poor excuse.They have the M6 toll available for a few quid and the M6 north from the M54 is just as God awful.Mind you if their not using the toll on principle i agree with them.

 

[User001]

The M6 between Birmingham and Manchester is just a god awful motorway.

Seems to have never ending roadworks with a 50mph limit, and most days, all it takes is for a pigeon to sneeze and the thing grinds to a halt.

In comparason, the M40 is a breeze. It's clear why people see no issue heading down it to LHR from the Birmingham area.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Poor 'excuse' it may seem to us but it's their decision and it's one that costs BHX passengers.

I agree that the M6 as a whole is ridiculous but I'm informed that the A49 from Shrewsbury doesn't take much longer in journey times. I can't comment for sure as I've only ever been on the A49 once and that was a long time ago.

Whilst on the subject of the M6 Toll it was interesting to hear various comments on last nights Mayoral debate about nationalising it. In the past Mr Kehoe has talked about a bypass from the M54 which intercepts the M6 above the M6 Toll making it more viable for those in Shropshire, or at least those who are prepared to pay. I too agree about avoiding it on principal.

 

[Brum X]

Whilst on the subject of the Mayoral Election, I hope everybody is busy thinking hard about where your cross will be going on 4th May. This is a very important time for the whole West Midlands (Much prefer Greater Birmingham)