Birmingham Airport - General Thread

[Kevin Farnell]

The media have given the above story huge prominence this morning and have linked Nick Barton's pay increase into the mix. Not good publicity all round for BHX. It seems an average delay last year of 12 minutes is the end of the World for some people

12 minutes is nothing and not really worth mentioning. A 12 minute delay to departure can easily be made up during the flight. Likewise, an on time departure can experience strong head winds resulting in a late arrival. It's the long delays (hours or even days) that need to be addressed. Loss of a days holiday, missing an important business meeting and the stress involved, especially on the elderly or those travelling with small children. Yes, compensation may be given, but it doesn't make up for that lost day of a holiday that a family have saved all year for.

Kevin

 

[JENNYJET]

I prefer to investigate the reasons for delays and not the headlines the Media so enjoy. Much is being reported of staff shortages but little about wayward passengers sat in a bar or queuing in Duty Free! Unaware that the flight has been called and the gate is closing. Those passengers checked bags need to be removed from the aircraft, this delaying despatch and the domino effect begins.

 

[pianokeys]

Notice that the CWG greeters were out in force yesterday in the terminal to welcome the arriving teams. Those seen looked to be from Papua NewGuinea, New Zealand and possibly Kenya. The lunch time Emirates flight had not long arrived. May have been others on previous days. Coming from the West, likely to use Heathrow I guess.

 

[DarloPlaneBoy]

I did wonder if BHX will receive anymore aircraft from the commonwealth Games countries and then use it for publicity to say attract Air Kenya to serve Nairobi or one of the Carribean airlines or even Virgin to say hey look we have interest to fly to The Carribean. I guess we won't though why would you want to make you athletes tired by sending them from LHR to Birmingham presumably on coaches during the busiest time of the Year as people go away on Holiday whilst BHX is right there and you have to travel 15 20 minutes into the City and probably 25 or 30 to the Alex and probably 40 to 50 to Sandwell, Walsall and Wolves. BHX might not be as nice but it makes sense for the teams to use it. The airlines could train crews to fly into BHX or even charter an airline who has flown into BHX ie Air India, Emirates, Air Canada?, Qatar. BHX can handle Widebodies as well so I don't get why you would fly to LHR to then travel to Birmingham Ik from experience on a Coach from Birmingham Digbeth Coach Station to BHX is 15 minutes then probably about 2 hours 45 to LHR T2 and T3 from BHX but with Traffic that could be longer and was last time I did it before I did it again this year.

 

[jfy1999]

I did wonder if BHX will receive anymore aircraft from the commonwealth Games countries and then use it for publicity to say attract Air Kenya to serve Nairobi or one of the Carribean airlines or even Virgin to say hey look we have interest to fly to The Carribean. I guess we won't though why would you want to make you athletes tired by sending them from LHR to Birmingham presumably on coaches during the busiest time of the Year as people go away on Holiday whilst BHX is right there and you have to travel 15 20 minutes into the City and probably 25 or 30 to the Alex and probably 40 to 50 to Sandwell, Walsall and Wolves. BHX might not be as nice but it makes sense for the teams to use it. The airlines could train crews to fly into BHX or even charter an airline who has flown into BHX ie Air India, Emirates, Air Canada?, Qatar. BHX can handle Widebodies as well so I don't get why you would fly to LHR to then travel to Birmingham Ik from experience on a Coach from Birmingham Digbeth Coach Station to BHX is 15 minutes then probably about 2 hours 45 to LHR T2 and T3 from BHX but with Traffic that could be longer and was last time I did it before I did it again this year.

I am guessing it will almost certainly be cheaper to put athletes and support teams on regular commercial flights than to charter what would probably have to be multiple airliners.

 

[DarloPlaneBoy]

Yes true but for a Special event Wouldn't the airlines put free travel to look good. Ie if it was in Nigeria couldn't BA offer Free Travel to all the UK teams or a discount flight to stop them all flying Virgin or another airline to Nigeria

 

[jfy1999]

Yes true but for a Special event Wouldn't the airlines put free travel to look good. Ie if it was in Nigeria couldn't BA offer Free Travel to all the UK teams or a discount flight to stop them all flying Virgin or another airline to Nigeria

i don’t think it would be a good look for airlines to make an exception for athletes when no one else goes for free…

 

[DarloPlaneBoy]

True, Just shows really how poor BHX is for these games

 

[jfy1999]

True, Just shows really how poor BHX is for these games

I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily poor, BHX seems to have athletes flying in on Emirates (which will have a stopover), so I don’t see why athletes couldn’t also fly into BHX via other stopover points such as Paris, Istanbul, and Amsterdam

 

[DarloPlaneBoy]

Maybe but for a lot of the African and Oceania teams would use Emirates as long with KLM they pretty much serve most places across the World. With EK seeing more passengers COULD the A380 return

 

[JENNYJET]

I have had a chance during Covid etc., to think about how BHX ownership and management can screw up a potential recovery given that the Commonwealth sporting communities were coming. A gift to the city handed over to MAG and Heathrow no doubt.

Understanding that the State had ordered actions directly affecting the airport and perhaps ( foolishly in my estimation ) the lay offs of staffing, I contend that the persons of authority cannot forever continue to blame Covid for the long term malaise that has infected BHX.

I recall the excitement I experienced as a youngster, wagging off school, as the new terminal was opened and also when the extended runway was opened to an air service from China. My hopes have been crushed and my time is ever shorter by the day waiting with hope that some entity would make a bid for the taking the airport into new management.

End of Rant!

 

[IanFarquharson]

I have had a chance during Covid etc., to think about how BHX ownership and management can screw up a potential recovery given that the Commonwealth sporting communities were coming. A gift to the city handed over to MAG and Heathrow no doubt.

Understanding that the State had ordered actions directly affecting the airport and perhaps ( foolishly in my estimation ) the lay offs of staffing, I contend that the persons of authority cannot forever continue to blame Covid for the long term malaise that has infected BHX.

I recall the excitement I experienced as a youngster, wagging off school, as the new terminal was opened and also when the extended runway was opened to an air service from China. My hopes have been crushed and my time is ever shorter by the day waiting with hope that some entity would make a bid for the taking the airport into new management.

End of Rant!

BHX is doing pretty well in my opinion with over 40k pax some days (80% of pre covid)
They have managed to really pull around the customer experience which wasn't good a few months ago but now 100% better.
Not sure any change of management would benefit BHX to be honest ?
The CWG was never going to lead to masses of people coming through BHX - not sure why you think it would ?
Teams would have come on scheduled flights into the UK etc.

 

[Nethercote2019]

I did hear a slightly funny CG story of an athlete from the West Indies who arrived at check in 3 hours before his departure time but at Birmingham airport & he took some convincing he wasn’t in London !

 

[HPsauce]

I did hear a slightly funny CG story of an athlete from the West Indies who arrived at check in 3 hours before his departure time but at Birmingham airport & he took some convincing he wasn’t in London !

A few days ago i had to inform a lady from Cameroon that she was on a bus heading for Solihull. She wanted Birmingham City Centre!. By this time we were already at Birmingham International Station!. Of course all the CG Marshalls had finished their period of service.

 

[DarloPlaneBoy]

A few days ago i had to inform a lady from Cameroon that she was on a bus heading for Solihull. She wanted Birmingham City Centre!. By this time we were already at Birmingham International Station!. Of course all the CG Marshalls had finished their period of service.

The buses have Next Stop announcements if she understood you how did she not understand X2 to Solihull, She could have also caught the CWG Shuttle Buses

 

[HPsauce]

The buses have Next Stop announcements if she understood you how did she not understand X2 to Solihull, She could have also caught the CWG Shuttle Buses

This was an X12 bus, and she was too busy talking in her own language on the phone to notice the talking next stop announcements. She could speak English however.

 

[DarloPlaneBoy]

Oh yeah forgot about The X12 the X2 doesn't go past the airport yeah I hate that. I was on the 79 to Wolverhampton it said on the Front of the Bus 79 Wolverhampton Via Darlaston/Bilston and a Women asks Are you going to Wolverhampton Well actually she said Are You going to Wolvo, if she couldn't see the Front ie display was dim it says on the side she was also waiting at the 79 to Wolverhampton Stand of two at Darlaston Well three one is where both West Brom and Wolverhampton stop along with buses to Bilston and that.

They then come back around the island Stop by Asda with the stop closer to the Ramp upto Asda being the Wolverhampton stop where she was and the one furthest from it being the West Brom Stop. Pay attention I could understand if it was an E Service maybe to Say NEC and she wasn't sure if it was going to Birmingham.

But she surely had to have read the Front or Side or even asked the Driver when I assume if she didn't have a CWG Pass to pay for her fare if they were going to Birmingham

 

[Severn]

Aircraft Based / Overnighting at BHX - August 2022

TOTAL: 37
Note: This aircraft types and numbers can fluctuate as well as some aircraft may be standby aircraft. I took this information over the course of a Mon-Fri.

Jet2 (15)
A321 (4)
B738 (11)

TUI (11-12)
B738 (7)
B38M (2)
B788 (1-2)
B789 (1)

Ryanair (4)
B738 (4)

flybe (2)
AT72 (1)
DH8D (1)

Lufthansa (2)
A319 (1)
A320 (1)

KLM (1)
B738 (1)

Air France (1)
E190 (1)

 

[RichL]

Are there any flights to Newquay still?

Online can see the likes of Ryanair / EasyJet etc but these all say one stop. I don't really want to fly to Dublin to get to Newquay!

Trains being quoted £390+ not even first class!!

 

[IanFarquharson]

Are there any flights to Newquay still?

Online can see the likes of Ryanair / EasyJet etc but these all say one stop. I don't really want to fly to Dublin to get to Newquay!

Trains being quoted £390+ not even first class!!

No NQY anymore