Birmingham Airport - General Thread

[wolfheze]

Private ownership = MANSTON!

Big business, megalomaniacs and greedy shareholders = no proper viewing area.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I understand that but I'm not sure that EC competion

I think for economic driver such as major airports, especially in the regions, they should always be a public stake. The local authorities of great Manchester control a 49% stake in MAG and the West Mids Authorities own a 49% stake in BHX. In the event an airport is own by a single private stakeholder, what is to stop them shutting up shop in tough times, only for the public sector to foot the bill!

Private ownership = MANSTON!

I don't think that being wholly owned by the private sector necessarily leads or is likely to lead to rodents' waste so far as regional airports are concerned.

There are examples in England - Bristol, Liverpool and Leeds-Bradford and the smaller Exeter - where private ownership has been extremely beneficial. The same applies to Edinburgh and Glasgow (GLA).

Bristol would not be handling 7 million passengers a year on a tiny airfield that is difficult to reach had it remained under Bristol City Council ownership. The chances are it would be shut by now. Conversely Cardiff Airport had become a basket case, partly because its previous private owner had run it down to the extent that no-one wanted to buy it, hence the only option was closure or being taken over by the Wales Assembly Government, which of course is what happened.

I realise this line is beginning to stray away from BHX but it might still have some legitimacy as it tends to put BHX's ownership in some sort of context.

 

[Ray Finkle]

This afternoon there was an article on the airport website celebrating 30 years of Lufthansa at Birmingham. It seems to have been removed and the Tweets deleted.

The most popular connections had one notable omission, one that has been top for the past 4 or 5 years. From memory they were Graz, Prague, Budapest, Johannesburg, Beijing, Shanghai and Milan?

Changing track slightly Czech Airlines start on Friday with five weekly flights, great to finally get Prague back

 

[IanFarquharson]

Finnair have posted this press release at Routes Krakow - no mention of BHX

Nordic carrier Finnair this week inaugurated flights between its Helsinki base and Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh. The route not only supports local demand in and out Finland but also provides efficient connection options to and from Asia via its Vantaa Airport hub.

The airline launched the route on April 18, 2016 and is operating three flights a week between the two capitals using a 138-seat Airbus A319 aircraft in a dual business and economy class configuration. This summer a fourth weekly flight will also operate between June 22, 2016 and August 10, 2016.

Helsinki Airport has grown into a major transfer hub for Europe to Asia travel, with Finnair offering 77 weekly flights to 17 Asian destinations in summer 2016. The new service will reduce the shortest connections between Edinburgh and Hong Kong just 13 hours and 15 minutes, while Scotland will be linked to Beijing in only 14 hours and 5 minutes, and Seoul in 14 hours and 30 minutes via the one-stop offer.

Speaking after the inaugural flight received a traditional water cannon salute and Scottish bagpiper welcome, Gordon Dewar, chief executive officer, Edinburgh Airport, said Finnair had recognised the growing international demand for direct links into Scotland by adding the flight to Edinburgh.

“This direct new route between Edinburgh and Helsinki is further confirmation of Edinburgh Airport’s position as a leader for connectivity from Scotland to Finland and onwards to the expanding markets of Asia,” he added.

The new Edinburgh service joins London Heathrow, Manchester and Dublin as Finnair gateways in the UK and Ireland. The airline is offering a split schedule with morning flights from Helsinki and Edinburgh on Mondays and Thursdays and evening departures on Sundays. The additional high-season Wednesday flight also operates during the evening hours.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Seems like a pretty standard release for a new route. If they're still looking at BHX then I'd assume it would be announced with a stand alone article rather than tagged on to another route?

Lets hope that the RD team are chatting to them this weekend.

 

[richard winterbourn]

Let's look to the positive.I would rather Finnair's announcement re BHX (when it comes) to be a stand alone news item, not a few words tacked on the end of Edinburgh's launch. Best not to rain on their parade!

 

[nwoody2001]

I don't see why anyone would expect this article to discuss/mention BHX, it has nothing to do with us lol. Looking at the many press releases at BHX in recent months about new routes, you don't see them mentioning other airports!!!!

 

[Brum X]

Damn, i thought we had some news about Finnair.

 

[nwoody2001]

its worth asking if this article is worthy of its own thread???

 

[Ray Finkle]

Damn, i thought we had some news about Finnair.

It got me too

Lets hope we have a real Finnair thread soon.

 

[jfy1999]

This forum had a LOT Polish Airlines thread started after someone saw them talking about BHX on social media. The same goes for Africaada

Ideally, any discussion of potential new airlines should remain in the Route Development and Rumours thread until an official press release is made, so that people don't log on to the forum with high hopes only to have them dashed (like I did)

 

[Ray Finkle]

In fairness, LOT did specifically mention Birmingham so I can understand that one.

Finnair did get me aswell though

Who knows, we may yet see Africaada

 

[Paulsstrange]

I remember someone posting about a month back on the route development thread that bhx would soon be seeing an airline each starting with letters D and F said to be Delta and Finnair...so if that poster/source were reliable perhaps Finnair could be on the way....no smoke without fire quite often....

 

[jfy1999]

I believe it was Ray who said the route development team had been talking to Delta, also that Delta handling agents had been talking to BHX staff?

 

[User001]

It was someone called plane crazy IIRC, about page 70-ish of the development thread.

 

[User001]

An article about the growth in seat numbers offered April-June 2016.

BHX comes out well, with over 200,000 seats added in this period compared to last year.

Luton came out on top, but, the growth rates are phenomenal!

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/a...et-key-part-of-short-haul-european-gr-424258/

 

[nwoody2001]

Quite an interesting read, thanks User001

To those that cant make out the tiny table, it confirms the following:

No. of Seats added in 2016 Q2 compared to 2015 Q2

1st LTN = +416,000 seats
2nd MAN = +407,000 seats
3rd LGW = +310,000 seats
4th BHX = +284,000 seats

This tangibly shows what has been achieved at BHX. What I find interesting is the following:

EDI and GLA despite amazing growth over the last 18 months do not appear to make the table of top 10, LTN continues at a phenomenal growth but I suspect if this is sustained, they too will be full soon, even with the great success achieved by MAN, even though they are over double the size of us, our growth still stands strong against theirs and 'hopefully' will result in BHX regaining a little market share. The same could be said about LGW though I suspect constraints on space at LGW will have limited them!

A great and interesting piece, long may it continue!

 

[Ray Finkle]

It's interesting although it only seems to account for short haul.

When you think that American didn't start until May last year, we now have 8x weekly 787's from Qatar, a morning 2 class 77W that wasn't there in 2015, an upgrade from a 77W to a 2 class A380, Turkmenistan using 777's and an extra weekly 787 to Punta Cana, that's alot more seats.

I wonder how much closer to Luton we'd be if they were taken into consideration.

 

[justplanecrazy]

Both finnair and delta have been in contact with handling agents at BHX. As for start dates all I got told was soon and as we all know 'soon' doesn't necessarily mean within a month or two and things happen and plans change. Maybe finnair were targeting the China market and now we have 2 flights to China a week they have decided hold on BHX and wait and see how things work out before making their move but also that might not be the case and we might here something in the coming weeks.

 

[Paulsstrange]

Ok sounds positive in essence almost sounds like both carriers are signed up...however is it possible its just a case of enquiring to cost up ops but without firm committing...im not in the know on these things but do many airlines do this or is it a case of those that enquire in general start up ?

My personal view is China should have less of an impact on their decision as with or without our 2 weekly flights there is lots more demand im sure.