Route Development & Rumours

[rutamkrd]

Personally those who were discussing Philadelphia over JFK are on to something imho.
Philadelphia would support substantial cargo up lift and has a substantial bio science O&D market ideal for marketing in Oxford , Milton Keynes and even as far Cambridge for Birmingham.
It’s now AMERICANs primary north east seaboard hub with easy onward connections down to Florida and west to Detroit and the Windy City both markets Birmingham craves.

Frankly JFK has pretty poor onward connection opportunities these days . It’s primarily an O&D market and I am afraid those thirty plus dailies at the end of the 40 operating largely to support the banking isurrance and stock market gamblers and their desires to cross the altlantic at a minutes notice any time of the day, has resulted in enormous over capacity in the back of the bus so to speak and lead to extensive price dumping via the consolidators, damaging the viability of regional flights across a swave of the UK and near continent.

Manchester has survived on Uniteds Newark hub and connections whilst the JFK route is in the hands of Virgin (Delta UK) supported by Virgin Holiday short breaks and Thomas Cook again pretty much a holiday charter in many ways.

 

[mullion]

United to Manchester is actually doing very well with plenty of J class hence the upgrade to B767
Thomas Cook out performed American on JFK on service levels whereas Virgin are picking up large ammounts of
connections off Jet Airways on both JFK and ATL

 

[Jerry]

Whichever way you go, you're playing into the hands of one alliance or another. They are getting you aboard their aircraft without having to operate a direct service from BHX.

Kevin

True but at least when using those services from BHX people are using BHX.

Many people would prefer to fly direct from MAN and stay on one aircraft especially if you are a family with young children.

I think with MAN it's more to do with who people are booking with than a direct service but I also think with some passengers there is a mentality that you can only fly long haul from the 'big' airports.
From my point of view flying to AMS first is no different than driving down the M4 or in this case up or down the M6 and I came to that conclusion before I was an avgeek and I also think its generally made my journeys to the US a lot less stressful flying locally than going to the big airports.

 

[Ianbutty]

I keep coming back to geography. Hate to say it. If you are camped.out in Major US Airline HQ in a route development meeting with a map of the world on the wall and pins showing existing European routes served, you are unlikely to choose another airport wedged in between the two and close to the two (in US terms very close). Greater Birmingham to US passengers seem to be coping with having no links. The airlines have increased bums of seats at MAN and LHR to pretty decent numbers because of the custimers, so what do the airlines care if the UK second city is not served. Brummies make good money for them at MAN and LHR and probably at the former turn their revenue into profit.

Maybe someone will come in but it is a sorry state and I wish it was not so. Brum has to look elsewhere and look east.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

In peripheral areas of the country - the South West for example - people are always likely to have to travel to a distant 'big' airport for direct long haul travel. As Jerry has mentioned, sometimes there is the opportunity to use a local airport and fly via a hub such as AMS for long haul, but either way there can be an hour or two spent, sometimes longer, getting to the direct flight departure airport whether by road, rail or by air on a 'feeder' flight to a hub.

I can understand the frustration of some people living in a large and densely populated area such as the West Midlands if their local direct long haul options are limited, but people living in the peripheral areas of the country can be equally frustrated knowing they are never likely to have much of an option for local direct long haul travel.

Perhaps the difference is in expectation. In the South West we know that a reasonable long haul network almost certainly will never be feasible, whereas in the Birmingham area there has been a decent spread of long haul options in the past (I know there are still some going east) and there must always be a realistic hope that the routes to the west will return at some point.

 

[route66]

True but at least when using those services from BHX people are using BHX.


I think with MAN it's more to do with who people are booking with than a direct service but I also think with some passengers there is a mentality that you can only fly long haul from the 'big' airports.
From my point of view flying to AMS first is no different than driving down the M4 or in this case up or down the M6 and I came to that conclusion before I was an avgeek and I also think its generally made my journeys to the US a lot less stressful flying locally than going to the big airports.

I was talking to some Canadian friends last week who have lived in Birmingham for twenty years and travelled to Goa at Christmas from MAN. They are gong to Goa again at half-term and they discovered from someone that they could fly from BHX and that is what they are doing. I don't know who my friends booked with at Christmas, but it sounds like they were never given the choice of BHX because they said they would have taken it, whatever. It is a common tale I hear from people who are not travel savvy.

 

[mullion]

I`m sorry but this may upset a few but Manchester business is growing twice as fast as anywhere in UK
and is showing no signs of it slowing down, many of the companies arriving are US tech companies
with over 2.25m sq feet of office in Central and south Manchester last year and nearly 150,000s ft in the 1st month of 2019, Airport City is not included in these figures, this is what is causing the increase in business traffic on long haul not so much of pulling people from other cities as more are likely to head for LHR
with the vast selection of flights and times for the likes of Birmingham/east midlands etc

 

[kfs]

But some people want to fly direct for what ever reasons and they cant fly from BHX.

And with the highest respect Jerry, going backwards on yourself to AMS would be rather strange to most people.

From Devon, where I live, going KLM from BRS I can be airside in Amsterdam ready for my onward connection in far less time than I can be airside at Heathrow for a direct flight. Could probably do the same via BHX even with the longer drive. Air routings and fares are a dark art, and it's all to do with getting bums on seats. MIght be bad for the environment, but we all want to travel now and as cheaply as possible.

 

[IanFarquharson]

I`m sorry but this may upset a few but Manchester business is growing twice as fast as anywhere in UK
and is showing no signs of it slowing down, many of the companies arriving are US tech companies
with over 2.25m sq feet of office in Central and south Manchester last year and nearly 150,000s ft in the 1st month of 2019, Airport City is not included in these figures, this is what is causing the increase in business traffic on long haul not so much of pulling people from other cities as more are likely to head for LHR
with the vast selection of flights and times for the likes of Birmingham/east midlands etc

And if you read the Birmingham press we are booming and fastest growing outside London !

 

[andrew.clarkson]

Hi there all, if bhx outside London is the fastest growing airport, then why was bhx down just under 500,000 passengers down on 2017,that doesn't tell its the fastest growing at all, that's giving out false info... AndyC

 

[Kevin Farnell]

Hi Andrew. Mullion and Ian are discussing the cities not the airports.
It all comes down to statistics and we all know there are lies, damned lies and statistics.

Kevin

 

[mullion]

Sorry Ian but I have seen the figures published in Europe and they are double the Birmingham figures and at present just shy of 80 tower cranes

 

[Creguk]

Please, please don't turn this into a MAN vs. BHX thread! It's my escape from work-life and I don't need to read arguments time and time again.

 

[mullion]

Wasn`t it was just expalaining how the US flights are now doing well compared with BHX and why

 

[JENNYJET]

May one ask which NY airport? Could it be the one dropped from the Edinburgh schedule the name escaped my memory sadly,

La Guardia or Teterboro perhaps?

 

[hammerb32]

Wasn`t it was just expalaining how the US flights are now doing well compared with BHX and why

The only thing is Mullion the GDP of Greater Brum is still considerably larger than that of Gtr Manchester, agreed Gtr Manchester's economy is growing massively but it's not the answer as to why US service work from MAN not BHX. Go back 20-25 years ago and with respect the economy of the North West was in the toilet, MAN still had way more US services than BHX.

Business class demand is also not the answer, anyone who flew on United from BHX will tell you that business class was more than often full. Location is the key reason, an airline can fly from MAN and know their service is within a 90 minute drive of the 4 great northern cities of Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and Liverpool, as well as being within 90 minutes of Brum. Add to the that LHR is also within a 90 minute drive of Brum it's fairly clear that UA, AA and DL can happily state all major UK cities are within a 90 minute drive of their services, why dilute their yields by operating from BHX or BRS?

 

[Coathanger16]

Sorry Ian but I have seen the figures published in Europe and they are double the Birmingham figures and at present just shy of 80 tower cranes

Wasn`t it was just expalaining how the US flights are now doing well compared with BHX and why

To be honest the number of tower cranes are a pretty irrelevant point actually as Birmingham has recently enjoyed a boom in construction with the most new constructions going on in the city ever, yet for the first time in a long time we don't have any flights to the US.

Pretty sure Birmingham is the largest (economically) its ever been, so I doubt that comes into it too much. Airlines will be looking to serve the most amount of passengers with the smallest number of flights.

As @hammerb32 points out above, they can do that by just serving Heathrow and Manchester.

It's a sorry state that all our hopes rest on JetBlue, because if they don't I can't see anybody else serving BHX - USA at this stage. Yes the growth may be East not West these days, but I wonder how much not have a major US service (sorry but Sanford doesn't count) puts off other long haul carriers.

 

[hammerb32]

The crane count is an economic indicator no doubt but the economy of Gtr Brum is a lot more industrial compared to the economy of Gtr Manchester, please don't get me wrong the economy of the North West is doing great, but given the economy of Gtr Brum also is doing great it's clearly not a significant factor in where the main US carriers are deploying their fleet.

 

[mullion]

Yes Maybe but Manchester is High Tech which is the future Graphene etc
Also I should just add that the lastest GDP posted everywhere is 2012 ( 6 years out of date)
it probably was right then but now doubt it

 

[rollo]

Reluctant to join in this spat but it seems both cites and adjacent areas are going great guns despite the efforts of our political class so probably best left there.