Route Development & Rumours

[rollo]

Yep I agree but at least it seems there is another fish out the sniffing around and maybe its a big one, fingers crossed.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Some interesting numbers from this article which are from the CAA passenger figures.

There were 785,568 trips between Birmingham airport and Spain in June, July and August last year (this does not include the Canary Islands). In 2015 there were 550,044 pax to the same but last year was still well down on 2017 when there were 936,544 pax. The Canaries saw 241,760 trips and if they were a country they would have been fifth.

Greece was second with 298,234 which has grown steadily from 211,568 in 2015 to 222,942 in 2016 and 259,949 in 2017.

Ireland was third with 279,708, Dublin saw 236,781 of those.

When it comes to individual airports it's probably no surprise that the top four were Dublin, Palma, Amsterdam and Dubai.

For the UK as a whole Spain (not Canaries) was the clear winner with 12.6 million journeys with the USA second having 6.7 million pax. This clearly demonstrates the need for BHX to get NY back as an absolute priority. Italy, Germany then France made up the top five.

The most popular holiday destinations from Birmingham Airport revealed

There were 785,568 trips between Birmingham airport and Spain in June, July and August last year

www.birminghammail.co.uk

 

[58terminus]

with the USA second having 6.7 million pax. This clearly demonstrates the need for BHX to get NY back as an absolute priority

I sort of agree and disagree with you their Ray.I would love to see NY back but the priority surely should be a link to any US hub airport.
Chicago.Atlanta etc as well or instead of NY.

 

[Coathanger16]

I sort of agree and disagree with you their Ray.I would love to see NY back but the priority surely should be a link to any US hub airport.
Chicago.Atlanta etc as well or instead of NY.

It's not like United has a big hub at Newark? Don't get me wrong I'd love to see Chicago or Atlanta on BHX departure boards, but flights to a hub needs both passengers visiting that city as well as transiting passengers. Any hub will get the transit passengers but New York has the best chance of getting the visiting passengers as well.

Problem is I really can't see which airline would serve BHX to the USA...

 

[58terminus]

It's not like United has a big hub at Newark

I am well aware of United's Newark hub. BHX needs flights to the USA not just vanity destinations on the departure board. Chicago.Atlanta
and others seem to work for very well for other European airports.

 

[mullion]

Chicago is not doing well as a hub anymore better with PHL

 

[Ray Finkle]

It's not like United has a big hub at Newark? Don't get me wrong I'd love to see Chicago or Atlanta on BHX departure boards, but flights to a hub needs both passengers visiting that city as well as transiting passengers. Any hub will get the transit passengers but New York has the best chance of getting the visiting passengers as well.

Problem is I really can't see which airline would serve BHX to the USA...

Totally agree, New York would get the destination passengers along with those transiting. Apparently United used to see quite a bit of traffic connecting down to Orlando so if they could get a couple of weekly Virgin flights to MCO it would be a huge boost.

It may be that JetBlue to JFK is our only hope but if they aren't starting London until 2021 and are then planning Paris, Amsterdam etc to follow it could be a long wait?

 

[Creguk]

Do people see the whole US debate more to do with not having new, flashy single aisle planes rather than demand?

 

[Jerry]

Do people see the whole US debate more to do with not having new, flashy single aisle planes rather than demand?

I think that many people seem to think that an airport can't be an 'international' airport without a route to the US and specifically NYC.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Do people see the whole US debate more to do with not having new, flashy single aisle planes rather than demand?

Not for me personally. I struggle to tell the difference between an A321 LR/NEO and a regular one. It was the same with the MAX which just looks like another 737 to me.

What we are told is that these new, flashy, single aisle planes are the perfect size and have the right economics to make routes such as BHX viable, so it seems right to chase airlines which are due to get them.

According to the article linked below Tom Screen is heading off to talk to JetBlue in around three weeks, lets hope that he can have some success.

As a result, he added the airport should be doing more to attract transatlantic traffic: “There’s lot of eastbound connectivity, but westbound it’s a big zero, and that needs to change. The likes of someone like JetBlue is very exciting for us. We’re going to see them in about three weeks’ time to discuss a possible future route with them.”

I also found this interesting where he recognises the mistakes of the past where they ignored the new breed of loco airlines and concedes that they are still struggling to fill the gap. What isn't clear is what they are doing about it.

At the conference, the aviation director also conceded Birmingham did not take the low-cost sector seriously when it emerged in the 1990s. “Birmingham is the UK’s second city, but we’re not the second biggest airport. We’ve done a lot of things right, but a lot of things perhaps wrong – perhaps missing out on the low-cost revolution. We had BA Connect at the time, and the management then felt we didn’t need low cost. Since Monarch went bust, we’ve been struggling to fill that gap,” he said.

Full article: https://buyingbusinesstravel.com/news/birmingham-airport-aims-to-be-carbon-neutral-by-2035/

Carbon neutral by 2035? If they carry on the way they have been there will be no more of those pesky aircraft adding to the carbon footprint

 

[Coathanger16]

A few interesting quotes there. The first thing that needs to happen to fix the current situation is for the airport management to accept that there is a problem and that doing things the same way as before won't work now. Perhaps things are changing and BHX can finally get some long awaited good news about new airlines.

 

[58terminus]

“Birmingham is the UK’s second city, but we’re not the second biggest airport. We’ve done a lot of things right, but a lot of things perhaps wrong – perhaps missing out on the low-cost revolution. We had BA Connect at the time, and the management then felt we didn’t need low cost. Since Monarch went bust, we’ve been struggling to fill that gap,” he said.

Unfortunately it never was and will never be the second biggest airport.Other bigger airports also looked like missing out on the low cost revolution but have more than fought back. When BA mainline was replaced by BA connect the writing was on the wall.
Monarchs problems were deep seated but not eased by the airports then policy of encouraging every Tom Dick and Harry to
compete on their busiest routes.Ironically most of them pulled out before Monarch's demise.
As he said a lot of things wrong.

 

[Angie88]

Not for me personally. I struggle to tell the difference between an A321 LR/NEO and a regular one. It was the same with the MAX which just looks like another 737 to me.

What we are told is that these new, flashy, single aisle planes are the perfect size and have the right economics to make routes such as BHX viable, so it seems right to chase airlines which are due to get them.

According to the article linked below Tom Screen is heading off to talk to JetBlue in around three weeks, lets hope that he can have some success.

As a result, he added the airport should be doing more to attract transatlantic traffic: “There’s lot of eastbound connectivity, but westbound it’s a big zero, and that needs to change. The likes of someone like JetBlue is very exciting for us. We’re going to see them in about three weeks’ time to discuss a possible future route with them.”

I also found this interesting where he recognises the mistakes of the past where they ignored the new breed of loco airlines and concedes that they are still struggling to fill the gap. What isn't clear is what they are doing about it.

At the conference, the aviation director also conceded Birmingham did not take the low-cost sector seriously when it emerged in the 1990s. “Birmingham is the UK’s second city, but we’re not the second biggest airport. We’ve done a lot of things right, but a lot of things perhaps wrong – perhaps missing out on the low-cost revolution. We had BA Connect at the time, and the management then felt we didn’t need low cost. Since Monarch went bust, we’ve been struggling to fill that gap,” he said.

Full article: https://buyingbusinesstravel.com/news/birmingham-airport-aims-to-be-carbon-neutral-by-2035/

Do you think from this article that BHX is resigned to the fact then that it will never get another LCC base here? I don’t know how to read that article in the sense that is it saying ‘yes we got the LCC revolution wrong & now we must focus on other carriers/markets’ or is it saying ‘yes we got the LCC revolution wrong but we can still get that short haul market right if we are more flexible with our strategy’.

I can’t see a long term commitment from Flybe if I’m honest as I don’t think BHX will fit into their strategy regarding connectivity to MAN & Gatwick so we definitely need a new or larger LCC base to serve us better.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

BHX did embrace the low cost airline 'revolution' in its early UK days when MyTravelLite set up a base at BHX in 2002. With hindsight they picked the wrong horse. In 2002 no-one really knew how the low-cost industry in this country would pan out in the ensuing years. MyTravelLite might have become an early Jet2 (as that airline is now) and even developed an easyJet-like route network.

A year or so before MyTravelLite's BHX base opened, GoFly was circulating airports anonymously through an agent inviting pitches for its second base after Stansted. I don't know whether BHX responded. Had they done so and been successful there is very little doubt that BHX would now have a huge easyJet network.

Even if airports had known the anonymous airline was GoFly (perhaps some suspected it) there was still no guarantee at that time that easyJet would buy the airline, absorb it and develop the sort of route network it now possesses. GoFly was still a risky venture in its early days with BA top management not all enthusiastic, and after Bob Ayling left BA the company lost little time in selling its low-cost airline to its management backed by a private equity firm.

Perhaps at the time MyTravelLite, part of the then My Travel Group, was seen as a better prospect than GoFly.

 

[mullion]

Life is full of ifs and buts, however the LCC market is fickle and blink and you miss it, sorry to bring MAN into it but they were so close to losing it all themselves with both Easy and Ryanair for different reasons but got them in the end by luck/fortune and hardwork much to the angst of Liverpool who thought they were set up for life.
EMA have had a bumpy ride also losing Easy but gaining Jet2

 

[Ray Finkle]

Do you think from this article that BHX is resigned to the fact then that it will never get another LCC base here? I don’t know how to read that article in the sense that is it saying ‘yes we got the LCC revolution wrong & now we must focus on other carriers/markets’ or is it saying ‘yes we got the LCC revolution wrong but we can still get that short haul market right if we are more flexible with our strategy’.

I'm really not sure as there is absolutely no comment as to where the focus will be for the future. As said above, Manchester was left in a very similar predicament but managed to get there in the end and now has successful and growing bases from both Ryanair and easyjet. Proof that it can be done.

I do have some sympathy for BHX in that they are trying to provide for numerous full service airlines whilst also dealing with the likes of Ryanair and Wizz, which reportedly look to pay bottom dollar. Providing, running and maintaining facilities for the likes of Emirates, Qatar etc all adds to the cost, yet the real serious growth in pax numbers and route destinations comes from the locos, can BHX afford to accommodate both? Can it afford not to?

It's going to be interesting to see which direction Nick Barton decides to take.

 

[58terminus]

BHX did embrace the low cost airline 'revolution' in its early UK days when MyTravelLite set up a base at BHX in 2002. With hindsight they picked the wrong horse. In 2002 no-one really knew how the low-cost industry in this country would pan out in the ensuing years. MyTravelLite might have become an early Jet2 (as that airine is now) and even developed an easyJet-like route network.

A year or so before MyTravelLite's BHX base opened, GoFly was circulating airports anonymously t

Wasn't the problem that MYTravel were trying to ride two horses at the same time.Charter flights for there main business of package holidays and then dipping a toe into Low-cost?
As for GO and their BA connections that was a non starter Back in them days.BA were God and they told BHX who they could have on not have.Remember they had just built a terminal exclusively for them.

 

[58terminus]

Life is full of ifs and buts, however the LCC market is fickle and blink and you miss it, sorry to bring MAN into it but they were so close to losing it all themselves with both Easy and Ryanair for different reasons but got them in the end by luck/fortune and hardwork

In this case Mullion i am glad you brought MAN up as you are quite right. I like the ref. to LPL.
Easyjet pulled the EMA base but was the BHX response to this opportunity..As far as we know nothing, Leaving a large area of the country(the only area} with no Easyjet presence at their local airport.
I don,t buy the low yield thing that keeps being mentioned in any discussion about Easy. It comes across to me as the response of a party
p****d off with the other party and coming up with the most damaging insult they can. And it has caused a lot of damage.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Wasn't the problem that MYTravel were trying to ride two horses at the same time.Charter flights for there main business of package holidays and then dipping a toe into Low-cost?
As for GO and their BA connections that was a non starter Back in them days.BA were God and they told BHX who they could have on not have.Remember they had just built a terminal exclusively for them.

As it turned out MyTravelLite didn't last more than a few years and the My Travel Group might have well have fallen between two stools. The point though is that at the time MyTravelLite set up at BHX no-one would have known how things might pan out.

As for Go, BA and BHX, I yield to your undoubted superior knowledge (than mine) about the 'politics' surrounding BHX. Once Go had freed itself from the yoke of BA there might have been a further opportunity in the short window between management ownership and easyJet purchasing Go, although by then EMA had entered the frame.

I can't think that a significant BHX easyJet base would seriously dilute their operations at the four nearest bases - LTN, MAN, LPL, BRS. Even someone living in the West Country (me) finds it astonishing that easyJet has not fallen in with BHX.

 

[jfy1999]

Probably coming across as a "back seat moderator" here but I'm wondering whether the Biman conversation should be moved to this thread? At the moment it seems to be all based on past history and what people would like to have happened rather than any current rumours?

Given Bimans track record I think even an official announcement from them might be better off in this thread