Re: Birmingham Airport - General Thread
BHX has no flights to any of these destinations? Seems unbelievable if I'm reading this right.
Currently it does not serve these cities no.
Also, Stockholm on SAS seems to have become a 'seasonal' route, while I have seen it reported somewhere Ryanair are to close their Brataslava route, thus cutting the nearby link to Vienna further.
I think Euro 'legacy' routes actually seem to be quite poor from BHX. Yes its great having them on your departure boards, but when you look closer, it isn't as strong as it could be.
Take Lufthansa, it mainly uses the smaller B737 on Frankfurt (while MAN and EDI get regular A321's)(it is also worth mentioning this route gets cut from 4 to 3 for some weeks in winter, something that has not happened before), and Munich is on the E195, while MAN gets the A319/A320. Air France often sends in the A318 (smallest aircraft on the mainline fleet), while lastly SAS usually send the CRJ900 on a lot of Copenhagen flights, while MAN/EDI only see the B737 and A319/A320/A321 fleet.
This points to a slight weakness where more advertising is needed. Yes, its fantastic having high aspirations for long haul, but, when you are missing out on key European links, and the smallest capacity possible on other very key links, one has to raise questions where your priorities lie. Do you spend time and money chasing something that may never happen, or, focus energy on improving something you already have so its the best it can be?
So, what can BHX expect Euro wise?
Well, getting FRA and MUC up to regular Airbus operations would be a start. There are certain routes that will benefit certain airlines at BHX, which are as follows:
Warsaw and Budapest. Get Ryanair on board with a stronger commitment. They already have a base, so they can't be unhappy with fees at BHX. The hard part has been done (getting them into BHX), getting them to start the routes should be childs play!
Helsinki: Get Finnair on board. Yes there is the common joke 'oneworld don't do BHX', but, as Finnair offer the shortest connection/route time to the desired cities in China, would be perfect to really test the market and see if demand exists to Shanghai and Beijing. Also, as they use flybe to operate their Embraer fleet, finnair have the right sized aircraft and BHX could use flybe as the negotiator.
Madrid: Would have to be BHX based as Iberia seem to be in dire straits and Easyjet pulled the base. Spanair announced BHX a few years back but then went cold on the idea before going bust. Air Europa don't seem to do the UK apart from charters and the LGW route. So, Ryanair or Monarch (Monarch have tried MAN-MAD in the past, and when I used it was certainly well used), are the only real choices (unless easyjet open a base).
Lisbon. TAP!!!!! They have had a whale of a time at MAN, and have publicly stated they will be running at least 12 weekly flights next year. The best part is, TAP came to MAN for the connections to Brazil, yet, 70% of the MAN-LIS flights are origin and destination, meaning that only 30% are connecting, which in tur. means there is still huge potential for the route. There is even a Portuguese consulate in MAN due to the high number of Portugal and Brazil bound travellers from the area.
TAP seems an obvious fit for BHX, being in star alliance too. They have the Fokker 100 to utilise which is a perfect starting block for BHX, and I would be amazed if BHX is not doing all it can to get TAP onboard after seeing their success up North.
Prague: This is possibly one of the harder routes to attract. From the UK regions, only Easyjet and Jet2 offer flights, none of which are based at BHX. There is not really anyone at the Czech end either, given that CSA ended its UK routes quite a while back.
