Route Development & Rumours

[andrew.clarkson]

Re: Route Development

HI there I couldn't agree with you eanyone on the easyjet situation the trouble with keoch is that if can get the deal he wants and the shareholders agree to what he's doing then there happy with what he's bringing in. Rather than do a good deal. He prefers to save money wherever he can and charge what he wants. And that's why Birmingham is in this situation of trying desperate measures. To get anything. Andyc

 

[Ray Finkle]

Re: Route Development

I agree it's frustrating but when all is said and done BHX is a business, and to survive a business has to make a profit, not just for the shareholders but for the staff who rely on it for their income. There has also been a considerable investment over the last few years with the new pier, new radar, MAEL hangar, runway extension, new ATC tower and internal terminal building improvements which all have to be paid for somehow, imagine the moaning if pax were still having to use that god awful 80's pier. That said it would be nice if there was at least some room for manoeuvre.

 

[andrew.clarkson]

Re: Route Development

Hi there Ray, i also think that the route development team now need to concentrate more on exsisting airlines such as Emirates, Turkish Airlines and Air India to try and expand there destinations further than Birmingham to Dubai, Birmingham to Istanbul & Birmingham to India. If Turkish airlines fly to 85 other destinations onwards once arrivd at Istanbul, then why not concentrate on Birmingham flying to those 85 other destinations individually rather than an onward flight from Istanbl. Emirates colud also expand its flights destinations to the States and further, i think that these are the areas that the route development team need to concentrate on to establish new routes with exsisting airlines that already fly from Birmingham as well as getting Monarch to try and start up a new route from Birmingham to Madrid and see how it fares and picks up through this new summer season that fast approaching...andyc

 

[Brum X]

Re: Route Development

I really think Monarch using an A320 Aircraft at X5 weekly from BHX to MAD could really work. Really hope they will give it a go in the near future or maybe Flybe using the E170.

 

[User0001]

Re: Route Development

If Turkish airlines fly to 85 other destinations onwards once arrivd at Istanbul, then why not concentrate on Birmingham flying to those 85 other destinations individually rather than an onward flight from Istanbl

It will be because there is likely to be insufficient passenger numbers and yield to run those 85 destinations from BHX direct. There will however be enough demand to funnel through various hubs onto those destinations.

 

[thunderchild]

Re: Route Development

Considering the demand for China, Finnair/Flybe BHX-HEL is a key route they should be trying to secure. Given Flybe's presence at BHX I'm quite frankly baffled as to why it hasn't happened already.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Re: Route Development

Hi there Ray, i also think that the route development team now need to concentrate more on exsisting airlines such as Emirates, Turkish Airlines and Air India to try and expand there destinations further than Birmingham to Dubai, Birmingham to Istanbul & Birmingham to India. If Turkish airlines fly to 85 other destinations onwards once arrivd at Istanbul, then why not concentrate on Birmingham flying to those 85 other destinations individually rather than an onward flight from Istanbl.

Emirates and Turkish feed people through their respective hubs in Dubai and Istanbul onto a wealth of worldwide connections to places that you'd never fill a plane on a direct service. Turkish have slots for 14x weekly, the airport have been to Dubai to speak to Emirates about a morning service and Air India have said there will be added routes and/or frequencies (it's easy to forget the route is only 8 months old) but I'm afraid you won't see Emirates flying 77W's direct from BHX to Lagos or Manila anytime soon.

as well as getting Monarch to try and start up a new route from Birmingham to Madrid and see how it fares and picks up through this new summer season that fast approaching

Any new Monarch routes will either require a 10th based aircraft, reduced frequency on current routes or a W pattern from another base such as we'll be seeing on Sunday's when a LTN based A320 does the GIB run, there's no way it'll happen for this summer but one can hope for next year. They have tried Madrid from various airports before, my preference would be for Flybe or a return for Ryanair but maybe Monarch could make it work.

Considering the demand for China, Finnair/Flybe BHX-HEL is a key route they should be trying to secure. Given Flybe's presence at BHX I'm quite frankly baffled as to why it hasn't happened already.

You're not the only one, this was from an interview with the Flybe CCO a few weeks ago:

aa: Given your relationship with Finnair, especially with the flybe Nordic operation, how come you have never been able to come to an agreement on UK-Helsinki routes??

PS: Relations are good with Finnair, but we’re a relatively new team down in Exeter and its not a discussion that has come up with them yet.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Re: Route Development

Word is Air Berlin are to cease their 3xweekly MOD flights to BHX in the near future, nothing official yet so no dates.

Air Berlin should operate their last MOD flight on Sunday 30th March, to replace these apparently Portuguese airline Hi Fly are to operate the Hannover, on Saturdays, and Paderborn, on Sundays, flights and Hamburg Airways are to operate the Wednesday Hannover flight.

Looking a Wikipedia Hi Fly have a fleet of A310, A332/3 and A343/5/6 so if true I imagine it'll either be the A310 or A330. Hamburg Airways operate a mix of A319 and A320.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Re: Route Development

Further to the above Hi Fly should be using their A310. I say should as things can and often do change.

 

[Hassaan]

Re: Route Development

I wonder what BHX has in store for us as far as direct links to the USA go? Apart from Biman, obviously, but if that goes to pot?

The runway extension should hopefully open up some opportunities. I think I read somewhere that Delta were considering operating out of here with 764's but they went to Edinburgh instead, due to the runway being a bit short (I think that was the reason). But I'm sure the 764 could make it off the current runway, even fully laden?

I wouldn't expect Emirates flying direct out of BHX to any destination other than DXB. What I wouldn't be surprised to hear, before the end of this year however, is some sort of expansion whether it be an A380 on the midday flight or a third daily flight. I think BHX should also be looking at more of the Middle Eastern carriers which could fill the Far East void - especially until we get a direct service (although I believe it'll still be used beyond that point).

BHX can begin to compete with LGW, LHR and MAN after this runway extension is completed. I'm not suggesting that it'll ever reach the status of those airports, not for another few decades anyway, but it can at least begin to offer better travel opportunities for people in the Midlands and hopefully like myself people won't have to travel 80 miles down the road so much.

 

[User0001]

Re: Route Development

The runway extension should hopefully open up some opportunities. I think I read somewhere that Delta were considering operating out of here with 764's but they went to Edinburgh instead, due to the runway being a bit short (I think that was the reason). But I'm sure the 764 could make it off the current runway, even fully laden

BHX-USA seems to be a basket case.

The runway extension as far as the USA goes is a folly, there are several realistic routes that BHX could gain, starting tomorrow if they wanted. Chicago, JFK, Philadelphia, Washington and Charlotte, all fully capable using the B757 and thus BHX if they wanted, but, they don't.

This false hope of Kehoe that 'the west coast USA can be reached' is ridiculous when you cannot even sustain 2 daily flights to the East Coast.

I really don't know why BHX struggles so much, especially when you see how much service a tiny town on the west coast of Ireland can sustain? Heathrow is only part of the issue, and I would be interested to know just what puts off US carriers so much?

This is also why I don't believe BHX can be 'LHRs 3rd runway'. If the carriers are not touching BHX now, why they suddenly will when the market saturates is beyond me. No UK region can be LHRs 3rd runway, each will have to carve out its own niche and yes, some services will be designed to take pressure off LHR by re-routing passengers from one area onto its own flight (exactly what Cathay Pacific aim to do at MAN), but apart from that, its each for their own.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Re: Route Development

The runway extension should hopefully open up some opportunities. I think I read somewhere that Delta were considering operating out of here with 764's but they went to Edinburgh instead, due to the runway being a bit short (I think that was the reason). But I'm sure the 764 could make it off the current runway, even fully laden?

When the BHX road show bus did the rounds the guy told me that Delta wanted to open the route and the 764 would have to be used as a healthy cargo load would be needed in the early days to make the route viable, he then continued to say that the current runway wouldn't have been able to handle what Delta wanted so it didn't happen. That was back in 2004/5 and the world is a different place now, vitally Delta now have access to LHR so I'm not so sure BHX would be an option anymore.

I wouldn't expect Emirates flying direct out of BHX to any destination other than DXB. What I wouldn't be surprised to hear, before the end of this year however, is some sort of expansion whether it be an A380 on the midday flight or a third daily flight. I think BHX should also be looking at more of the Middle Eastern carriers which could fill the Far East void - especially until we get a direct service (although I believe it'll still be used beyond that point).

You won't see an A380 this year but I have a feeling a morning flight isn't too far away.

 

[Hassaan]

Re: Route Development

BHX-USA seems to be a basket case.

The runway extension as far as the USA goes is a folly, there are several realistic routes that BHX could gain, starting tomorrow if they wanted. Chicago, JFK, Philadelphia, Washington and Charlotte, all fully capable using the B757 and thus BHX if they wanted, but, they don't.

This false hope of Kehoe that 'the west coast USA can be reached' is ridiculous when you cannot even sustain 2 daily flights to the East Coast.

I really don't know why BHX struggles so much, especially when you see how much service a tiny town on the west coast of Ireland can sustain? Heathrow is only part of the issue, and I would be interested to know just what puts off US carriers so much?

This is also why I don't believe BHX can be 'LHRs 3rd runway'. If the carriers are not touching BHX now, why they suddenly will when the market saturates is beyond me. No UK region can be LHRs 3rd runway, each will have to carve out its own niche and yes, some services will be designed to take pressure off LHR by re-routing passengers from one area onto its own flight (exactly what Cathay Pacific aim to do at MAN), but apart from that, its each for their own.

Is there demand for the locations which you mentioned? PHL didn't perform that badly for a seasonal service but they decided not to return because yields were low? Maybe these American carriers just have little faith in BHX because they don't have any other transatlantic successes apart from United which have done well to keep their route going for nearly 17 years. We have Biman starting this summer (of course there's the security thing with their flights to US which they had a bit of an issue with when they used to operate flights between MAN and JFK) and maybe a few other Asian carriers operating to the US via BHX would give them a clearer idea as to what BHX can sustain but, I don't know.

I agree with your point about the west/east coast. Is the west coast that more demanding that the east coast anyway? Fair enough, flights to San Francisco are something that could prove pretty popular, but they have to be economically viable too. I don't think we'll ever know what does put them off - and as you say Dublin/Shannon have managed fine with these services.

I don't know. They are having trouble at the moment sustaining another long-term transatlantic service but hopefully they'll get one (or a few).

 

[User0001]

Re: Route Development

Is there demand for the locations which you mentioned?

Well, they seem to be the 'staple' routes from the regions. MAN has JFK/EWR/PHL/CLT/IAD/ORD. GLA has EWR/PHL, EDI has EWR/ORD/PHL, so there seems to be a recurring trend.

maybe a few other Asian carriers operating to the US via BHX

Which carriers do you mean exactly? Emirates, Qatar, Saudia, Etihad and Kuwait Airways all have the equipment to go direct. Biman and Air India are facing a nightmare with FAA categories at the moment and PIA have maxed out all of their 5 weekly allowance. I don't see any other carrier that could realistically offer a meaningful schedule to the USA from BHX.

Is the west coast that more demanding that the east coast anyway? Fair enough, flights to San Francisco are something that could prove pretty popular, but they have to be economically viable too. I don't think we'll ever know what does put them off - and as you say Dublin/Shannon have managed fine with these services

Shannon doesn't have a west coast flight, and Dublin-San Fran has literally just started again on 2nd April after 5-6 year gap. Dublin has the advantage of being a capital city with a home based long haul scheduled carrier. BHX would have to rely on a US based carrier and they, as we know, are very scarce at BHX.
The issue with the West coast is, you need a proven market via an east coast hub before they even contemplate a west coast flight, a not only is it a large fuel burner on a long route, but it would be almost 100% point to point passengers, as going all the way over the USA means any connections go back on themselves and becomes intolerable for the traveller.

Lets just say, based on BHX's current USA offering, I would be gobsmacked if a west coast route was announced before any of the other hubs (PHL/ORD/JFK) are served.

 

[Hassaan]

Re: Route Development

When the BHX road show bus did the rounds the guy told me that Delta wanted to open the route and the 764 would have to be used as a healthy cargo load would be needed in the early days to make the route viable, he then continued to say that the current runway wouldn't have been able to handle what Delta wanted so it didn't happen. That was back in 2004/5 and the world is a different place now, vitally Delta now have access to LHR so I'm not so sure BHX would be an option anymore.

The world is indeed a different place now compared to then. Back then, PIA had to immediately move their transatlantic flights out of BHX when the 777 was launched because of fears that the runway wouldn't sustain it (that's the only reason I could think of, apart from the fact it would have been difficult to fill the planes up). They started operating the 772 to BHX anyway in July 2007 but at that time PIA were on a sort of strike so any PIA flights were operated by Saga Airlines up to then so I kind of think it wasn't by choice. Emirates didn't even operate their 773s often into BHX very often in those days. A fully-laden 764 was operated by Continental one time in 2004. Delta also operate into Manchester don't they? They did EDI-ATL for about two years, before switching to EDI-JFK for the last two years (and on a smaller 757 compared to 763 before). I think EDI also had lower landing charges than BHX which is partly what put them off but ATL could provide good connections to other areas in the US although arguably not as good as JFK.

You won't see an A380 this year but I have a feeling a morning flight isn't too far away.

A morning flight would see an 8pm arrival time at DXB which could be good for further connections.

 

[Hassaan]

Re: Route Development

Which carriers do you mean exactly? Emirates, Qatar, Saudia, Etihad and Kuwait Airways all have the equipment to go direct. Biman and Air India are facing a nightmare with FAA categories at the moment and PIA have maxed out all of their 5 weekly allowance. I don't see any other carrier that could realistically offer a meaningful schedule to the USA from BHX.

Well the more obscure carriers (some of which BHX may have, e.g Turkmenistan - Uzbekistan did TAS-BHX-JFK at one point).

Shannon doesn't have a west coast flight, and Dublin-San Fran has literally just started again on 2nd April after 5-6 year gap. Dublin has the advantage of being a capital city with a home based long haul scheduled carrier. BHX would have to rely on a US based carrier and they, as we know, are very scarce at BHX.
The issue with the West coast is, you need a proven market via an east coast hub before they even contemplate a west coast flight, a not only is it a large fuel burner on a long route, but it would be almost 100% point to point passengers, as going all the way over the USA means any connections go back on themselves and becomes intolerable for the traveller.

When I was talking about Shannon and Dublin, I was talking about east coast flights. That puts them off alone, never mind west coast flights. And I think BHX needs to secure a number of services to JFK (a good east coast hub in my eyes) before being able to expand further across the US.

Lets just say, based on BHX's current USA offering, I would be gobsmacked if a west coast route was announced before any of the other hubs (PHL/ORD/JFK) are served.

I agree - but I would quite doubt it unless there was a lot of confidence in it. Again I doubt it as no US carrier has any confidence in BHX apart from United it seems. Admittedly American Airlines dropped their service because the 9/11 attacks & the 5 month break resulted in lower passenger numbers.

 

[Hassaan]

Re: Birmingham Airport Rumours

Does anyone think we should merge this with the Route Development thread (but more talk about things we know, and less speculating)?

 

[Brum X]

Re: Birmingham Airport Rumours

Does anyone think we should merge this with the Route Development thread (but more talk about things we know, and less speculating)?

Indeed we should, good idea. Otherwise it gets rather confusing.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Re: Birmingham Airport Rumours

Does anyone think we should merge this with the Route Development thread (but more talk about things we know, and less speculating)?

Does anyone think we should merge this with the Route Development thread (but more talk about things we know, and less speculating)?

Indeed we should, good idea. Otherwise it gets rather confusing.

Tis now done :good:

 

[Brum X]

Re: Route Development & Airport Rumours

Talking about Route Development, picked this up on the MAN thread but includes BHX.

Dont think ive seen Genoa on the BHX Departure board very often ???????

Is this new or happens every summer ??????


Apparently upgraded to the 757 in peak summer months.
Every wednesday ,
TCX 2356 A321 THOMAS COOK UK MAN-GOA ETA GOA 0905
TOM 4338 B738 THOMSONFLY UK LGW-GOA ETA GOA 0920
TOM 2376 B738 THOMSONFLY UK MAN-GOA ETA GOA 0940
TOM 2392 B738 THOMSONFLY UK MAN-GOA ETA GOA 0950
TOM 2354 B738 THOMSON FLY UK MAN-GOA ETA GOA 1000
TOM 7384 B738 THOMSONFLY UK BHX-GOA ETA GOA 1020
TCX 1436 B753 THOMAS COOK UK LGW-GOA ETA GOA 1045
TCX 3246 A321 THOMAS COOK UK GLA-GOA ETA GOA 1700

and

TCX 2357 A321 THOMAS COOK UK GOA-MAN ETD GOA 1005
TOM 4339 B738 THOMSON FLY UK GOA-LGW ETD GOA 1100
TOM 2377 B738 THOMSON FLY UK GOA-MAN ETD GOA 1100
TOM 2393 B738 THOMSON FLY UK GOA-MAN ETD GOA 1110
TOM 2355 B738 THOMSON FLY UK GOA-MAN ETD GOA 1120
TOM 7385 B738 THOMSON FLY UK GOA-BHX ETD GOA 1135
TCX 1437 B753 THOMAS COOK UK GOA-LGW ETD GOA 1145
TCX 3247 A321 THOMAS COOK UK GOA-GLA ETD GOA 1800



These flights are operated for P&O Cruises.