Route Development & Rumours

[ethanegcc]

Sorry, just realised the hint was some of the destinations were ones previously served. In this case, I see BHX/EDI as strong contenders along with secondary German airports. It would be great for BHX to have some more Latin American/African connectivity

 

[User001]

Thought this may be of interest to some, from Anna.aero:

(ORL is Orlando airports (SFB/MCO), ROM is Rome airports (FCO/CIA)). While these Skyscanner 'searched routes' are interesting, I suppose caution is needed as there is obviously a grey area in how many of these searches were 'legitimate' in that the person had every intention to book. The reason being, many people could search without intention to book, and also, I believe Skyscanner is susceptible to 'bot' activity that is used for marketing and price comparason.

Interesting all the same though, as I wouldn't disagree with the popularity of the searched routings.

 

[Brum X]

Thanks for the info, dont really understand the IBZ/FAO stats though as there are quite a few airlines who offer both these destinations and even more next year when Jet2 arrive at BHX.

Orlando on the other hand is a no brainer

 

[User001]

I think it's saying underserved on searches vs capacity available. It may be 1.1million people searched for BHX-FAO, but only 800,000 seats available, but BHX-PMI may have had 2million searches but 2.5 million seats available

(just an example, I don't know the actual figures, but again, shows why the figures need caution as we don't know what the 'control measure' is)

 

[Ray Finkle]

As said the likes of FAO and IBZ will look healthier next year with Jet2.

Budapest could clearly do with more, hopefully an increase from Wizz but possibly Jet2 to enter the Market? Prague could also be prime territory for Jet2, I'm sure that they could give Czech Airlines a run for their money.

Rome definitely needs some competition. Vueling, Norwegian, Jet2, Ryanair? Any will do.

Fed up of talking about Orlando

 

[Ray Finkle]

To change direction slightly here's an interesting Tweet from Mr Tom Screen.

Far East road trip just about done. Singapore great, Kuala Lumpur meh, Chengdu interesting, Hong Kong AMAZING #worktrip

So it appears that all destinations visited were business rather than pleasure. Obviously Chengdu was for the routes conference but the other three?

Maybe another piece to the 'interesting 2018' puzzle?

 

[Jerry]

Far East road trip just about done. Singapore great, Kuala Lumpur meh, Chengdu interesting, Hong Kong AMAZING

Any of those 4 would be great for BHX.

 

[Coathanger16]

I would certainly welcome any of those routes to BHX.

Hong Kong I could certainly see as being viable. Cathay have some pretty large orders for new aircraft - I don't see BHX as being a target for the new aircraft, but it could be served by some older aircraft when the new ones replace them on bigger routes.

Until recently Manchester's service to Singapore was with a stopover in Munich. Even now its served direct with the flight continuing to Houston. If it was SQ I imagine BHX would be added as a tag to another European destination. Scoot seem to want to expand into Europe so a direct service with them could be possible.

Kuala Lumpur and Chengdu only received flights relatively recently from British Airways to Heathrow so I don't see either being very likely in the near future (especially as the rumour is Chengdu hasn't performed as well as BA had hoped).

Hopefully a sign of good things to come though. For now we have to wait though

 

[Ray Finkle]

Hong Kong Airlines have been mentioned as a possible airline for HKG. They are part of HNA so we'll see what happens there.

Scoot are on the radar but I'd imagine there would be nothing until the end of 2017 at the earliest, it's probably more likely to be 2018.

The only one I could see to Kuala Lumpur would be Air Asia but Mr Fernandes has made no secret of his desire to get London back on the route map. Paris also seems to be on the hit list. An outside bet could be something via India to connect on to Air Asia India's growing network.

 

[JENNYJET]

Dear Gentlefolk,

Mentioned previously, I queried the runway extension if only beneficial to existing services but not for getting direct global services such as Sao Paulo, Rio, Caracas, Dallas, Washington, Denver, Los Angeles, Nairobi, Cape Town, Colombo ...you get the picture so is it the intended growth aimed at European and Middle East and the Sub Continent or is there any ambition to reach out?

BHX is a superb facility but very under utilized, the runway being inactive for long periods possibly because of terminal restrictions etc. so it is all well and good to read this thread but can anything happen if we lose a service before it begins?

China remains unexplained satisfactorily as is the Biman service announced when the DC-10 was brought to BHX on it's retirement.

The speculation about new Hong Kong, Malaysia and others is pointless until the airport becomes future to handle such services at peak arrivals am and PM.

Just my opinion of course but I need to see some progress in the physical growth of the airport before the flying activities increase because it is a binary growth or no growth.

Thank you folks!

 

[Coathanger16]

Jennyjet

Perhaps the focus on Asia and other eastern destinations is due to the fact that they remain relatively poorly served from the UK. Birmingham would have a difficult time attracting an airline to fly to Los Angeles say as it is already very well served from Heathrow and to a lesser extent from Manchester.

I don't personally have a problem with him, but I suspect if Mr Osbourne hadn't stepped in at the last minute and took the Chinese President to Manchester, Hainan would probably have launched the Beijing route to Birmingham. Having already operated charter flights previously the brand was already recognized here, so getting a new airline to start that route would mean starting over from scratch.

Birmingham certainly has the runway capacity to handle more flights, but having traveled through BHX its clear that something needs to happen with the terminal - the airport has recently announced they will begin consultation of their master plan in the spring with the final version being released towards the end of 2017. Hopefully this will see the Terminal improved sufficiently to accommodate future growth of flights.

Having just been looking at another thread on the site regarding this years statistics, from January to August this year the airport has managed a 12.5% increase in passengers. If this continues for the rest of the year, we could see BHX reaching 11.5mppa this year. Interesting times ahead for Birmingham I'm sure.

 

[User001]

I don't personally have a problem with him, but I suspect if Mr Osbourne hadn't stepped in at the last minute and took the Chinese President to Manchester, Hainan would probably have launched the Beijing route to Birmingham

There is nothing at all to suggest that Manchester 'stole' the Beijing flights other than quotes from individuals not linked to the industry in any way.

Hainan had been talking to Manchester for at least 3 years prior (which was long before the Hainan flights started at BHX), even Paul Kehoe had acknowledged that, so, the Manchester flights were just a succession of those talks.

There is currently no quote from Caissa/HNA as to why the Birmingham flights this year didn't go ahead, so, it's pure speculation to suggest the Manchester flights had anything to do with that.

 

[Coathanger16]

There is nothing at all to suggest that Manchester 'stole' the Beijing flights other than quotes from individuals not linked to the industry in any way.

Hainan had been talking to Manchester for at least 3 years prior (which was long before the Hainan flights started at BHX), even Paul Kehoe had acknowledged that, so, the Manchester flights were just a succession of those talks.

There is currently no quote from Caissa/HNA as to why the Birmingham flights this year didn't go ahead, so, it's pure speculation to suggest the Manchester flights had anything to do with that.

My apologies - I was not aware that Hainan had been in talks with Manchester. I guess I should get a hold of the facts before jumping in with accusations.

I just find it strange that even given those discussions that an airline would go for an at the time untested route, over one that they themselves had previously flown (albeit as a summer charter).

My assumption was largely based on the fact that the Chinese President was due to come to Birmingham, but was then "redirected" to Manchester, and that the announcement of the Manchester - Beijing route took place whilst the Chinese President was in Manchester. It certainly would have been strange for him to announce the route whilst being in Birmingham (perhaps it was meant to be announced at another time, but seeming as they found themselves in Manchester they decided to announce it then).

Although it may have sounded so, I am not a "BHX is better than MAN" or "BHX before MAN" person. Both airports have a role to play, both do it successfully, and I wish both the best going forward.

 

[User001]

I apologise if this seems a bit 'anti-Brum' (it certainly isn't) and may be a bit OT:

But again, there was no solid evidence to suggest the Chinese Premier was supposed to go to Birmingham. There are again, like the Hainan news, anecdotal tidbits that he was 'supposed' to come to Birmingham, but from what I can see, for as long as the plans of his visit were public, he was supposed to go to Manchester.

Even his aides at one point stating that Xi had been excited for a few months to be visiting Manchester due to his love of Manchester United, but was disappointed to have to go to the Manchester city ground instead. From what I've seen, it does certainly seem like a visit to Manchester was always planned.

In terms of the Hainan flights at BHX, they were 'straight off the bat' so to speak as Caissa were the driver of those flights, and chartered out the Hainan airlines aircraft in the same way they had done with the China Southern aircraft the year before. For all intents and purposes, this was not a Hainan Airlines route and had zero risk for Hainan, so, did not alter what was going on with their discussions at Manchester. From what was said, Manchester would have had the route before BHX regardless, and the main disappointment was that it was hoped BHX could nab the flights in the final hour of the charter flights proved themselves, but it seems HNA were intent on their plans. It's worth pointing out that throughout the charters, at no point did Hainan apply for scheduled BHX-PEK, but HU did already hold the rights to MAN-PEK. Without the CAA application, the flights could not run so tells you what you need to know.

The only grey area for BHX is what happened to the BCA flights this year. It's never been fully explained what happened for them not to run, and again, has lots of speculation.

 

[hammerb32]

I make you right with regards to the Chinese Presidents agenda, from memory he visited Brum in 2011 so was due to go up North.

 

[Coathanger16]

User001

Fair enough then. From what I had read, I was under the impression that he was meant to be coming to Birmingham and no mention was made of Manchester. I suppose that's media bias for you.

After having had charter flights to Beijing for a couple of years it just seems a bit of a kick in the teeth for Manchester to get a scheduled route - I don't mean that they got it instead of Birmingham, just that they got one whilst Birmingham didn't. I'm sure there's enough demand for flights from both - Manchester has 4 flights per week, perhaps an airline flying to Birmingham on the other 3 days would get reasonable loads.

 

[Brum X]

Im still optimistic that we will see a scheduled flight to China from BHX very soon, if not 2017, then in 2018. I also think that if a flight is to be successful then it will have to operate on a minimum frequency of x 4 per week to make it attractive to business passengers as well as leisure.
A330 or 787 Aircraft would also be perfect for a BHX-China flight.

 

[Coathanger16]

Just spotted this:

https://www.thomascookairlines.com/en/cheap-flights/usa/orlando/from-birmingham/

 

[ethanegcc]

It looks like a weekly service starting May 2017 between BHX and MCO. It will be operated by the air tanker aircraft so therefore with no PE and 9 abreast Y. It gives BHX an MCO link and puts some competition on TOM.

 

[User001]

Yes it's a one off flight as they have done a few times in the past. Shame they can't do something more regular.

The other links are using LH/Condor/JetBlue in a 2 stop service, hardly enticing!