Birmingham-8
Airport Slot Allocations and Impacts on BHX
What we know with regard to the changes to our surrounding context and catchment is as follows:
Bristol - a new 3/4 aircraft Jet2 base is to open up at BRS operating circa 30 new routes. This is confirmed. What appears to be the case is that this is Jet2 going after the market that was utilised by Thomas Cook before they went belly up, wit routes primarily to Greece, Turley and Canaries. This is a risk given the proximity to BHX that this will impact on market share out of BHX. However, as we haven't had a (normal) summer season since Thomas Cooks collapse, we have no way of knowing what impact this will have. This is something worth considering but there is a concern that all the jet2 customers that travelled to BHX from wales and the southwest no longer need to but i have no idea how big that market was...
Manchester - the ACL Slot report has been release and shown the following airline have applied for the following:
= Aer LIngus - a 4 a/c base operating long haul routes to the USA (1x A330 and 3x A321LR)
= Wizz Air - a 4 a/c base operating across europe (4x A321s)
= Ryanair - increase their base at MAN by adding an additional 5x a/c to their existing base
Its worth nothing that these are purely slot allocation to date. All of the above could happen, all of the above could never see the light of day. until flights are formally announced and on sale, its always hard to tell. Obviously there is concern that such growth f it did occur at MAN would have significant consequence on BHX, with the Wizz base also have major consequences on LPL and DSA. Again, until anything formally is announced, nothing is fixed. This could be airlines hedging their bets in the wake of the covid crisis or genuine plans.
Birmingham - similar to the above, the ACL Slot report has been release and shown the following airline have applied for the following:
= Easyjet - applied for 24x additional weekly departures for S21 compared to their proposed S20 schedule taking them to 72x departures a week (+50% on S20)
= Ryanair - applied for 35x additional weekly departures for S21 compared to their proposed S20 schedule them to186x departures a week (+26% on S20)
Unfortunately there are no additional Wizz application beyond the 4x new routes we already know about.
Other interesting inclusions on the report
= Aegean Airlines - application for 2x weekly flights to ATH
= Air India - applied to increase to 8x weekly flights
= CSA Czech Airlines - applied for daily flights to PRG
= Loganair - applied for 29x weekly flights. We know about ABZ and INV but this will also include IOM
And finally....
= Flybe - have been allowed to retain over 600 slots or 300 weekly flights
Again, as above, these are purely slot applications. All of the above could happen, all of the above could never see the light of day. in this day and age we will never know.one thing i find interesting is that even after years of stagnation, for Ryanair to proposed an additional 35-40 weekly flights and an increase of their BHX operations by 25% is big shock. but will it happen? What is clear is that with covid, a lot of airports have a lot of extract space space than before. With several airline collapses and the news the 737M could be back flying in 2021, there is also a lot of aircraft on the market and under utilised that need to be put somewhere.
some interesting time ahead that is for sure!!!!