Originally Posted by
SAM-EMA
I think your 'pie in the sky' comment was not appropriate bmibaby.com. We all have our own opinions.
SAM-EMA
It really wasn't intended to be rude, just a wake up call for a lot of people. This isn't a forum for wishful thinking, rather for people involved with the airport to seriously discuss what's up at the airport. There are a lot of people who use the airport who would love to have an American link, but if anything trans-atlantic competition in the midlands has contracted over the last few years since we lost both BA & AA at BHX, instead we're left with Continental serving EWR double-daily there, and no other airlines really showing any interest in the region. I think United would be great serving ORD for example, but chances of it happening are slim. Same with a Middle-Eastern airline, Emirates is firmly attached to BHX and it's not unreasonable to predict that if Gulf Air, Etihad or Qatar were to start flights to the regions, they would pick the airport serving the UK's second largest city rather than EMA. Instead, EMA's phenomenal traffic growth has come from no-frills airlines over the past four years, and surely the airport's growth plans as well as route development ought to be spent right now in ensuring that easyJet doesn't leave for another airport, that bmibaby consider EMA for expansion not just BHX, that Ryanair continue their expansion, and Thomsonfly consider some of their high-frequency flights from here. Also they could be looking at other no-frills airlines that don't necessarily need to base aircraft here. It would be nice for bmi to work with their Star Alliance carriers to bring someone in like Lufthansa but the chances are slim.
I'm a huge supporter of EMA, my place of work and local airport for over a decade now, but no matter how impressive the statistics of passenger growth, we are a regional airport, and predicitions of lots of new longhaul carriers & a need for airbridges are simply farfetched.