and yes I eat humble pie as I thought an FR BHX base would be nothing but good news for the airport
Now you see why people were pleased when MAN told FR to sling their hook. Yes they are good for that initial boost to pax numbers, but they wipe out competition, and once they do, move out/reduce citing high costs. Maybe its about time BHX did the same as MAN and force them out.
Maybe I have but why can't an airport located in the centre of the country, adjacent to two major motorways, with its own main line rail station
Maybe this is exactly the problem. BHX is in the middle of a big catchment area, granted, but it has the following issues:
EMA- FR and WW bases and turning into quite a big loco airport in its own right. Being so close to BHX, its always going to be an issue
LTN- its got poland covered and with U2 and FR based there also, maybe preventing BHX growth
LHR- with london so easy to get to by car, coach and train, the long haul fortress of LHR is always going to curb growth at BHX. Will that change now expansion of services at LHR have to look elsewhere? time will tell.
MAN- catches people from the northern end of the BHX catchment for many services BHX want to attract.
So basicall, the easiness of travel to all sorts of airports from BHX is always going to be an issue, so BHX needs to get out there and really promote the idea of using BHX as apposed to the other airports.
You may not have too long to wait for the Easy answer! But FR's response will probably be more spoiling tactics - we will see!
Well, they recently pulled EMA and their BHX-GVA/GNB services are a shade of what they used to operate. If they cant make a low cost base airport like EMA in the midlands work, do you really think they will come to BHX, where it has even more competition for the full service carriers and flybe. Mind you, stranger things have happened, and they do have a gaping hole. They have STN and then nothing going north until MAN, so you never know?