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Old 2nd May 2012, 18:42
  #975 (permalink)  
GayFriendly
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
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Canny old EMA, well done to them for striking a deal with BE and finding a replacement routes that could be lost if WW shuts down. Like AT Notts, I would doubt that BE will take on any WW routes from BHX, concentrating instead on much easier business pickings at EMA, an airport where there is a gap in the market for the kind of high frequency business/hub routes they specialise in. BHX already has these services, operated in the main by legacy carriers. The routes that would be vacated by WW are in the main low frequency leisure which for reasons I cannot fathom never seem to do well at BHX.

So, in the (sadly) ever increasingly likely scenario that WW is shut down in October, i'm afraid as it stands I don't see any obvious candidates for their routes - LIS, NCE, BCN, PRG and NOC I think are the only ones WW operate exclusively from BHX and will therefore more than likely be lost - but being positive, BE do fly to NCE from SOU and NOC from EDI and LBA. NCE also seems to do well on load factors from BHX. And BE did step onto WAT pretty quickly when that went vacant. ZB who have been in expansion mood at BHX maybe for BCN and LIS? Of course it would be so very nice if EZY stepped ito the breach but IMO I think that is unlikely.

What worries me is that PK and his team seem so utterly focused on the runway extension and getting a long haul route to China that the bread and butter of short haul will yet again take a hit at BHX with the loss of another carrier (not BHX's fault I know) and no one in the wings to take over lost routes and pax - unlike EMA who already seem already well prepared for the sadly seemingly inevitable.
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