BIRMINGHAM - 6

[OltonPete]

Newquay/United

cornishsimon

Sorry all I have like you is the booking engine to monitor seat-maps and fares.

However last night when I checked for the first outbound today from BHX it was showing full but the only real way of getting a bit of an idea is to monitor fares on a daily basis and that takes time.

United

In respect of the April figure it has to be noted that there were 5 Wednesdays in the month which of course was the non-ops day and the actual pax per flight was 148 or 87%.

As sort of point of interest I was 50 in April and my intended destination was New York and I monitored fares for 11 months for the whole of Apil 2014, although in reality I was restricted to the school holidays. United fares at BHX never came close to anywhere near what I could afford at any point in those 11 months (£600-900 economy return), which I would like to think is good in one way and although I am under no illusion that 87% is probably the least they would expect on an ageing 757 with only 16 BF seats.

The thing is, I doubt we will have to wait that long to see whether it survives despite information to suggest they will be around to 2018, as things can change quickly and the 757 is slowing getting more unreliable with one tech in BHX for nearly three days this month although I haven't got access to the UA 757 despatch reliability but the number of outbound cancellations in the last year has risen compared to nil from AI (although not daily) on the much-maligned 787 although that might be masked by the sheer number of spare wide-bodies they have at times.

On a positive note, a post on another site mentioned that American Airlines 787's will be configured 28/198 and that is not a bad config for a secondary airport like BHX, if they ever do consider ORD sometime in the distant future.

April Passenger figures

This is the CAA version rather than BHX's.

April 2014 passenger figure for BHX 758692 up 16.7%, rolling year 9347077 + 5.5%

April ATM's 7124 +11.5% rolling 86415 +4.8%

Some very encouraging figures on the routes with EK at 90% again, AI and PK around 80%, amazing increases on Stuttgart and Milan even when taking the Easter effect into account and the dreadful April 2013.

Pete