BIRMINGHAM - 6

[OltonPete]

Wizz & Aer Lingus

AerRyan

I assume you mean Cork and Shannon and not Dublin? Dublin is four daily Saturday - Wednesday and five daily Thursday and Friday and no sign of a 6th as per the online article, not even during Cheltenham.

Having said that they do have some competitive fares to the US, very topical considering the ding dong on the Manchester thread.

Wizz

Fantastic news even if they do charge for some hand luggage. The only slight negative aspect is the days of operation of the Budapest. Warsaw you could probably operate at 03.00 on a Monday/Tuesday night in winter and it would still fill but I would have liked the Warsaw days of operation on the Budapest route but of course it doesn't work like that.

Budapest has only ever been operated by Ryanair (I think) and was dropped after a spat about Hungarian Airport charges but it was noticeable that not all UK routes were discontinued but BHX was one of them. Despite that the CAA stats for 2012 show 25384 pax with 158 rotations giving a load factor of 84% for a 40 week operation.

Warsaw per the 2008 CAA stats was 37063 with 234 rotations by Norwegian and 109 by BMI Baby giving an average of 108 pax per flight at a load factor of 73% based on 149 seats (some BMI baby were 500's at 131 seats).

Strange how at the time it seemed Norwegian were packed out on every flight but the figures show otherwise. I also thought Ryanair struggled early season on Budapest but if they did it was not for long.

I remember Norwegian and Baby fares were very soft and although the former was always going to end with the closure of the Warsaw base, I would only describe the pax figures as okay. I am sure low yields were mentioned for the BMI Baby and FR Budapest route closures mixed in with airport charges but there is definitely a market. Market conditions are probably better now and of course it is a different airline and hopefully both routes will be successful.



Pete