UA Leaving Birmingham...
I'm a little off the boil on Birmingham news, but very sad to see the Newark route ending, after 20+ years...
People are saying, it is not surprising news, how come?
In the time the Birmingham to Newark route has been going, we've seen recessions, credit crunches, 9/11, record fuel prices and competition on the route from other carriers, and CO/UA have always come out the other end maintaining the route in some form...
The economy is still very buoyant and with the US outside of Brexit, I struggle to see that as a cause. Also Birmingham had no competition on the route from low cost competition like Norwegian or Thomas Cook.
I remember back in the late 90's or early 00s the route was so successful, it was upgraded to the DC-10 and at another time operated twice daily on certain days, flying 10-11 times a week, with the 757's.
I wonder if Emirates could see this as an opportunity to fly something like NYC-BHX-DXB?!... Maybe exercise their fifth freedom rights and re-introduce the third daily Dubai frequency, while at the same time operating onwards to the USA with a stop in Brum, they do something similar out of Milan and there's been rumours of a similar UK service for years.