BIRMINGHAM

[Banzai Eagle]

MarkBHX where did you get all that info from????, you an insider or??

[OltonPete]

Tomorrows extra XLA & LS's

I had local radio on in the car on the way from work and one headline was
"generous Black Country boss pays for weekend break in Spain for
500 of his workers" - or something similar

I trust that this could be the explanation for the 2 x LS 733 and XLA 763?

Sorry can't remember the name of "The Boss" or company, as I was back
on the drive before the full article was on and I then totally forgot about it once I was back in the madhouse.

Better than a pat on the back and you keep your job for another year

OltonPete

[Malcolm G O Payne]

A staff member of Air Sahara, recently taken over by Jet Airways, told me today that the new combined airline is shortly to operate Delhi to BHX. Will this be in place of Air India?

[OltonPete]

JET

Malcolm G O Payne

There has been plenty of rumours and quotes in various articles but the
latest one was once the first A330 is delivered (pictures today on various
forums) then it might allocated to the Air Sahara LHR route (depending on the speed of the merger) thus freeing the 767 for BHX subject to Indian government approval.

There is as far as I know, no connection with the Air India route. I can fully understand if Jet do get cold feet with AI increasing to six a week
but rumour has it they are still committed.

The other talk was that Jet might try Ahmadabad due to the connection
with the Midlands, well East Midlands to be accurate but beggars can't be choosers.

OltonPete

[Malcolm G O Payne]

Thankyou Pete. I didn't catch on to the significance, as I was more concerned with BHX, but the Ops officer I was talking to also raised EMA with reference to the Asian population in Derby.

[Tom the Tenor]

Allowing for breaks and calls of nature how long might a coach journey take from BHX to Cardiff on a Saturday morning?

Thanks from Cork!

[OltonPete]

BHX-CWL

Tom the Tenor

Not done it for years but 3 hours if you are lucky or 2 hours if it is
National Express . I was doing 60 in a 60 limit yesterday between
Brum & Cov and those Nat Express boys left me for dead - thought
they were restricted to 60mph?

Anyway so once you land, wait for the buses (if you are on remote)
clear arrivals, M5, M4 (I assume) then no problem you will be there
by 5 - what time does the game start?

All the best

OltonPete

[Centre cities]

Tom the Tenor

BHX to Cardiff about 2.30 to 2.45 ish

Take it you are on the Corsair not able to get into Cardiff.

Centre cities

[RealFish]

[QUOTE=MarkBHX]Quite a few interesting movements coming up over the rest of the month, anyone know what any of them are for?
Fri 19th Channel Express / Jet2 733 LS21P/6024 Arr 07:50 - Dep 09:20 from Newcastle/ to Malaga
Fri 19th Channel Express / Jet2 733 LS24P/6021 Arr 08:15 - Dep 09:45 from Leeds-Bradford/ to Malaga
Fri 19th Luxair 735 LG7587/7587 Arr 08:25 - Dep 09:10 from/to Luxembourg
Fri 19th Excel Airways 762 XLA158P/7159 Arr 09:00 - Dep 10:30 from Gatwick/ to Malaga
Sat 20th Corsair 743 CRL809/810 Arr 10:15 - Dep 21:15 from/to Shannon
Sat 20th Corsair 743 CRL841/842 Arr 10:35 - Dep 22:30 from/to Cork
Sun 21st Monarch AB6 MON8027/27P Arr 15:25 - Dep 17:00 from Malaga/ to Gatwick
Sun 21st Air Europa 738 AEA201/202 Arr 15:55 - Dep 16:55 from Malaga/ to Madrid
Wed 24th Croatia Airlines 320 OU1508/1509 Arr 15:30 - Dep 16:20 from/to Split
Sat 27th Jetair 734 TUB9783F/9784 Arr 09:00 - Dep 10:00 from Brussels/ to Tarbes-Osson
Sat 27th Jetair 734 TUB9721F/9722 Arr 13:25 - Dep 14:20 from Ostend/ to Tarbes-Osson
Sat 27th Aigle Azur 320 ZI945F/946 Arr 14:20 - Dep 15:20 from Paris CDG/ to Tarbes-Osson
Sun 28th Pulkovo TU5 FV6701/6702 Arr 09:40 - Dep 10:45 from/to St.Petersburg **
Sun 28th Futura 734 FUA771P/1772 Arr 11:20 - Dep 12:10 from Las Palmas/ to Arrecife
Mon 29th Futura 734 FUA1735/1736 Arr 01:15 - Dep 02:15 from/to Ibiza
Cheers Mark[/QUOTE

It seems that one of this morning's 743's has been replaced by a 744 arrival at 08.20.

Could it be one of these, landing at the famous Sint Maartin PJIA (TNCM)Airport (or beach) ? See the Cpt Kangaroo link below!

http://www.sunsetbeachbar.com/Member...145225933/view

NB: You may need membership to get a sight of the photo, if so I strongly recommend that you do not stray too far into the site, particularly to the barflies and photo albums where there is evidence of wicked goings-on that will be of no interest to anyone in the aviationindustrrrrry....aargh !

[OltonPete]

Jet

Originally Posted by Malcolm G O Payne

Thankyou Pete. I didn't catch on to the significance, as I was more concerned with BHX, but the Ops officer I was talking to also raised EMA with reference to the Asian population in Derby.

Not sure of the specifics but certainly compared to the West Mids the East Mids has a fairly large population connected to the Gujarat area of India. Whether this would be enough to support a NEMA service (it has been mentioned in their local press) I do not know.

I am not sure exactly how many services that BHX can support to ATQ
but it will take a few months to see how the Air India increase has
affected Turkmenistan and Uzbek. During the last 12 months the CAA
stats show that these two have not done too bad but the GM flights
via Bratislava seemed to have reduced.

OltonPete

[OltonPete]

Rumour of new 757 ETOPS routes to US for 2007

Just pinching threads from airliners.net and it is all rumour
but interesting considering CO have the lead regionally in the UK,
Delta are following Europe wide (not the 757 though) and now: -

Northwest to convert 10 757's for DTW - Europe services

Rumoured are DTW-BHX, DTW-MAN, DTW-DUB & possibly GLA

US Air are to convert 3 more 757's to ETOPS and PHL-BHX is
rumoured again for 2007 (third year running).

Any 757 drivers out there got any comments on BHX-DTW
with strong headwinds etc. Would there be any weight
restrictions or is it no worse the TXL-EWR (mind you that
has been known to tech stop).

OltonPete

[Evileyes]

Flying Fairy, I have taken the liberty of moving your post (and the response) to the Cabin Crew forum where you are likely to get more resonses.

[firstforfirstchoice]

I think that from early June Air India are reducing the frequency of their flights into BHX from six weekly to five weekly.

Not sure if this is correct, can anyone confirm please??

Thanks in advance.

Cheers.

[OltonPete]

firstforfirstchoice

Reported this morning on a BHX forum. I have checked the AI website
and the Thursday (wef 8/6/06) inbound Amritsar has gone, which also means the Thursday outbound Toronto, Friday inbound Toronto and Friday
outbound Amritsar have all bitten the dust. In November it is still shown as five a week

Not too surprising at present as it is "low season" but this appears
permanent.

OltonPete

[Scottie Dog]

Don't believe Winter Timetable!!

OltonPete

As a general rule it is still very early for an airline to have put it's 'final' winter timetable on sale. The current timetable showing on websites/GDS systems, is highly likely to change - it is often still showing the previous winter's schedule. Hopefully you will retain your Amritsar service, but if it has gone for the summer it may also go for the winter.

[bmibaby.com]

Not wanting to slander, but I hear that flybe are not best impressed with the service that Swissport are offering out of BHX, despite being only two months into the contract. Does anybody have any news on how this is doing? I know Swissport have grown very quickly, and don't personally think they can offer the standard of service we get from aviance. Perhaps a bit bias, as aviance did used to be part of British Midland, but I still think they're by far the superior handling agent.

[OltonPete]

Swissport

bmibaby

Not spoken to my friend at Swissport recently but there were problems
on both sides. His gripe was the amount of late aircraft changes due
to tech or other reasons, which caused knock on problems.

I also believe that the "turnaround" becomes free if any delay is proven to be caused by Swissport and this aspect is contentious.

As an outsider looking in I certainly cannot think of any other airline
that has in the past changed aircraft so often for one reason or the
other. Whether this has been due to tech aircraft or routine maintenance I do not know.

Of course some would see this as a plus point as Flybe do seem
to have a spare aircraft available in BHX a lot of the time, thus keeping the pax reasonably happy, as there are few canx flights.

On the other hand I suppose handlers do not rota staff on the basis
that airlines are going to chop and change their aircraft so often.

I have to say I have always been impressed with Aviance at BHX
and was surprised when Flybe moved. I assume that the price was
right and some would say you get what you pay for!

I feel this one is going to run and run.

OltonPete

[FougaMagister]

The word on the street (or should I say the ramp?) is that Flybe has served a months' warning to Swissport to improve things or else. One result is that Flight Dispatchers are going to reappear on some Flybe flights (JER/GCI). Surprise, surprise! Whoever thought that a 25-minute turnaround could be done without a Dispatcher being actually in charge of proceedings needs his/her head examined!

That said, when Flybe left Aviance, most Dispatchers there were quite happy and thought "good ridance" - the main problem was (is?) with BE's ops department and their habit of sending never-ending ops flashes to re-jig the day's flying programme at the last minute. It might be a paper change for them down in Exeter, but on the frontline, it gets a little bit more complicated (with stand changes, buses/ambulift to book at short notice, different lounges to use/man, fuellers/apron/ramp department to inform of the changes, sometimes aircraft config changes/seating changes, etc). And don't expect any thanks from them when things do work out!

In comparison, bmi OPS usually shine by their professionalism, even when there is disruption.

Cheers

[PARIS2BERLIN]

Swissport/Flybe

HI!
This is my 1st post, but noticed that the Swissport/Fly(may)be topic is quite hot at the mo.
BMI BABY.COM from what I've heard Aviance were the laughing stock of the ramp when they handled Flybe, seems the curse has followed them to Swissport, and Aviance had dispatchers.Looks like there's a common denominator here...... If you look at the preformance stats from last year, Swissport were far superior.

[bazzab68]

swissport muppets

This is my 1st post, but noticed that the Swissport/Fly(may)be topic is quite hot at the mo.
BMI BABY.COM from what I've heard Aviance were the laughing stock of the ramp when they handled Flybe, seems the curse has followed them to Swissport, and Aviance had dispatchers.Looks like there's a common denominator here...... If you look at the preformance stats from last year, Swissport were far superior.[/quote]

I must disagree here. maybe they were the best agents for screw ups around the airport. Only last week they impaled a set of steps into airbrigde 41 not just once but both sides.
This company call pax to the lounge even before aircrafts leave the out station, meaning pax are stuck in the lounge for hours.
ALSO they send buses to aircraft before crew even arrive at the airport. Fantastic handling.
Calls to PA are also hillarious as HK1 is generally are always being put out as missing on flights and as people in the business know this is an abbreviation for an infant.