BIRMINGHAM - 4

[TSR2]

chinapattern

On the 31st Dec Albert Hall wrote:

Monarch has picked up a contract to do a total of five 757 roundtrips per week (using an aircraft with 30+ seats removed for the purpose) on Gatwick-Ottawa and Montreal plus a Gatwick-Toronto-Birmingham W pattern

This may answer your question re Monarch.

[JamesKirk]

Monarch doing the CA Summer flights

From Canadian Affairs Website

Where We Fly - Flight Schedules

Birmingham - Toronto
Day Start-End Depart Arrive Stop Aircraft Flight
Tue 03 May - 25 Oct 09:20 12:00 Non-Stop Airbus A330 TS 165
Sat 07 May - 29 Oct 11:20 14:20 Non-Stop Boeing 757 MON 114

Monarch 757 aircraft not TCX

[chinapattern]

Are they going to spruce them up a bit? I wouldn't fancy seven hours in one if they are in the same state as when I last flew one.

[JonnyBfs]

re Monarch;
The booking engine has the TCX flights and no Monarchs listed.
Come November 2011, the MAN flights are all Monarch.
If you received the revised canadian affair brochure (30th December??) it shows the B757 seat map for Monarch but none to TCX.
Also this revised brochure lists, as the site does, the Monarch flights.

Hope this has helped. The Manchester thread would be a good visit for more.

[Hassaan13]

According to Wikipedia, BHX is the seventh busiest airport now, Edinburgh has overtaken it. It's a real shame. Hopefully we'll go back up to fifth after we get some new services this year. Have there been any confirmed?

[Centre cities]

Dont know of any new services apart from replacement carriers on existing routes.

In respect of being 5th 7th or whatever I suspect the board are more concerned with the balance sheet profit/loss situation rather than the numbers.

Extra passengers does not always mean extra revenue.


Centre cities

[Hassaan13]

Richard Branson, president of Virgin Atlantic Airways, says this:

I might bring my airline in and make Birmingham a major intercontinental hub. So what if there is not the population to support it, this petition has convinced me that we, like all airlines, should be completely philanthropic and listen to 13 year old spotters when making crucial business decisions.

He was talking about the AA ORD-BHX petition.

[wanna_be_there]

Has, if you can't see that it is someone having a laugh then I feel sorry for you. Read the thing again and try convincing people that is something an airline CEO would say .....

[NorthernCounties]

Hahaha! Sorry but come on! Although, Hassain, you do provide a good laugh now and then. Where did Branson "say" this?

[Phileas Fogg]

Hassaan,

How's your, upon my behalf, petition for a 4 engined BHX-Philippines route doing?

Richard Branston ..... Are you listening?

YouTube - Del meets Richard Branson - Only Fools and Horses - BBC

[crewmeal]

Richard Branston ..... Are you listening?

I always thought Branston was a pickle, try Branson. Now whose having a laugh - give the guy a break Phileas he's s great supporter of BHX which is more than I can say for some of the men in suits sitting on their assets in the marketing dept.

[chinapattern]

According to Wikipedia

Says it all really

[GayFriendly]

Just saw this on another thread.....PIA have sold their JFK and ORD slots to TK, this was after (from a news thread in Pakistan)

PK Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Barcelona and Milan services will also be dropped, there are rumors of Birmingham and Leeds going as well, possibly Paris too. To be resumed Houston and possibly Male/Maldives and new destination to start Sydney.

I hope that this is just a rumour!! It does say possibly and we all know how PIA 'work'! If it is true, TK would have to upgrade to a 330 to accomodate the demand?? Or could we see AirBlue step in? Interesting times ahead, by all accounts this PK/TK link up will be full op by summer schedules so all will be revealed quite soon me thinks.

[Centre cities]

PIA

Thats not what I have heard but I suppose it is a case of wait and see.

4 x 777 80% load factor per week via Turkey with a connecting flight to Karachi then aircraft change to Islamabad is not a good substitution in any one's books. Alternative a journey to LHR or MAN.

Centre cities

[Phileas Fogg]

Cc,

Are you saying there are not connections BHX-Pakistan readily available via AMS, CDG, FRA, MUC, ZRH, DXB etc. and the only alternative is that pax ignore BHX and travel from LHR or MAN?

[Centre cities]

No, those opiotions are available, I was commenting on business from PIAs point of view.

Centre cities

[PhilBHX]

Can't be for real

Richard Branson, president of Virgin Atlantic Airways, says this:

Quote:
I might bring my airline in and make Birmingham a major intercontinental hub. So what if there is not the population to support it, this petition has convinced me that we, like all airlines, should be completely philanthropic and listen to 13 year old spotters when making crucial business decisions.
He was talking about the AA ORD-BHX petition.

Hassaan and his petition have been entertaining but this is taking the joke a little too far for credibility. Good wind up Hassaan, well done mate! Unfortunately attempting to make the good ppruners believe you actually thought this was R.Branson, or for that matter any of the other celebs who have signed your petition was stretching it a bit too far.

Always enjoy a good wind up though - well tried mate!

[crewmeal]

I'll repeat what I said before:

The rumblings of Pakistan going into deals with Turkish won't necessarily be a good thing because of the extra time it will take to get there. For now there is a direct service to ISB which takes around 7.30 hours, with a transit in IST then the whole flight could take around 10 hours or more. Not the way forward me thinks.

The only way this route could work is if the fare structures were low and TK/PIA went head to head with EK. if not then EK will have the monopoly on the route and as I said before maybe BHX will get it's 3rd service.

I remember using PIA'S PEW route back in 2004/5. It took 7.45 for the non stop flight, after they stopped it it took 20 hours via DXB and a lot more money.

[chinapattern]

Regarding PIA, if BHX and LBA are under the axe I'd bet on LBA going first. But who knows, I don't think they've got a clue what they're doing.

I can't see EK launching a 3rd daily at BHX anytime soon. I'd guess that BHX will follow the same pattern as MAN and have an A380 on the lunchtime service. I think a third daily service with any aircraft type would be too big an increase. But if PIA do go, someone has to pick up the slack. Do Turkish have the spare aircraft to upragde BHX or go daily?

[OltonPete]

December Route Analysis

Source of the monthly passenger figures - CAA

Average pax and load factors my estimates using a bhx blog and libhomeradar. Very estimated last month due to the weather diverts,
cancellations.

On the PIA matter, looking at it logically (obviously logic does not
always apply), expecting to shift 7500-9000 pax a month via Istanbul
is a total non-starter. They would have accept that quite a few pax will
be lost to EK and others (although they might hope to shift them through MAN/LHR) and balance this against the cost of continuing with direct flights.

The deal seems far from done anyway and there are so many different
articles with differing claims, it is getting stupid.

As a co-incidence an EK third flight would probably be a 9am BHX
departure with links into EK's third busiest bank which is mainly India/Pakistan. As the last three months figures show an EK third
flight is hardly needed at present, this of course might change in the
next 9-12 months.

Brussels/8487(6418)/56 pax/59-60%
Larnaca/3684 (3696/160 pax/82%
Copenhagen/5527(4711)/86 pax/67%
Biarittz/nil(1831)
Chambery/809(597)???
Grenoble/697(1351)/87 pax/56% (probably more like 115 outbound)
Lyon/1723(1722)/33 pax/66%
Dusseldorf/10644(11888)/45 pax/56%
Frankfurt/18453(17827)/76 pax/74%
Hamburg/2104(2270)/46 pax/59%
Hanover/3723(3599)/56 pax/68%
Munich/9778(8930)/69 pax/80%
Weeze/4117(4510)/137 pax/73%
Stuttgart/2878(2472)/37 pax/47%
Cork/5229(8733)/47 pax/65%
Dublin/35838(45890)/129 pax/71%
Knock/2954(2880)/87 pax/62%
Shannon/2477(4213)/46 pax/64%
Waterford/1003(1634)/39 pax/53%
Milan MXP/2176(1690)/52 pax/66%
Pisa/nil(2379)
Malta/2884(1820)/103 pax/63%
Amsterdam/31694(31654)/92 pax/70%
Faro/4511(4730)/141 pax/73%
Alicante/13310(12207)/166 pax/89%
Girona/3030(3952)/126 pax/67%
Malaga/10379(11575)/160 pax/81%
Murcia/nil(3867)
Arrecife/6796(5156)/170 pax/86%
Fuerteventura/1510/151 pax/71%
Las Palmas/2977(3488)/135 pax/60%
Tenerife/13194(13264)/167 pax/80%
Gothenberg/1573(1240)/22 pax/47%
Geneva/3692(6741)/119 pax/75%
Zurich/11310(12368)/65 pax/65%
Istanbul/3205(3845)/76 pax/54%
Prague/3845(9498)/107 pax/75%
Kaunas/nil(2337)
Bydgoszcz/3846(nil)/148 pax/78%
Gdansk/2373(2660)/170 pax/90%
Katowice/2628(2391)/146 pax/77%
Krakow/3866(3202)/149 pax/79%
Rzesnow/2606(2332)/145 pax/77%
Bratislava/4365(4201)/162 pax/85%
Ashkhabad/5802(5033)/145 pax/78%
Tehran/4033(4741)/155 pax/80%
Dubai/41432(36325)/334 pax/78%
Islamabad/8147(7077)/291 pax/79%
Newark/6928(7077)151 pax/86%

Pete