BIRMINGHAM - 4

[finding_nema]

During the winter when there is a lot of heavy maintenance to the baby fleet, though it does happen with tech a/c in the summer, flights between EMA and BHX are combined. Whether it means operating a flight into BHX and coaching some to EMA, or operating a flight with a stop to pick up pax, this is going to be particularly prevalent again this winter, particularly if the fleet is being shrunk. PSA and SZG have both been operated by baby in the past, and have been dropped as quietly as they were launched. It's worth thinking yourselves as lucky at BHX that you get the more imaginative of routes because the competition is considerably easier. I had heard MXP would be joining FCO on the Italian network soon though.

[OltonPete]

Baby

finding_nema

Although MXP is served this can't come soon enough, Flybe still appear
to have no intention of moving the 145 off yet.

However MXP will need to be double daily and that means another
aircraft based or a re-jig of the schedule.

Lee

As for GLA, the main problem is the last inbound to BHX, especially Tuesday through Thursday. The best thing pax wise would be to run the
last BHX-GLA up at 1900-2000 and night-stop it and bring it back early
as they were going to do with EDI from last week (now 29/10).

However of course this then causes overnight costs for the crew so
they probably can't win but they definitely need that late departure
from BHX.


GF

Spot-on with those routes, fairly safe 3-5 times a week.

Pity they did not stick their neck out on the days the aircraft does not go to Madrid and do Krakow. SkyEurope were averaging between 75 & 85% and I suggest it would have continued if the base was not to close.

Pete

[Budfrey27]

Baby

...with regard to a SXF service from Birmingham......Baby i'm hoping will introduce this route and i'm positive it will do more than well !!!!!!! More than enough pax to go round for both airports. I've certainly never made the trip up the road to EMA.....never intend to.....have a superb Intercontinental airport on my doorstep which i use regularly.......

nb ryanair cares for nothing and no-one....including the cabin crew.....you guys just feed the monster............'dispensable' springs to mind...if not sooner then later...!

Bud

[dumdumbrain]

No im sorry Ryanair does care about its staff, well those who are hard workers anyway, and those who do not work hard and have no shows will be sacked, ie tonight EMA base has a summer party with £4,000 on the bar more than some other airlines.

Also I know without saying names, my base manager tried to keep some staff who have been with Ryanair for while who are leaving to work for Silver Jet and Virgin, because both of them want to do longhaul, even willing to take a pay cut. *but this thead isn't about ryanair and its staf*

Can Baby actually fly to Germany, i thought it was in the star alliance?

Lee

[finding_nema]

Depending on who you believe, the bmi group are restricted from flying to Germany and Scandinavia in their own right as a result of the ECA, a treaty that was signed between bmi, Lufthansa and SAS in 1999, when the two carriers bought shares in British Midland. BM substituted all of their routes to these countries, and instead code-shared with their Star partners. This agreement runs out in December, so bmi and bmibaby could theoretically fly wherever they want. baby has flown to Germany before (MUC from EMA and CWL, both were quite popular) and CPH was an original bmibaby winter destination in 2002 but was apparently quietly dropped due to SAS interference. If there are any exciting new routes then it will be down to the BHX base, as baby are hemmed in at MAN & EMA, and CWL never seems on the radar for anything overly exciting.

[call100]

I hope the Handling Agents can cope with the increases. A/C are continually kept waiting for staff to turn up on stand. Staff rushing around to cope is certainly not safe. Lets hope the accidents are avoided........

[CheekyVisual]

Believe the deal between bmi and star alliance partners ends next year. It doesn't just stop Germany and Scandinavia but Poland too. When the deal is over I think you will see a lot of new routes at BHX. However, WW is a cautious company and rightly so ! It's very easy to lose a lot of money very quickly even with "full" aircraft. Pax figures mean nothing. What they are willing to pay means everything. Ryanair make virtually no profit in flying passengers. They make it elsewhere but that's for another thread ! Baby, Fly Be and others just aren't in a similar position. Routes must pay, full loads or not. To miss quote Bill Clinton "It's the yield stupid !" Just not sure it's there on a lot of the routes hailed on the thread or they'd be being operated by someone. We ain't all stupid in the business you know ! If it'll make money we'll be there like a shot. Next year may be a more interesting one providing nothing external puts a spanner in the works !

[OltonPete]

August Passenger Figures

Back to the Million club even if it will be a brief stay: -

1005484 for August - still lower than 2005

It could be back down to earth with a bang as well unless schedules save the day in September. My estimates show 30-50000 decrease on last year, just hope I am wrong and it lives up to be one the best "business pax" months of year.

EK are doing well, the Rugby World Cup will sort most of the French routes out but with Baby and Flybe cancelling several flights this week it is not
looking good.

On a brighter note SAS operated tonight (cancelled last night), I believe finding a MD to replace the Q400.

Pete

[GayFriendly]

OP - Welcome news even if looking short lived, the million club how long before we see that at BRS? At least we have new AF Lyon doing well....any news on Krakow surely someone must be looking at this????

Ryanair make virtually no profit in flying passengers. They make it elsewhere but that's for another thread !

Cheeky - very interesting post indeed, as someone who does not work for an airline can you please explain briefly where FR do make their money and wherever it is why Baby can't do the same?? And also why routes mentioned seemingly can't work financially from BHX when they supposedly do from EMA and BRS, amongst others. If you don't want to post on this thread could you send me a private message, am just interested thats all!

[CheekyVisual]

Without being too specific there are certain facts of life in the flying business. It's not enough to fly to a place where people want to go. People want to go everywhere. You have to find places that people are willing to pay to go and go regularly. Poland is a good example. You'd could easily fill several 737s a day from BHX to various places in Eastern Europe. It's just when you make the fares an economically viable level they all get back on the bus !

Economically viable level is a loose term and varies airline to airline. The cost of running an airline does not increase drastically per aircraft. The costs of running five are not hugely more than running one. A lot of your costs are fixed. The cost per aircraft actually decreases as the company grows, provided of course you find something for all the jets to do and you can pursuade enough people to get on them. So a big airline can afford to take a smaller yield from each flight. Baby, Fly Be, Whizz air, Central Wings, etc.. are minows. FR and to a lesser extent EASY are giants.

FR control costs to the penny. They fleeced Boeing when orders disappeared in 2001 and are still paying massively under the current market price for their aircraft. That enables them to constantly fly brand new aircraft with massive savings in maitenance. They don't fly anywhere that charges them in a serious way, people who want to fly their aircraft pay them for the training (I know other operators do this but FR are real pros) and the whole airline is run by about three people in Dublin ! That's why the yield they need per aircraft (and they have a lot more aircraft than the competition) per flight is so much lower than everyone else. That is why routes that would be massively marginal to everyone else work for FR.

There is also a shortage of aircraft in the lease market and lease rates are going through the roof. If you can get an aircraft it will be expensive. If it's expensive it needs to run full on paying routes. The bean counters just don't like the "I'm sure that route would work" or "I know loads of people who would go on that" arguements. A lot of people spend a lot of time researching potential routes and a lot of computer power is expended calculating the potential profit and loss. They don't always get it right of course. It took Baby a long time to work out that MAD was a route that needed getting on. It is ! In the same way I can't believe Fly Be dropped LYS.

But if you don't have the aircraft or the ones you can get are massively expensive, from a business point of view taking the chance on a couple of routes could wipe you out very quickly. Leases are usually long. Where will the economy be in five years. Everytime you take on a new aircraft or start a new route you gamble a lot of money. Again "gamble" is not a word in the vocabulary of the bean counters.

[OltonPete]

KRK

GF

No news on Krakow and it was disappointing that Centralwings didn't
go for it like they are at Manchester.

The NE August load factor was about 93%, which leads me on to CheekyVisuals reply. I agree what has been said but as a BHX
pax watcher for over 25 years (sad I know) I can honestly say that
not many routes (if any) have been lost with load factors above 75%.

The SkyEurope looks like taking that particular title but of course
there are mitigating circumstances (the base is closing). The last
one I can remember with reasonable loads were as CheekyVisual mentioned, Lyon and many years ago Iberia Madrid (I trust that
was down to Iberia's own costs and lack of J class fares).

Flybe dropped Bergamo after some stunning loads but again it
was seasonal and I believe that there were aircraft issues
(Q400/Alps) but that might have been Southampton as BHX
was mainly the 146.

I will post some of the August stats as they are a right mixed bag
but long-haul is flying as they say - just not enough of them

Pete

[GayFriendly]

OP and Cheeky - thank you both for the information, both are well written and very informed posts - appreciated. I assume that with a load factor like that someone must be at least looking at doing KRK even if not necessarily launching straight away, like Lyon I think this one will be back (although I know that load factor does not necessarily mean high yield!). Having said that, I still do think that there are some routes that could work at BHX I guess it just needs the right airline, IMO better to grow cautiously a la Baby and make it work in the long term rather than gung-ho expansion and the pitfalls mentioned by Cheeky. Lets see what Summer 08 brings (gotta be better than this year..... or maybe not!

[Suzeman]

OP

Just because routes with load factors greater than 75% haven't been lost in the past doesn't mean that it won't happen now. In the past most BHX routes have been with traditional carriers where 75% L/F was once very respectable. Things are different now.

You may not make money on some routes with 90% L/F nowadays - or even if you do there may be a more profitable route for you to use the aircraft on.

Airlines are constantly monitoring every routes' performance and will sometimes do things that look very strange to us outsiders but which make perfect business sense within the company.

Suzeman

[OltonPete]

Load factors

Suzeman

To true and this is where I assume yield management kicks in. If you are not making money on 75%+ you stick the fares up and if the route is not strong enough to maintain a similar load factor the route will be dropped.
I have seen plenty examples of that happening at BHX.

The only airline where I have noticed routes go with high load factors is
some of Easy's from various airports. Not sure about Ryanair as their cost base is supposed to be lower and they seem to let a few flights drift well
below 75%.

Then there is the exception such as Cologne, low fares and low load factors and it still carries on . Did average 90 in August = 60% LF

As for BMI Baby's cagey strategy at BHX, look at the number of routes dropped, just Newquay as of now. It is difficult argue against this method (although against weak competition) and hopefully they will continue to grow at a reasonable rate. The only downside for me is that some of their 737's do worry me, especially when I am on them.

Pete

[FlyboyUK]

Olton Pete
Whilst some of Baby's 737s may be a bit old and sometimes tired looking, I'm sure the crews that operate them wouldn't fly them if they thought them to be unsafe. So there's nothing to worry about.

[OltonPete]

BHX Provisional CAA Stats for August

Just a few to save boring the masses.

Baby
Marseille, 4651 pax at 129 per flight or 87% load factor
Nice, 8081 pax at 130 per flight or 87% load factor
Bordeaux 7037 pax at 114 per flight or 85% load factor - 735/73
Lisbon 4690 pax at 130 pax per flight or 87% load factor
Barcelona, 8214 pax at 132 pax per flight or 89% load factor
Prague, 7409 pax at 120 per flight or 90% load factor (735 mainly)
Rome, 7889 pax at 127 per flight or 87% load factor
Knock 9062 pax at 132 per flight or 89% load factor

Other destinations they share AGP had 87%, PMI, 88%, MJV 86%, ALC, 84%, Cork 81%.

Flybe

Brest 2045 pax 57 per flight 73% Load factor (down from 2563 pax)
La Rochelle 1861 pax, 55 pax or 84% load factor (down from 2533 pax)
Bergerac 1706, 39 pax or 79% load factor (down from 2513 pax)
Toulouse 1715, 39 pax or 80% load factor (down from 4155 pax)
Milan MXP 2205 20 pax or 41% load factor (down from 4023 pax)
Stuttgart 2933 pax at 19 per flight or 38% load factor (down fr 3435)
Dubrovnik 2342 pax or 90 pax per flight, 76% Load factor
Galway 1329 pax, 51 per flight at 65%

Norwegian to Warsaw 4894 pax at 136 per flight or 91%
SkyEurope to Krakow 2498 pax at 139 per flight or 93%
Newark 9690 or 156 per flight at 89%
Dubai 36674 or 296 per flight or 83% - Brilliant
Islamabad up to 8948 at 248 per flight or 76% load factor
Ashkhabad up to 5743 pax at 160 per flight or 85ish%
Zurich up to 12929 or 70 per flight or 74% load factor.

Cologne was up but only managed 90 per flight and Waterford was 2525 pax at 47 per flight which I believe is about 70% load factor.

A bad one this month was a real surprise - Munich 8919 down from 12353

A good set of figures except for Milan, Stuttgart, Cologne still and the Munich. Some of the flybe routes were operated the previous year by larger aircraft and it the reason the pax are down but load factors up.

Pete

[MUFC_fan]

Starting to show that BA held a prestigious name in the European market especially from BHX and BE are now starting to feel it. The problem with BE is that they are replacing services perfect for a 50 seats aircraft with aircraft that have 78 seats and the demand is just not there with their fares!

Eben though I am a BLK&MAN man myslef, it is a shame to see drops in passenger numbers at any airport and I hope BE can push with the routes and see increases over the coming months. MXP will definately increase during the winter period when the ski resorts open and the German routes will see increases in Xmas shoppers.

Would also like to congratulate EK and CO for their excellent passenger numbers! Let it continue and maybe CO would look at a second daily 752 for next summer!

Congrats BHX!

[OltonPete]

Be/co/pax

MUFC_fan

Continental ran double daily a couple of years ago and if the posts on another forum were true it was a disaster. Someone posted CO's top
loss makers across the Atlantic in 2005(or 2004) and BHX was shown
as one of those routes (a couple of million I believe).

Of course this is assuming that the info was correct and I can't believe that CO would be happy with this type of sensitive information posted on the Net for all to see but a strange hoax if it was.

It was then reduced to 10 a week (2006) but was briefly in the system as double daily for summer 2007 before disappearing from the booking engines around October/November 2006.

As for flybe they have not increased the seats on any of the ex Bacon routes in fact they have reduced, such as the DUS which had a couple of RJ100's on the route and is now 145's. Also, Frankfurt has gone from 4 to 3 a day.

What has not changed are the fares, still the same as Bacon except the flights don't run on time (well April to June they didn't) and they have alienated what few business pax were left.

However some Q400's will replace the 145's slowly and if the base fare is reduced they will fill most of the flights no problem.

The problem and fear is that he longer sectors such as MXP, FRA, STR & HAM will be pulled once the 145's go.

If they keep the prices at their current levels they will not fill 195's and then it is a question of the few remaining pax being able to sustain the service on the fares they have paid - some think that is unlikely.

Pete

[Fried_Chicken]

How are Whoosh doing on the Dundee?

If they'd have started Newquay as advertised this year, we'd have at least another destination back on board.

With the sucess of Lyon (& presumably Paris?), I wonder if Air France (or one of its partners) would consider any other routes out of BHX, Strasbourg perhaps?

FC

[OltonPete]

Dundee

FC

I must admit I had not worked the domestics out but Dundee was 1471
for August.

I make it 86 rotations if the Friday morning was axed throughout August giving an average of 17, which is about 37% (based on 46 seats).

I presume that is not too bad for such a young route and hopefully they can stick it out and build on these figures.

Pete