BIRMINGHAM - 6

[ZULUBOY]

TXL

Was at Tegel at the weekend, sadly having to fly via Frankfurt.

There was a big Flybe advert promoting their new route and the in-laws are booked on one of the early flights.

It says it runs until March - apologies for the naive question but is this just the end of the winter timetable?

[StoneyBridge Radar]

I know there was some hat eating on here regarding Air India, based on claims their BHX route had zoomed into being one of their more successful routes. Sadly, it seems BHX didn't make the cut for the profitability table, along with every route to LHR.

What a shambles of an airline.

Air India loses money on all but two international routes.

Air India loses money on all international flights, but two - Bangalore Aviation

[OltonPete]

Air India

StoneyBridge Radar

The only surprise here is that they have admitted to as many as two make money!!!!!

I think you find most on here argued that there is a market between BHX and India but it is virtually impossible to discuss profitability when it comes to Air India especially if half the rumours are true about their cost-base.

Remember when they last pulled out, the press release stated it was profitable but it was to protect Heathrow slots and then went on to have one of the worse utilisation rates any any long-haul fleet albeit most of that was down to the disastrous 77L order.

If your glass is half-full you could say at least it is not in the list of shame and they have said that they intend to go daily from November but there again it is still only bookable at four a week.

Pete

[OltonPete]

Air India

StoneyBridge Radar

The only surprise here is that they have admitted to as many as two make money!!!!!

I think you find most on here argued that there is a market between BHX and India but it is virtually impossible to discuss profitability when it comes to Air India especially if half the rumours are true about their cost-base.

Remember when they last pulled out, the press release stated it was profitable but it was to protect Heathrow slots and then went on to have one of the worse utilisation rates any any long-haul fleet albeit part of that was down to the disastrous 77L order.

If your glass is half-full you could say at least it is not in the list of shame and they have said that they intend to go daily from November but there again it is still only bookable at four a week.

Pete

[AMM626]

Quite a depressing read.

In the first year of ops AI at BHX had a load factor of 76%, 2% higher than AI's 74% average and although the flight didn't make a profit roughly 80 crore rupees were added to the AI network through connections from BHX, with Australia being popular.

The video is from the one year anniversary reception, skip forward to about 43:00 to hear Mr Pankaj Srivastava, Commercial Director.

Air India Celebrates it's 1 Year Anniversary flying from Birmingham Airport - YouTube

[ATNotts]

Air India - Depressing

Look, Air India isn't a real commercial enterprise as we would understand it. It is a political football kicked around between the Congress Party and the BJP, whichever party has the office of Prime Minister at the time.

Were it to be truly commercial, and free from political pressure, some of the first routes to be chopped would be from Ahmedabad..., but wait, said city is the home of one Mr. Modi, who has recently become Prime Minister; so that won't happen.

Routes to the USA perform badly, but will they chop those politically prestigious routes...no, the politicians won't let them.

Biggest threat to the BHX (and the other - majority - loss making routes) would be if Air India was a truly commercial business, and that, given Indian politics, isn't going to happen any time soon.

[getonittt]

ZULUBOY Re TXL

It says it runs until March - apologies for the naive question but is this just the end of the winter timetable?

Yes that's right, summer 2015 not released yet and Flybe have done well to organise a schedule for winter at quite short notice after the Lufthansa group announced they were throwing the towel in.
I would be amazed if this route did not run into summer 2015 and also with a daily frequency as opposed to the current 5 a week.

[OltonPete]

August International route analysis

Schedule passengers only with the monthly figure from the CAA and the average per flight with help from A BHX Blog & Libhomeradar - load factors estimated based on seat-maps.

Monarch still have some routes not reaching the dizzy heights as others such as Nice, Gibraltar, Dalaman & Mahon but in general they do charge quite a lot more than other carriers.

Paris 91%

Some non-daily routes were affected by the days of operation compared with 2013 with Friday, Saturday and Sunday having five in August.

Turkmenistan seem to have regained some market share from Air India but the latter's figures were not too bad.

Good to see Turkish up and it was like for like on rotations and not many A321's as they came in at the start of September. Emirates I suspect was a record and not far off that magic figure of 400 pax per flight although to be honest 394 is amazing.

With the 2013 figures in brackets

Brussels.........8351 (7257)......55 per flight..70% load factor (more Q400's)
Dubrovnik.......5153 (3058).....198 pax........93%
Split..............4107 (3830)......147 pax.......85%
Larnaca..........8564 (8326).....195 pax........91%
Paphos.......... 3524 (4354).....196 pax........92%
Copenhagen... 7971 (5756).......97 pax........76%
Avignon...........721 (699)........72 pax.........92%
Bergerac.........2536(1842).......70 pax........80%
Bordeaux.........2800(3299).......78 pax....... 91%
Brest..............1653 (1663)......64 pax........82%
La Rochelle......1359 (1172)......68 pax........82%
Lyons.............4249 (4616).......82 pax........93%
Montepellier.......nil (2793)......................
Nice...............7136 (8683)......155 pax.......81%
Paris CDG......31541 (29548)....107 pax........91%
Perpignan........3499 (4752).....125 pax........84%
Toulouse.........3850 (1094)......74 pax........93%
Berlin TXL........4004 (4311).....118 pax........83%
Cologne..........3342 (nil)......... 54 pax.........68%
Dusseldorf.....15446 (12287)... .58 pax.........62%
Frankfurt.......30879 (27827).. 125 pax.........80%
Hamburg.........3422 (3062)... ..66 pax.........74%
Hanover..........5411 (4261)... ..59 pax.........68%
Munich..........13510 (14486).. .94 pax.........77%
Stuttgart........7066 (4145).... .68 pax.........77%
Gibraltar..........3606 (3825)....139 pax.........80%
Athens............2459 (nil).......137 pax.........81%
Heraklion.........3232 (3251)....180 pax.........84%
Cork...............6846 (7470)......55 pax.........77%
Knock.............4215 (3204)......68 pax.........87%
Dublin............51893 (52960)..128 pax.........86%
Shannon..........4690 (3140).....38 pax.........72%
Waterford........2588 (2482).....72 pax.........92%
Bergamo............nil (4387)
Florence..........5570 (nil).........90 pax........76%
Milan MXP........8550 (4534).....69 pax........78%
Rome FCO........9185 (9113)...185 pax........91%
Trieste.............3149 (3011)...175 pax.......93%
Venice.............6829 (5376)...190 pax........89%
Malta..............3467 (3198)...??? pax.........??% A few KM pax included
Amsterdam.....45496 (39660)...92 pax........82%
Faro..............24442 (21527)..182 pax........94%
Oporto...........3061 (nil)..........81 pax........92%
Funchel..........3277 (2866).....182 pax........95%
Alicante........35377 (30123)..,160 pax........90%
Almeria...........4368 (3487)....182 pax.........97%
Barcelona......20013 (18708)...185 pax........92%
Girona...............nil (2853)
Ibiza.............15062 (14082)...141 pax.......87%
Mahon...........6096 (6807)......169 pax.......82%
Malaga.........32830 (34954)...181 pax........90%
Murcia...........5899 (6085).....174 pax........92%
Palma...........35413 (27447)...171 pax........94%
Reus..............4760 (4379).....170 pax...... 90%
Arrecife........15601 (12993) incorrect split shown between schedule & IT
Fuerteventura 8237 (6565) incorrect split shown between schedule & IT
Las Palmas.....8241 (7962)...187 pax.........91%
Tenerife........22116 (17665) incorrect split shown between schedule & IT
Gothenburg....1488 (1198).....30 pax.........61%
Arlanda...........nil... (1171)...
Reykjavik........1821 (o).........67 pax.........77%
Zurich...........8708 (9229).....84 pax.........84%
Bodrum.........4942 (4086)....190 pax.........89%
Dalaman.......10697(11070)...173 pax.........85%
Istanbul......10710 (10262)...122 pax.........80%
Kaunas.........3228 (2829)....179 pax.........95%
Bydgoscz......4774 (5040)....184 pax.........97%
Gdansk.........3252 (3238)....181 pax.........96%
Katowice......3305 (4633).....184 pax.........97%
Krakow.........3316 (2855)....184 pax..........97%
Rzesnow......nil (2909)............
Bratislava.....4690 (5096).....180 pax.........95%
Hurghada......1853 (0).........185 pax.........87%
Sharm.........5625 (5201).....208 pax..........97%
Ashkhabad....3276 (3058)....126 pax..........68%
Dubai..........48916 (46565)...394 pax.........92%
Delhi...........2968 (6774)
Amritsar.......3776 (nil)........199 pax..........78%
Islamabad....5795 (7914)......290 pax.........78%
Toronto.......2482 (2676)......310 pax.........91%
Newark........9762 (10002)....157 pax.........93%

Pete

[crewmeal]

Air China increases LHR frequencies

Not looking good for BHX as Air China increase their frequency to two a day.

ITAR-TASS: Press Releases - Air China to Increase its Beijing - London Service to Two Daily Flights

All BHX can hope for is another carrier comes in or at least a repeat of this years charters.

[insuindi]

Good to see how the increase in BE services&capacity has been absorbed by the market.

[FFHKG]

It looks as though B'ham has missed out at the moment as Manchester is scheduled to get direct flights to Beijing next year. This was announced last week

"During a speech at a conference about UK-China links, Chancellor George Osborne said Hainan Airlines had been authorised by the Department for Transport to run a direct flight between Beijing and Manchester."

A new UK/China bi-lateral has been agreed with an increase in frequencies and also flights to Chinese cities other the four currently served from the UK - Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou & Chengdu

[ATNotts]

During a speech at a conference about UK-China links, Chancellor George Osborne said Hainan Airlines had been authorised by the Department for Transport to run a direct flight between Beijing and Manchester."

The DfT has "authorised" but so far as I recall there's no service announcement yet by the airline.

That said, I too can't see BHX getting a direct China scheduled service in the next 12 months.

[LAX_LHR]

The DfT has "authorised" but so far as I recall there's no service announcement yet by the airline

The Vice CEO of Hainan announced on 4th September in Paris that Manchester would be started in 2015. Staff have recently been recruited for the Manchester flights (1 base manager, 2 PSA and 3 back office staff to be based in 'Voyager')

[Monty Gordo]

ATNotts

You may well be right. Me? I'm a half glass full kind of guy.

Last year we had nothing re China, this year we had China Southern charters which, by all accounts, were highly successful.

Next year i looking for more of the same but, hopefully, an extended season. And maybe that is the way to build up this vitally important link with China.

[davebham]

I hope you're right. We have a strong industrial base here that has a lot of Chinese interest, a fair sized Chinese community, and we're geographically well placed for tourism too.

I don't buy this argument that because BHX sits between Manchester and Heathrow there isn't a market for increased long haul. If Shannon can support 5 US destinations with about 1/4 of BHX's passenger throughput, I don't see why we can't add 1 or 2.

[GayFriendly]

I think you will find that SNN supports 5 US destinations because of the considerable VFR traffic flows between Ireland and the US and a strong inbound flow of US tourists to Ireland. This is a niche long haul market in a similar way that BHX has AI to DEL/ATQ and T5 to ASB and onwards to ATQ.


We have to face facts that it will be MAN and not BHX getting the first regional UK airport scheduled service to China. An expanded series of charters next year from BHX may well happen. Worthy as that is, as far as China goes that is all BHX can expect for now. We also have to remember that there have, apart from AI (and the blink and you missed them flights by US Airways in 2011 and Air Blue last year), been no new scheduled or charter long haul routes or airlines at BHX for a very considerable number of years with nothing new on the horizon despite the millions of pounds poured into terminal expansion and runway extension.


Long haul scheduled airlines serving the UK primarily want to fly into LHR with MAN being next choice of airport for market growth. There is perhaps scope for an additional Middle East flight at BHX. However, I would far rather see BHX do a deal with EZY and work harder with its existing airlines to further develop and grow its short haul route structure.

[Fairdealfrank]

That said, I too can't see BHX getting a direct China scheduled service in the next 12 months.

Last year we had nothing re China, this year we had China Southern charters which, by all accounts, were highly successful.

Maybe not to Peking, maybe not in 12 months. Possibly in the longer term: Canton (China Southern) or Shanghai (China Eastern), who knows how it may turn out, many non-aviation factors may determine this (e.g. future trade levels, changing visa requirements, Heathrow expansion (or not)).

[111KAB]

World Routes New passenger transit facility opens at Birmingham Airport - eTurboNews.com

[Fairdealfrank]

New transit facility

45 minutes for a transfer is impressive!

What were the times before the new facility opened?

[crewmeal]

A slight chance of a Chinese route?

Maybe they could allocate a couple in BHX's direction

China will need 100,000 more pilots over next 20 years