BIRMINGHAM - 6
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Coventry
Age: 48
Posts: 1,946
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
BHX did stress that these plans are very long term !
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Coventry
Age: 48
Posts: 1,946
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Tory graph posted this earlier this morning, but says there are no costings as yet, but would need public subsidy, unlike LHR.
Birmingham unveils ambitious airport plans - Telegraph
More to point, still no explanation of how you can get this 2nd runway "on wasteland within the airport's existing footprint".
Also, as we hear time and again on this forum, they are confusing load with yield. Yes, Birmingham is more central geographically, we all know that. However, for an airport to work, it needs to be closer to the commercial centre of gravity, and like it or not, that's still somewhere around (and not north of) Watford.
Birmingham unveils ambitious airport plans - Telegraph
More to point, still no explanation of how you can get this 2nd runway "on wasteland within the airport's existing footprint".
Also, as we hear time and again on this forum, they are confusing load with yield. Yes, Birmingham is more central geographically, we all know that. However, for an airport to work, it needs to be closer to the commercial centre of gravity, and like it or not, that's still somewhere around (and not north of) Watford.
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Coventry
Posts: 164
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
You appear to be behind the news, guys. According to the Coventry Telegraph:-
"The Asian investors are interested in plans.... to link the Coventry and Warwickshire rail network including a new Ricoh Arena station, to a combined HS2 and Birmingham Airport interchange station.
Speculative plans for a third airport runway next to the air and rail interchange have also now emerged."
(Italics mine)
"The Asian investors are interested in plans.... to link the Coventry and Warwickshire rail network including a new Ricoh Arena station, to a combined HS2 and Birmingham Airport interchange station.
Speculative plans for a third airport runway next to the air and rail interchange have also now emerged."
(Italics mine)
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: solihull West Midlands
Posts: 967
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Jaibird.
Also if LHR is rammed with 60 odd million and 2 runways how would BHX be able to cope with 70 million with 2 runways..cloud cuckoo stuff.
Lets just have a decent airport that caters for more routes for Midlanders, off the current 1 runway with the extension !
Nigel
Also if LHR is rammed with 60 odd million and 2 runways how would BHX be able to cope with 70 million with 2 runways..cloud cuckoo stuff.
Lets just have a decent airport that caters for more routes for Midlanders, off the current 1 runway with the extension !
Nigel
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Coventry
Age: 48
Posts: 1,946
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Also if LHR is rammed with 60 odd million and 2 runways how would BHX be able to cope with 70 million with 2 runways..cloud cuckoo stuff.
However, we're still back to the same problem - for a hub to work, it needs a good mix of O&D and conx, and the O&D with the money is still down in the southeast, whatever the fantasists may dream.
To build a hub based on conx alone, you'd have to start from virtually nothing, then somehow leapfrog LHR - how?
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Birmingham
Posts: 153
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
bhx expansion plans
I am getting a sense of deja vu in this thread again.
True there may well be some pie in the sky about the latest press release,but for my money bhx's important period is the next 6 months to 2 years.
If at least 2 or 3 major airlines have not announced or started new longhaul routes in that time,then bhx could find itself in a very embarrassing situation.Even some more flights to the Caribbean and Canada would be something.Time will tell!!
True there may well be some pie in the sky about the latest press release,but for my money bhx's important period is the next 6 months to 2 years.
If at least 2 or 3 major airlines have not announced or started new longhaul routes in that time,then bhx could find itself in a very embarrassing situation.Even some more flights to the Caribbean and Canada would be something.Time will tell!!
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Middlesex (under the flightpath)
Posts: 1,946
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Birmingham world's busiest airport
Headline in today's "I":
"Birmingham bids to unseat Heathrow as the world's busiest airport"
have just stopped laughing.
The article on page 4 bangs on about journey times on the HS2 with quotes from Elmdon's chief executive, and about it being geographically central for the UK (think that Ringway would be more central(?)). However, nowhere does the article mention how they plan to shift premium traffic and carriers away from Heathrow.
Heathrow is not full because it's the only UK airport.
Heathrow was declared "full" back in the 1970s, and it still has just 2 rwys, so the Elmdon management are right to express a desire for a second rwy despite the airport nowhere near full. Start now and it may be available in 50 years.
"Birmingham bids to unseat Heathrow as the world's busiest airport"
have just stopped laughing.
The article on page 4 bangs on about journey times on the HS2 with quotes from Elmdon's chief executive, and about it being geographically central for the UK (think that Ringway would be more central(?)). However, nowhere does the article mention how they plan to shift premium traffic and carriers away from Heathrow.
Heathrow is not full because it's the only UK airport.
Heathrow was declared "full" back in the 1970s, and it still has just 2 rwys, so the Elmdon management are right to express a desire for a second rwy despite the airport nowhere near full. Start now and it may be available in 50 years.
Last edited by Fairdealfrank; 10th Jun 2013 at 16:03.
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Stafford
Posts: 519
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
True there may well be some pie in the sky about the latest press release,but for my money bhx's important period is the next 6 months to 2 years.
If at least 2 or 3 major airlines have not announced or started new longhaul routes in that time,then bhx could find itself in a very embarrassing situation.Even some more flights to the Caribbean and Canada would be something.Time will tell!!
If at least 2 or 3 major airlines have not announced or started new longhaul routes in that time,then bhx could find itself in a very embarrassing situation.Even some more flights to the Caribbean and Canada would be something.Time will tell!!
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Coventry
Age: 48
Posts: 1,946
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I googled the i then clicked on the BHX article and got this:
So am I supposed to go behind a paywall to get this 
i Assistant Editor's Letter: Setting the record straight
If you ask me, the joke has gone on far too long already.
If you ask me, the joke has gone on far too long already.
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Warwickshire
Posts: 1,062
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
World's busiest airport, have just fallen off my seat laughing. BHX have gone from saying 'we will have a runway extension to take LHR overspill' to 'actually we will be bigger than LHR'.
There's thinking big and there's simply fantasising. The 'like Germany' argument BHX is using is flawed. The UK is not like Germany and will never have an airport hub system like theirs. Economic and political power are (like it or lump it) in London, that's why high yield pax want to fly there. Bavaria is a large and very prosperous region (much more prosperous than the West Midlands) with easy access from large parts of Germany and Austria, hence it's well developed range of long haul flights.
BHX can't seemingly sustain scheduled services to a whole host of European cities and there is no obvious sign of a rush of long haul flights starting next year - even current operators aren't expanding their current long haul offerings. If they don't announce at least one new headline carrier and destination off the back of the extension, forget taking anything from LHR. And relying on HS2, really you want to hang your coat tails on something that is very far from being built?
Sure, plan for the future but do it whilst getting the basics right and serving the true air travel needs of the West Midlands. In any case don't we have a MUC style hub in the UK, it's called MAN!
There's thinking big and there's simply fantasising. The 'like Germany' argument BHX is using is flawed. The UK is not like Germany and will never have an airport hub system like theirs. Economic and political power are (like it or lump it) in London, that's why high yield pax want to fly there. Bavaria is a large and very prosperous region (much more prosperous than the West Midlands) with easy access from large parts of Germany and Austria, hence it's well developed range of long haul flights.
BHX can't seemingly sustain scheduled services to a whole host of European cities and there is no obvious sign of a rush of long haul flights starting next year - even current operators aren't expanding their current long haul offerings. If they don't announce at least one new headline carrier and destination off the back of the extension, forget taking anything from LHR. And relying on HS2, really you want to hang your coat tails on something that is very far from being built?
Sure, plan for the future but do it whilst getting the basics right and serving the true air travel needs of the West Midlands. In any case don't we have a MUC style hub in the UK, it's called MAN!
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Coventry
Age: 48
Posts: 1,946
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
In any case don't we have a MUC style hub in the UK, it's called MAN!
MUC is very much a hub in its own right, but the distribution of airports around Germany isn't just about wealth. It is a simple fact of Geography - Germany, like the USA, has many cities with different roles, and not one single dominant "primate" city, which is the case in the UK, France and so on.
Now LYS is on the TGV, Lyon is France's second city, but do they come up with such daft ideas?
OK - maybe that's a bit far from Paris, so I'm not being fair. I'm all for connecting airports to the cities they serve by rail - but depending entirely on rail connections to a completely different city which has more than enough runways to serve itself is just a different model entirely.
The precedent for this being?
Now I wonder how that Madrid South Don Quixote is coming along
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Middlesex (under the flightpath)
Posts: 1,946
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
MUC hub
Because of it's central European location, MUC also has a role channelling transfer traffic through to parts of central/east Europe/Balkans that do not yet have direct links with the wider world.
MAN is the nearest we have in the UK (rather than BHX), but it's more like LYS and BCN than like MUC.
MAN is the nearest we have in the UK (rather than BHX), but it's more like LYS and BCN than like MUC.
Last edited by Fairdealfrank; 10th Jun 2013 at 17:11.
Has Paul Kehoe and the BHX management team completely fallen off their collective trolley?!
It really is a crying shame that their efforts are being directed in a more constructive direction. When BHX' single runway becomes half as well used a Gatwick's then, sure, lets start thinking about extra capacity.
This is beginning to look like a fig leaf for the lack of new carriers and new routes to make good use of the extra concrete that will be available from 2014.
It really is a crying shame that their efforts are being directed in a more constructive direction. When BHX' single runway becomes half as well used a Gatwick's then, sure, lets start thinking about extra capacity.
This is beginning to look like a fig leaf for the lack of new carriers and new routes to make good use of the extra concrete that will be available from 2014.
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Warwickshire
Posts: 1,062
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
And I dread to think how much all this PR guff and wining and dining of MP's, business leaders etc is costing! It beggars belief that you can't fly non stop from Birmingham to Madrid or Warsaw yet BHX think they can attract 70 million passengers. To fly to where exactly?
AT Notts you are spot on - I too am sensing a load of hot air to cover for the fact that the runway extension (as of now) appears to be an embarrassing white elephant with no new long haul flights planned for next year (adding optimistically - yet). Dear me, PK and his team are just digging themselves ever bigger holes to sink in.
AT Notts you are spot on - I too am sensing a load of hot air to cover for the fact that the runway extension (as of now) appears to be an embarrassing white elephant with no new long haul flights planned for next year (adding optimistically - yet). Dear me, PK and his team are just digging themselves ever bigger holes to sink in.
What everybody is forgetting in this debate is Paul Kehoe's other masterplan, which was to shut all those unnecessary regional airports - channel in all those displaced pax plus all the Londoners rushing off the HS2, and BHX does become the centre of the universe!
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: uk
Posts: 1,578
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Sorry to intrude on private grief but they should move the Weston Park Balloon Festival to Elmdon as there is so much hot air about !
Analyse this, it was drawn up by the airport, local business and a few MPs and was portrayed as though;
"second runway on the way"
Rather than a more factual analysis of the report which is ONLY a submission anyway !
"Birmingham wants a second runway"
Southampton, Bristol, Luton, EMA, Leeds etc will all say the same !
Basically they could have said absolutely anything, it's a wish list with no material substance.
That said I do think the BHX media team s/b highly congratulated, where they are failing to attract any kind of substantial momentum in attracting new airlines , destinations or increased frequency they are more than making up for with grandiose statements.
This story managed to get on the front cover of The Independent, was mentioned in The Telegraph, it was also carried on BBC Midlands and Central.
The Champagne must have been flowing to get that kind of exposure, it must have been some party......if only there was at least something to cling to !
Some of the references were at best desperate !
ie Sheffield, Leeds , Bradford, Liverpool and Manchester itself.
Many airports would die for this kind of publicity, the only failing was providing anything other than a claim for public funding or something more tangible in terms of demand from airlines to actually back it up, but hey 10 out of 10 for spin !
Analyse this, it was drawn up by the airport, local business and a few MPs and was portrayed as though;
"second runway on the way"
Rather than a more factual analysis of the report which is ONLY a submission anyway !
"Birmingham wants a second runway"
Southampton, Bristol, Luton, EMA, Leeds etc will all say the same !
Basically they could have said absolutely anything, it's a wish list with no material substance.
That said I do think the BHX media team s/b highly congratulated, where they are failing to attract any kind of substantial momentum in attracting new airlines , destinations or increased frequency they are more than making up for with grandiose statements.
This story managed to get on the front cover of The Independent, was mentioned in The Telegraph, it was also carried on BBC Midlands and Central.
The Champagne must have been flowing to get that kind of exposure, it must have been some party......if only there was at least something to cling to !
Some of the references were at best desperate !
- BHX connects Istanbul, whoopeedoo
- Airlines are buying new aircraft Eg RYR 175 Well they ain't sticking them in BHX ......unless its parking for the Winter !
- Business in the West Midlands needs links to S America, well they will be dancing the samba on the streets of Kidderminster tonight with that one.
ie Sheffield, Leeds , Bradford, Liverpool and Manchester itself.
Many airports would die for this kind of publicity, the only failing was providing anything other than a claim for public funding or something more tangible in terms of demand from airlines to actually back it up, but hey 10 out of 10 for spin !
Last edited by Bagso; 11th Jun 2013 at 06:20.
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: UK
Posts: 334
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Even the FT picked it up. I'm still worried that they are forgetting about their current bread and butter business, European connections from BHX are not exactly getting better (let's hope bmi regional will be able to sustain their routes).
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Warwickshire
Posts: 1,062
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Business in the West Midlands needs links to S America, well they will be dancing the samba on the streets of Kidderminster tonight with that one.
Insuindi - the fact that you state that you hope BHX hangs onto the BMI routes shows exactly what state the airport is in, hanging onto the coat tails of a small, regional airline as it's only major provider of new routes this year (excluding the new ZB seasonals to SPU and BOD).