Barcelona - Birmingham

[tomahawk_pa38]

I was watching a Ryannir flight the other night (FR9162) on Planefinder flying from Barcelona to Birmingham. It seemd like an unusual route to me as it went via Brest, Berry Head, Exmoor, Cardiff then turned northeast towards Worcester the up to land at Birmingham on south easterly runway. I normally see these go up over Southampton then basically up the A34. I couldn’t pick it up on the my scanner so wondered if it was being controlled by London Mil as there didn’t used to be any airways between Birmingham and Brecon.

[groundhogbhx]

This is a standard route between Spain/Portugal/Canary Islands and BHX. Most airlines route this way to avoid the congestion over London.

[bhx bod]

London Mil is used on this routing.On departure most flights going in this direction route via Mosun.
However it is only used at certain times during the daytime and weekends,occasionally night time arrivals as well.

[Occams Razor]

The majority of night-time traffic from that part of the world comes in via MOSUN. Swanwick Mil work the traffic when they are open, otherwise the civvy sector controllers will work them.

[tomahawk_pa38]

Thanks for the answers guys - thought it was a bit different. Given the number of flights there must be now from Birmingham down that way (Canaries/Western Spain etc) I wonder why they don't connect Birmingham with the airways to the west then ? Are there any insurance implicationsor anything for passnger flights using uncontrolled airspace ?