Birmingham-7

[Centre cities]

And Malaga also shows as extended for the winter period

[chinapattern]

TUI following TCX’s lead and resuming flights to Enfidha.

[Fairdealfrank]

Again if Emirates wanted to they could easily have gained slots at LGW, although it's continuously said on these threads that both LHR and LGW are full airlines can find the slots if needed as other airlines have done recently.

Slots are bought or leased from other carriers not "magiced" out of thin air.

Quote:
There are certain posters who continually state that all the airlines at LGW would rather be at LHR. Now it's being suggested that airlines are choosing STN because LGW is full.
This has literally never been claimed by anyone to my knowledge.

That would be me.

There is a certain amount of truth in this. However, that doesn't mean every carrier at LGW would rather be at LHR. To suggest that would very very silly wouldn't it.

That said, there is a steady flow of mainly longhaul, new entrants to the London market, that obtain LGW slots with the intention of shifting accross to LHR when the opportunity presents itself. There is plenty of evidence to support this fact.

[canberra97]

And do you actually think that I'm not aware of that fact!

When I wrote easy to gain slots at LHR like other airlines have done recently I was obviously referring to slots being sold or leased by the airlines not magicked out of bloody thin air!

You trying to make me look stupid?

[Centre cities]

Qatar

Interesting fare difference Birmingham and Cardiff for a booking in July on the same days. BHX £880 and Cardiff £548. Wow.

[yeo valley]

Could be low pax take up out of cwl to generate the low fare.

[ATNotts]

Possibly, also promotional lead in fare to attract passengers in the first few months; remember many prospective customers will live to the east of the Bristol conurbation, who would otherwise consider flying from LHR, and I wouldn't mind betting that fares down the back end are similarly competitive from LHR. Another possibility is that bookings are already good from BHX and the algorithms that drive fares may have raised the bar on certain dates already.

I very much doubt there is any "conspiracy" against BHX. But we love conspiracy theories!

[Rutan16]

ATNott almost no one from Bath Chippenham or Swindon is likely to consider Rhoose or even know this option exists !

I really think this flight will fail miserably to be honest and I don’t like to say so it’s not in my nature, because I normally hail any regional service.

[Jerry123]

You know this how? They are advertising it properly over the bridge and there is a thing called Skyscanner. CWL will be an option for them just as much as BHX is. But the routes primary targets will be South and West Wales and Bristol travellers heading to Heathrow and Gatwick.

[ATNotts]

Rutan16

I was thinking specifically of the Bristol conurbation, not the areas you mentioned, but as per Jerry123, if the price is right I think a few could be attracted away from LHR from a bit further east.

Time alone will tell.

[BAladdy]

BHX-ANR

VLM To begin 5 x Weekly service to ANR from 12FEB18

VLM Airlines will operate flights from Antwerp to Birmingham, and to Maribor via Munich starting 12th February 2018 - Aviation24.be

[BHX5DME]

New route to Chania weekly on a Mon from 30th July until 3rd Sept. It looks to be an away based 738.

PF 2941 BHX 16:10 CHQ 22:00
PF 2942 CHQ 12:30 BHX 14:40

[OltonPete]

November passenger figures down 1.51%

Source: CAA

767910 for November 2017. Shown as down 2% on the CAA site and I assume rounded up as over 1.5%.

I estimated 780000 which would have been flat but looking at the individual routes I can't see where I have over-estimated other than Doha which was appalling again and EK I thought might be slightly higher. I assume I over estimated some frequencies.

Air India at 86% was leading Scheduled long-haul, Dubai was up, Turkish was up, Icelandair was up and Pakistan International was up as well leaving Doha on the naughty-step which is still a worry.

[SWBKCB]

"Why is Birmingham Airport not realizing its potential - What to do with a problem like Birmingham - Simon Calder"

http://http://www.independent.co.uk/...-a8156521.html

[crewmeal]

leaving Doha on the naughty-step which is still a worry.

So spill the beans Pete, how bad is it? Will we see a cut in the schedule? Interesting times for BHX when CWL get their 787.

[crewmeal]

Why is Birmingham Airport not realising its potential? | The Independent

[CabinCrewe]

Originally Posted by OltonPete

leaving Doha on the naughty-step which is still a worry.

We are assured elswhere dire regional loads with QR to DOH are of no concern and J and underbelly are more than enough. I remain unconvinced that this is sustainable indefinitely. CWL launch will be very interesting to monitor.

[OltonPete]

Doha/November pax/Simon Calder

Hi Crewmeal

CAA November stats show Doha 7957 down from 10243 which averages out at 133 pax per flight or 52% load factor.

Things improved in December as you would expect and I have certainly not heard of any cuts in frequencies.

November was a poor month for Qatar at BHX, MAN & EDI but BHX was certainly the lowest in terms of pax per flight and load factor.

Emirates was up (average 469 or 76%) but so was capacity as the third flight in November 16 did not operate all month which goes to show it is not a great month unless of course you are flying BHX - India and then it is fantastic. Although AI was actually down a few hundred but still 86% load factor and Turkmen went from 3 a week to 5 adding 2000 pax (up 78%).

Article

The only new aspect to this is lets say the number of disputable quotes or loose interpretation of some facts - as the saying goes to misplace one passenger is unfortunate, misplace 2 careless but misplace 2 million :hmm.

The article also mentions or certainly could read as double daily both Doha and Dubai which if the former was correct would make the November figures look even worse .

Nice quote about East Midlands being a busy hub for "Ryanair and others" - hub and others which I presume should read base and Jet2 and wonderful if you want to go to the Med or Poland.

Also Solihull not much more than an hour away from London. I think the speed limit is 70mph in this country and much as Chiltern trains have improved they leave you well short of Heathrow and ditto Virgin trains from Bham International.

I know I am being a bit pedantic and I realise that the 2017 passenger figures are not officially finalised but the slightest bit of research would show it is going to be around 13 million and more than comparable to EDI, LTN, STN and Manchester. Even 2016 was 11.6 million which is nowhere near 11 million but I suppose 13 million and was one of the fastest growing airports in the UK doesn't fit with the article (Okay we need to emphasise was rather than is).

It has been a difficult end to the year with Monarch, United and Icelandair but Jet2, TUI, Primera (albeit unproven) and the double daily A388 are positives. No mention in the article of BHX's main claim to fame that it is one of the few airports in the world taking two 615 seat aircraft a day - plenty taking 517/9 seat 380's but few 615 seat aircraft.

By the way year to date is 12,203,151 therefore 796849 required for 13 million and December 2016 was nearly 850K but I didn't even get the December 17 estimate to 800K but December is a very difficult month to judge and I am usually wrong by underestimating most years.

CabinCrew

I have not seen that explanation used for the BHX service but we like to think that we live in the real world here

[inOban]

BTW, why doesn't BHX publish its own monthly data in the second week of the month as most airports do? We know the year-end total for its competitors.

[SWBKCB]

Despite OltonPete's response, the problem is that this one article will have more than impact on the general perception of BHX than all the posts on Pprune - whether it is factually accurate or not (try Googling Birmingham Airport - for me the story comes up third after the official website and the wiki page).