does anyone have any 'inside info' on these proposed strikes then? I believe the first one is due to go ahead on thursday after the last date was avoided.

having just spent £40 to change switch my flight to egypt to manchester, i hope it bloody well goes ahead now!!

Re Air India Flights
 

Can anybody confirm approximate load factors on the Air India flights and how well these are doing ?

Has anyone got info on where the Airlines using BHX will divert to on thursday if the planned strike happens.

EG,
Bmi baby = Nottingham East Midlands
Britannia = Coventry.

And all the rest to name but a few??

from bhx.co.uk

Strike Action Cancelled - All Flights to Operate As Normal


Birmingham International Airport is pleased to announce that the strike action planned by the trade union Amicus at the Airport has been cancelled.

The Airport Company and Amicus have agreed that the dispute will be referred to a process of independent binding arbitration.

good news,shame it had to come so close to this though!

November Pax
 

Birmingham International Airport (BIA) experienced a busy November
with 585,400 passengers travelling through. This is an increase of
10.2% on the same month last year.

Richard Heard, the Airport's Managing Director is pleased with these
results and commented: "These figures are an example of the large
array of routes that Birmingham currently has to offer. With the
introduction of our new Goa service, which is the first time that
this destination has been served from BIA, and the continuation of
Sharm el Sheikh into the winter season, plus additional capacity on
key European scheduled routes, BIA has a lot to offer to all
passengers."

Scheduled traffic grew by 13.1% overall with passenger numbers
increasing on non-EU flights which grew by 32.9%, as well as on EU
flights which rose by 8.6% and on flights to Asia which increased by
29.1%. Domestic travel increased by 14.5%, with flights to the
Irish Republic growing by 16.5%.


Growth was also achieved on a number of scheduled routes, including
Amsterdam (+34.5%), Copenhagen (+28.3%), Edinburgh (+27.3%),
Gothenburg (+16.9%), Hanover (+11.5%), Paphos (+10.2%), Frankfurt
(+7.6%) and Inverness (+7.5%).

Overall, charter passenger numbers fell by 1.6%, which reflects the
trend across the whole charter market in the UK. Despite this small
decrease, charter figures have increased on the following routes,
Mexico (79.9%), Barbados (54.8%), Turkey (40.8%) and Malta (9.4%).
BIA's charter market has seen two new arrivals for the winter season
with Goa and Sharm el Sheikh joining the Airport's growing portfolio
of destinations.

Scheduled traffic accounted for 82.4% of the total November figure
while charter passengers made up the remaining 17.6%.
The 2005 YTD (Jan-Nov) = 8,818,181 up 5.40%
The Rolling Year Ended 30.11.05 = 9,313,823

BAA Stats for November

Heathrow - 5,208,200 up 1.7%
Gatwick - 1,993,500 up 1.9%
Stansted - 1,608,000 up 2.1%
Edinburgh - 634,700 up 3.0%
Glasgow - 594,000 up 1.3%
Aberdeen - 237,400 up 9.1%
Southampton - 133,100 up 14.5%

I think Richard Heard doesn't know what he is talking about, Britannia used to fly to Goa in the late 90's tech stopping in Abu Dabi with a 762, normally G-BYAA or B.

They certainly did! It was a split load with Manch. A few Brummies booked it out of Manch & wanted to get off on the way back at EGBB - what a nightmare they were!!

But the BAL service was excellent.

Aer Lingus have announced Cork - Birmingham but will reduce Dublin-Birmingham. There is speculation that Aer Arran may pull off Cork-Birmingham as the ATR could be used for further expansion from Ronaldsway or Luton.

Austrian are apparently looking (still) at Birmingham OR London City (so presumably they have a spare DHC8). This would presumably be a scheduled flight as Austrian have some charters operating through BHX after Xmas with DHC8s

LOT are apparently looking at what expansion Sky Europe (& Wizz) do before taking the plunge with additional UK routes. I believe Malev are also keen to add further UK routes but are waiting to see what Sky Europe & Wizz announce before adding any more routes.

No new rumours/news on Finnair adding additional routes

Final snippet from me concerns Air Europa. Due to Iberia potentially cutting their short haul network, Air Europa may be looking at adding additional scheduled flights to European destinations (I believe the only scheduled UK destination AEA serve is London Gatwick)

WNC

Seems that SAS might be killing the direct BHX / ARN flights. Flight availability in May 06 has disappeared from SAS internal booking systems even though it appears in published timetables/online in places like Expedia.

Found this when trying to book some return flights to BHX.

Possibilty that SAS are having a shake up with the BHX-ARN possibly coming back as daily with a Boeing rather than the current DHC8 from the Summer

FC

Anyone know what happened to the BA Avro that apparently went off the taxiway yesturday?

Cheers, Mark

Edit: sorry didn't see the thread in rumours and news

Re: BIRMINGHAM
 

Another article todat stating Jet Airways intention to launch flights to Birmingham.....

http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/...name_page.html

Does this mean they are still planning on operating A343s on the route?

Re: BIRMINGHAM
 

Word is that Jet Airways have bought Air Sahara so that would leave them with a 767 or A340's. The general opinion is that the 343 would have real problems off BHX's runway and Jet are soon to aquire some 330's so maybe we'll see them. I do hope it starts and AI go ahead with their planned 6x per week.

Re: BIRMINGHAM
 

True but if you read below.....

The fact that the the Chief Operating Officer states that they will start as soon as they obtain the permission suggests they may not have the said 767s or 330s in time to start the service, or maybe they will. It's all a matter of wait and see.

Re: BIRMINGHAM
 

But as soon as they obtain permission they wont send a plane the next day, they'll have to put the flights on sale to get bookings, employ handling agents etc at BHX, obtain slots etc. Not sure how long it would take to set up. Wonder if anybody on here knows when the 330's are due? Whatever the aircraft it'd be great to see em at BHX although I'd love to see a 343 there.

Re: BIRMINGHAM
 

I was under the impression the slots were obtained, the flight numbers appeared on the BHX Arrival/Departure boards on the 3/1/06 as that is when the service was supposed to start. AFAIK they have cancelled the January slots but have retained the February slots and onwards for now.

Re: BIRMINGHAM
 

Lets hope so it'd be great to see them and we need some good news for BHX at the moment. Have you heard anymore about AI 6 x per week the last I heard it was planned for March.

Re: BIRMINGHAM
 

Air India are apparently considering increasing the service to 6 per week starting in March as you said, as for anymore on that I don't know. Except that Air India have aquired another B772 (VT-AIR) which is not an 'ER' version which has already passed through BHX on the AI 187/188 service but it did encounter a few problems.

One would assume though that another B777 would allow the BHX service to be increased as the new aircraft could be used elsewhere.

Re: BIRMINGHAM
 

Are you a pilot flying in and out of BHX ? If you want to find out some of the current issues affecting your airport regarding ATC then visit :

www.egbb.co.uk

the ATC website for BHX
BBB

Re: BIRMINGHAM
 

I've heard that SAS have indeed dropped the Brum-Stockholm flight & that Germanwings are to cease Cologne-Brum

Fried Chicken