What does the Air Transat website say?

Planeaddict - As Skipness rightly said, check their website. Alternatively you could check your previous posts as a mere 16 days ago in thread 5, after presumably already having checked their website for yourself, you stated:

"Air Transat have released a timetable outlining changes for their transatlantic services for Summer 2013. Comparison is July & August 2013 vs the same period in 2012.

Toronto – Birmingham Airbus A310 replaces A330 in S12, 1 weekly service."

What on earth do you think will have changed in a fortnight :ugh:

Round and round and round we go... :mad::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:

Be easy on him.

He is either an intentional irritant or one of those people who has nothing to say but feels that he must be noticed.

I think that it is called care in the community!

Lufthansa BHX-TXL
 

Can somebody help with a query. Looking to book BHX-TXL return in August, flying on a Saturday coming back on a Sunday.

Do they not fly direct at the weekends after a certain date this year? Can't find flights in August. The Lufthansa timetable shows direct flights 7 days a week. I e-mailed Lufthansa and they said they don't fly direct from BHX to TXL at all!!!!

LH BHX-TXL
 

LH reduces the route over summer to 6/7 and 5/7, most likely to fly more lucrative summer charters ex TXL. 7/7 back in late summer, then all op. by A319 atm. Timings of flights seem to shift around as well, seems pretty fluid atm. With this route switching to 4U somewhen later this year I'd expect this state of fluency to continue.

If ou book and you get a change to times or of operating carrier to 4U, LH provides full refunds as I understand from other online communities.

LH BHX-TXL
 

Thanks Insuindi

Qatar
 

Saw this on airliners.net; was hesitant to post at first but I thought it might be of interest to those of us who will read it for what it is.

QR
 

Well, proposed timings and a possible schedule are an advance on previous vague rumours. However the fact that there is no actual date mentioned and the plan is to use the 787 means that QR are not an imminent arrival at BHX...at least we are still allegedly on the radar though!

Interesting trivia there. I saw that thread on Airliners.net and numerous people have pointed out that QR don't even serve MAN with 787s. Don't know where that user is getting the info from but good on BHX if it's true.

Has anyone got a link to the thread on airliners.net?

Does this seem like a profitable market? I only as as Emirates are already heavily in this market and not growing by much at all, certainly in comparison with other UK stations. Would Qatar really come to BHX focussed on low yield South Asian transfer traffic, with a 787?

Eh! Try airliners.net.

China Pattern,

Re Qatar and BHX.

Seems someone may know a bit more looking at the comments re a split schedule. However seems little else has changed. Qatar ordered 60 B787s and 5 so far delivered and now grounded.

It entirely depends where BHX are in the pecking order for a service as some are not due now till at least 2016 I believe.

Added complication since Al Bakars comments is that they have now joined One World..who don't do Birmingham apart from a Fly Be code share.

Theres also chance if they do not commit soon with a date, Emirates might spoil there party next year with a 3rd service although thats probably on the back burner now looking at current loads.

I know someone who works for Qatar had heard a November start date, but no recent evidence to back this up yet.:confused:

Nigel

Doha
 

SOE

Probably not ideally but it would provide a boost in terms of "bums on seats" for a start-up service, which should be sustainable in the short-term until QR get a foothold although I realise that is a gamble for a regional airport when the likes of Gatwick failed. Another problem I was told with the ATQ connection is that the service to DOH is filling anyway with BHX's help.

However I (like others) think BHX-DOH-ATQ will be well supported and it is up to QR to get the yield management right but whether there will be enough business traffic paying viable fares I don't know.

EK's stagnation co-incided with TK's increase and at the moment it is difficult to judge whether there is room for another Middle Eastern carrier but I suppose the passenger figures suggests not at this moment in time.

Also QR would need to give the service time similar to how Turkish have acted, they supported some terrible loads but all that seems to be behind them although having a continually growing mega-hub does help somewhat


Pete

Here's the thread on airliners.net: When Is Qatar Airways Coming To Birmingham (UK)? — Civil Aviation Forum | Airliners.net

I don't see why they wouldn't go for the A332 instead of the 787.

Planeaddict;

Do they have any A330s free, not sure they do ??

So would have to chop somewhere else and not sure we are that important..hopefully they will prove me wrong ?

Nigel

Nigel/Olten Pete; agree everything you say.

The main reason I posted was that it did strike me as something slightly more positive.

However, the fact remains that QR have been coming to BHX since 2006 and they are still not here so you really have to wonder if you can trust anything Al Baker says. For example, one minute he says they were not joining OneWorld and then a week later said the complete opposite! Also, notice how it suddenly went quiet on the BHX front when it was announced they were joining the alliance?

The other issue for me is that when they went twice daily at MAN they made no secret of their intention to entice passengers from the Midlands and as they're now down to x10 weekly it seems they bit off a bit more than they could chew in an effort to keep up with EK/EY.

But trying to remain positive, would any of the two proposed timings result in an AM departure from BHX?....(i'm useless at figuring these things out) Was wondering if that could give QR a slight advantage providing off course this info does turn out to be accurate.

Maybe they'd have a few A330s if they started sending A346s to MAN on a regular basis.

It depends how high BHX is on their priority list whether they'd operate a 787 on the route or not but in reality I can't see them going to BHX first where they've been operating at MAN for many years. If only there was a way where we could get some confirmation.

A 2am departure from DOH would result in a 7am arrival at BHX and a 9-10am departure from BHX. So the answer is yes.