All names taken
 

I'm a great beleiver in abbreviations used in a proper context epeciaily in technicial documentation - i.e. full title on initial use and abb.. in further useage, nothing personal; so can you please make your origional post in english. I'm guilty too. Its often a problem with people trying to disguise their lack of knowledge. [Edit: Especially Salesmen/Women]

thank you

CAT III

B787 EI-LNC
 

Norwegian B787 EI-LNC is due in for a visit to the MAEL hangar overnight the 10th/11th. :ok:

"return on investment".
:E
TBD = "to be determined"
Both very commonly used.

Fair point about acronyms though, like a plague.

ROI: Thank you
 

Skipness: Understood - Aplogies if I seemed grunpy. in all fairness.

CAT III

I hadn't heard of either also.

Abbreviations.com

:)

Flybe S14

More routes added:

Ibiza 3 x weekly night flights from 01 July to 07 Sept

Reykjavik 3 x weekly night flights from 29 June to 07 Sept


J

A further update to the above, it appears that three more weekly Palma flights have been added by Flybe for S14, both night flights

flybe
 

flybe

Three extra Palma night flights as well making it double daily Tuesday and Sunday and operates 5 out of 7 in all. Start 29 June end early September.

BE1864/5 21.40 03.25 Tu Fr Su IBZ
BE1862/3 21.30 03.00 Tu Fr Su PMI
BE1870/1 21.30 03.40 Tu Fr Su KEF

Cologne and Florence started today, the former naturally on the newly painted dash and the latter on the 175.

Alicante starts tomorrow and Porto Saturday before the next batch in May (NQY, BOD, TLS & PMI)

Monarch

Brand new sharklet A321 delivered to BHX this afternoon with the ex Royal Jordanian A321 moving to East Mids for a lick of paint no doubt.

Loads of GA/Biz/freight on another super day at BHX.

Pete

Biman put the JFK flights back to Mid August. BHX doesn't get a mention in the article.

Biman?s NY flight now to resume in mid-August | Dhaka Tribune

Hmmm...I also see the article doesn't specify mid-August of what year !!:uhoh:

By the time they get their &*?t together HS2 will have been built and LHR will have 6 runways

CAA March 2014
 

BHX prov. stats March 2014

March 654377
MoM +4.6%

Rolling year 9238562
YoY +3.7%

Of the big airports, only ABZ, EDI und LGW had larger MoM growth. MAN, LHR, BRS, STN, EMA, LTN, NCL, LIV (many slightly) negative.

March Pax
 

The net increase over 2013 really doesn't tell the full story and as ever with March it is difficult month to judge depending on where Easter falls.

Last year was terrible, as it included some Easter pax and was down on 2012.

The fact is March 2014 was below March 2004 (yes 10 years), as well as below 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. The record was March 2008 with 729209 but Easter was the earliest for 90 odd years at around 23 March and that does make a difference.

Back to the present and on long-haul there could be some records broken.

Emirates 48204 average pax 389 at 91% load factor (that could be a record pax figure).

Air India is a record but obviously the re-instated service is still less than one year old - 8227 pax at 229 per flight or 89% load factor is the best so far. Partly helped by 5 Saturdays and 5 Mondays in March.

Possibly even more of a surprise (at least to me) is Turkmenistan at 6260, which could be a record for four services a week (it operated briefly at a higher rate) and a staggering 174 pax per flight giving around 92% load factor based on 190 seats.

Islamabad was a disappointment down 23% at 7904 (Manchester down 42% but due to Air Blue) although still managed 73% load factor.

Business routes were mainly up with the exception of a few such as Berlin, Hamburg (smart move Lufthansa) and very noticeable compared to Dusseldorf which was up a remarkable 16% but this could be decimated shortly with the Germanwings changes but if they are not making money on a network-wide basis I suppose little can be done.

Some Spanish routes still well below East Mids but horses for courses I suppose.

Turkish was okay at around 70% and I can sort of understand why it hasn't gone 12 weekly or double daily although saying that Edinburgh is increasing on some very average winter figures although they do have a strong summer market.

Pete

March pax
 

There always seems to be some some glitches with the BHX provisional figures, this month not showing Hanover nor Enfidha. I always have a look at the sad decline of the ZRH route which month on month shows a decrease and considering it is a star alliance hub and hence in all the route search engines i find it quite odd. Maybe when LX get the c-series things may improve.
Apart from that some excellent figures , and as O.P. has pointed out the biggest surprise was Turkmen , maybe they have cut their fares to counter the AI presence ? There has been a rumour of them using 777's , now i can see why.

Hannover's provisional data has been faulty every single month so far this year.

getonitt.

I think Zurich can be explained by the fact that LH now controls LX . Probably putting some from Zurich on their own flights, as LH have seen steadyincreases in passenger numbers.

Its noticeable that MAN LX flts were supposed to be all airbus, however even here theres been quite a few Helvetic F100s on ZRH recently, perhaps for the same reason.

Nigel

MAN-ZRH will be back to 3 a day soon.

But yeah agree - as part of the LH Group, they will shift capacity (by pricing policy) around their hubs as they see fit.
Just watch the BHX-ZRH route once prices start coming down again, numbers will go up.
LF up / yield down - all a balancing act.

@Oltonpete trying to follow your post (I always value your posts!): You say Easter props up passenger figures. As such the dip last year was particularly bad as it already included some of Easter. OK. This year March did not include Easter. But it was up (from the low base last year). But esepcially the fact that BHX gained whilst many of its larger and/or regional competitors didn't, is still good, no?

I spend a lot of time positioning for flights around Europe and I would observe that in the UK they've not made the experience of flying either attractive or easy, probably LGW is an exception. A lot of the UK regional airports start the rip off process even before you go inside with parking/drop off fee's, just imagine if supermarkets started doing that?

The UK departure tax also is a big turn off. I think a lot of people have got to the point where apart from a main holiday they just can't be bothered with jump through all the hoops on airlines websites, then parking drop off fee's and then security ............

Wishing BHX well, much potential i think.

March 2014
 

insuindi

I suppose any increase is good especially compared to decreases recorded at Heathrow, Manchester, Bristol, Luton, Leeds, East Midlands, Newcastle and Belfast INT and all I was really trying to do was to add a bit of perspective.

Also to show how after ten years BHX has not progressed as much as other airports, some examples: -

Edinburgh 2004 - 649571 compared to 2014 733176
Luton 2004- 555695 compared to 2014 707909
Bristol 2004 - 335269 compared to 2014 426294
Birmingham 2004 - 665380 compared to 2014 654377

I know comparing one month is not particularly ideal but enough to show a bit of a comparison against some other UK airports. Although to counter-balance that there are airports similar to BHX that haven't moved on (passenger number wise) since 2003/4 such as Manchester (1436506 in 2004 to 1434504 in 2014) and Glasgow.

As for the BHX "bad" month, March 2013 I can only assume that the loss of BMI Baby in the previous September was a major factor, as Monarch & Ryanair were not so keen to add extra capacity in the winter months unlike summer. This again has distorted the increase in March 2014.

Overall the airport is moving in the right direction but as LNIDA states
"much potential i think"

Pete

If you hadn´t noticed already LN-IDA welcome to rip-off Britain. One of the many reasons I spend as little time as possible in dear old Blighty!

I completely disagree with the short term drop-off/pick-up fees at BHX (and other UK airports. However, as far as BHX is concerned, there are two ways you can drop off/pick up for free. The first, although perhaps not the most convenient, is the long stay car park which allows 15 mins free access and provides a free bus service to the terminal. Not particularly handy in the Winter though. The second, which is the option I use, is to use the International station and then the Air-rail system to the airport. It only takes a few minutes more and there's no exposure to the weather.

I just can`t see why they have to do that, we are lucky here at Manchester as we still have a free drop of zone but pick up is not as easy as flights can be delayed so passengers can take while to get through
so cars cannot be abandoned while driver goes to find them so I can understand going into short stay

Ian

I mentioned a few months back that it cost me £7.40 to briefly see no 1 son off to Singapore (via DXB), having been redirected to the furthest reaches of Long Stay 1 because the short / medium stay car parks were full (I'll use the station next time).

Flying from a very pleasant LGW at the weekend to VCE, I couldn't help but notice their FREE 2 hour pick up / drop off...as well as free plastic bags at security!

LNIDA has a point.

It's also cheaper to park there for the day if you're flying out and back on the same day. £9 a day in the week I believe.

Flights JAF9102 BHX-SVQ (EMB90) on 9 June and return SVQ-BHX on 12 June have been scheduled... Someone know why? :)

Why not? :)

FR8364

To help people out... think SVQ is Saville and JAF Jet AirFly !

Nigel

Saville??? Thought we weren't mentioning him any more! Try Seville … that place with the nice marmalade oranges! :-)

Seville
 

FR8364

BHX in the past (pre-recession) used to get 20 to 30 outbound one-off charters a year (not inbound for the NEC) and these used to range from the Motor Industry, Banks or Travel Agent jollies but as far as this one goes I haven't found any obvious clues.

The motor industry ones usually have flights from other UK airports at the same time if it involves Car Dealers for a new launch.

Pete

My view on the decline of Swiss is that the flight timings just do not work for using ZRH as a long-haul hub from BHX. When there was a lunchtime flight to ZRH then you had a 6 hour wait in ZRH before the late evening long-hauls - just about bearable. The timing of the evening flight leaves only about 1 hr to get from Gruezi D to the E gates - always assuming the inbound from BHX is on-time, not something Helvetic are renowned for achieving. Last time I used the evening flight to connect it was late into BHX, even later out and I only just made the flight to SIN.

Seville
 

I've seen special departures with (I think) VW or M-B logos splashed on the screens above check-in, and F-I-L worked for a number of major manufacturers and went on these sorts of days out.

Southern Spain and France are very popular place to launch cars due good food and nice weather for the jolly; coupled with relatively empty and twisty yet well-surfaced roads that flatter both the drivers' skill and the vehicle's suspension.

Germanwings
 

4/7 HAM confirmed for winter 2014/15. TXL also continues to be 4/7. BHX-DUS will switch to 4U on 18th September. Schedule remains as is. Saturday flight will drop out end of October.

Thomson Summer 2015
 

Early days but Birmingham seems to have some new destinations and increases with Thomson for Summer 2015. Agadir, Chania and Djerba are new. Cancun, Dubrovnik and Kefalonia get extra flights. Marrakech isn't bookable for Summer 2015. :ok:
Daza

Daza,

Orlando plods on still an embarrassing 1 a week next summer..still. They sold this summers programme within weeks of it being released ,just insane.

Nigel

I stand to be corrected on this but AFAIK, TOM L/H flights from BHX are crewed by MAN crews, with all the additional costs that this brings in HOTAC and surface coach transport - in the W13/14, on arrival into BHX from CUN, BGI etc, crews were put up in day rooms at the Novotel before coaching back to MAN in the evening. The aircraft also have to position in from MAN and/or LGW to operate BHX flights.


This could be a suggestion as to why the TOM L/H programme at BHX stays relatively static? If BHX based crew were 787 trained then we would see a based 787 and therefore more routes? TOM however seem happy at the moment to pay positioning crew and aircraft costs over the cost of training up crew and having a L/H aircraft permanently based at BHX.


Even discounting this suggestion, I agree with Nigel, a 1 X weekly SFB is a bit of an embarrassment.


Has anyone heard anything else about the 777 Turkmen rumour to operate ASB-BHX-YYZ?


Looking at the BE online timetable these seems to be a second M-F Inverness rotation operating from 14th July as an INV based aircraft but obviously operating other flights from BHX in between.


INV 06.20 BHX 07.50 BE830
BHX 19.25 INV 21.00 BE833

Thomson Summer 2015
 

To add to the list of new short-haul services from Birmingham is Porto Santo near Madeira, afternoon flight commencing late May 2015 :ok:
Daza

Thomson summer long haul
 

Thomson has apparently decided that the combined market in South Wales/South West England is not sufficient to warrant a dedicated service from either BRS or CWL this summer or, according to next summer's programme that was published yesterday, in summer 2015.

LGW and BHX seem to be the airports that TOM wants Welsh/West Country passengers to use so if BHX has only one Florida departure per week it's perhaps not surprising that it's full.

If this policy persists beyond 2015 it's not unreasonable to believe that Thomson will increase its BHX offering to Florida (am I right in saying that Cancun, Mexico has been increased for summer 2015?) if BHX is expected to help take the load from South West Britain.

Tom long haul at BHX.
 

Birmingham Thomson crews are trained and do fly long haul on the 767 from bhx. The way it works is generally the bhx crews operate the outbound sector to where ever and operate the return sector to another uk airport, stay in a hotel and travel back later that night. Conversely , a Manchester crew for example , operate the outbound from Man to xyz and then fly the return sector to BHX, stay in the hotel and travel back to Man later that night. This is common practice in Thomson for long haul, with other permutations ,as is positioning aircraft around the country.
If the South West is missing out on Thomson long haul, I would say it is purely down to yield. Some 767 s are staying in the fleet until 2018, so they will need to find work for them .

I've booked for Summer 2015 TOM flight to Montego Bay, this is listed as a 787 flight.