Won't that eat into Cello's market?

No idea, but from what I've seen, Cello don't rely entirely on BHX or UK related work.

That company is just a broker and just happens to be UK based.

That particular 320 seems to spend much of its time flying between Kosovo, Germany, Switzerland and Israel.
Also done a few subs for Transavia and Thomas Cook Scandinavia
Really adding little to Birmingham imho

Orange2Fly's two A320s have spent much of the last 2-3 months under charter to Reiseburo Pristina - a travel agency based in Germany/Switzerland who sell flights to the Albanian/Kosovo diaspora in Germany/Switzerland and who wish to travel to/from Kosovo and Tirana

Never going to win awards for service, but many of their Kosovo flights have been full and they seem to have found themselves a niche.

A number of flights have already been operated.
A least 2 rotations to Athens have been flown during the last week or so.
Also they are using the Elmdon apron,not the main terminal.

Those flights to Athens are simply positioning sectors

Birmingham to Reykjavík (KEF) is now showing on the Primera Air webpage from December 2018, but not yet bookable

Looking at the notams I see the glidepath on 33 is unservicable again until at least the end of the month. Is this the old drainage problem again?

It's actually been unservicable since early January, I don't know the reason why, but my guess is that it must be due to the drainage problems again, this saga has gone on so long now, never known any other airports having these problems, Birmingham needs to get their act together fast, for such a safety critcial component.

For those of us that don't understand how these things work or impact on operations, can anyone shed a bit of light on why a 'drainage problem' can cause a navaid problem?
Thanks in advance

The area in front of the glidepath shed can get extremely waterlogged. What this does to the power supply or to the beam is unknown by me, but it has led to the withdrawal of the glidepath with great regularity and for some very extended periods.

Another New Primera Route
 

Alicante twice weekly from 6 December

Keflavik now also on sale

Nov/Dec Runway closures:

https://www.acl-uk.org/wp-content/up..._23FEB2018.pdf

It's probably runway extension related.

We never had all these drainage issues here before all the excavations and the huge bund made from dumped earth from it.

Reykjavik appears to be a positioning flight that bases the aircraft at BHX from Thursday morning until Sunday afternoon. This is from early December

This fits into the Alicante schedule. The other European routes are only on sale at the moment to early December. Is this an additional aircraft or will all the flying from December onward for the winter period be concentrated from Thursday to Sunday.

Centre cities

Primaybe
 

It's Primera. An airline version of a TV soap opera with all the twists and turns so far, quite impressive for an airline that has yet to operate its first flights from the UK.

That seems to be the plan today. Tomorrow - who knows?

Quite why they decided to launch a BHX base with 5 routes, all currently planned to finish within 6 months of starting, to be replaced by 3 new routes for winter, operated by an aircraft flying in from Iceland is beyond me...hopefully what we're seeing is all part of a bigger picture 'work in progress' plan. Sadly I have my doubts.

It’s all a bit confusing at the moment but from what I gather;

New York and Toronto are now bookable into December now so fingers crossed they are year round.

Chania ending September but that one would always be summer only.

Palma ends in October, replaced with Barcelona.

Alicante, Tenerife, Las Palmas and Reykjavik all added from December.

Malaga year round?

Primera Winter 2018-19
 

Chinapattern, that seems a reasonable summary, this is what has appeared on the Primera website since yesterday, all bookable from 9th December:

Alicante: Thurs and Sun from 9th Dec - 7th April

Gran Canaria: Fri from 7th Dec - 5th April

Malaga: daily until 9th December, then Tues/Thurs/Sun until 5th April

Reyjkavik: Sun 9th Dec, Wed 19th Dec, Tues 1st Jan then Sun from 13th Jan - 7th April

Aircraft operates inbound Thursday 6th and 13th December, and from 17th Jan

Tenerife: Sat from 8th Dec

Barcelona is daily from 1st October-9th December, not bookable afterwards - why run a route only for 3 months at this time of the year??

Long Haul:

New York: Mon/Wed/Fri/Sun until 9th Dec

Toronto: Tues/Thurs/Sat until 8th Dec

So it would seem the BHX base uses a KEF based aircraft from 9th Dec with flights only operating from Thurs-Sun until April, apart from AGP which also flies on a Tuesday, totalling 8 flights per week.

I can't see them having an aircraft sat around on a Mon and Wed doing nothing to operate a single Tuesday Malaga flight?

Interestingly, MAN-AGP has now appeared, 4 times per week from 24th October. More routes to come from MAN me thinks.

One assumes EWR, YYZ start again after 9th April along with short haul winter routes hopefully continuing through the summer

The STN schedule is much more robust than BHX over winter, with daily EWR and ALC, 5 times pw IAD and YYZ and 3/4 times pw AGP, TFS, LPA. Goes without saying they are obviously doing much better from STN than BHX, no surprise really.

So many pieces of the Primera jigsaw to still put together. It doesn't make any sense to me unless there is more to come? They have not become 'the saviour' that I think BHX management were hoping they might be.

I don't believe BHX management expected Primera to be any sort of "saviour"; BHX doesn't need saving for starters, and second, it's unclear to me whether Primera's arrival on the T/A scene was the catalyst for the departure of UA / TS, or the consequence of the departure of said carriers. YYZ now has on offer more seats per week than it has had for years, and BHX has managed to get reconnected with New York. I am sure Primera is in BHX for the long game, and it's very difficult to judge them until the first summer season is done and dusted. As indication of just how difficult the T/A market is, I heard today on ZDF (Germany) TV news that Lufthansa and cutting their direct service between Berlin and New York, due to poor demand. If Berlin has issues making NY work, it puts BHX into some sort of perspective.

I am surprised however that Primera EWR is only bookable till 9.12.18, that seems a rather arbitrary date, and I would have expected the service to go into hibernation in the first week of January, but I assume they have done their homework.