Boeing 787-10
 

possible heads up for Thursday, Saudia may be using a 787-10 on their lunch time service, which if it happens will be the first scheduled service from Birmingham on a -10 series

Saudia will be using B787-10s on the following dates: Aug 10th, Sep 3rd, 10th, 12th, 19th, 26th, Oct 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th

Saudi have had fantastic loads so not surprised, yesterday was full, QR & EK also mainly full :-)

Noticable yesterday in the immigration queue. It's laughable that they are trying to process that many passengers through such a small facility.

Middle East flights
 

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/new...ights-27495718

I think it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing some extra capacity. Emirates going double daily with the A380 at the start of next summer, Saudia adding a fourth weekly and Qatar 10 weekly all sound plausible. Turkish are back to double daily A321 for the winter and there’s the ongoing speculation about Air India adding more flights.

Totally agree. The Saudia flights (despite many thinking they would be a one season wonder) are doing very well load wise, as are Qatar

In addition to what was mentioned in the previous post, I can also see Kuwait and/or Gulf Air joining the party in the next couple of years, Kuwait started serving MAN with a 320 which would be perfect for BHX to add additional capacity without overloading the market with seats.

Having said all that, wonder if things will slightly change if PIA are allowed to resume flights for m the UK and they resume BHX?

Gulf Air just dont have the aircraft for it. They only have two more 787s due which will presumably be used to launch US flights.
Potentially on the A321 3-4 weekly I suppose

Gulf and Kuwait were in discussions with MAN for many years. All these airlines will be watching for off peak performance before committing new or additional resources. Let us not forget that QR had very good load factors in peak months before suspension, so it is a complex calculation.

With Ethiopian's current appetite for expansion a long shot could be a one-stop BHX-ADD to connect into their Africa hub. A bit of kite-flying there by you never know.

One thing appears pretty obvious, and to be honest has been for years now, BHX route to long haul development is towards Asia rather than the perennial calls for USA and Canada services, aside of course UK originating IT ops to Mexico and the Caribbean.

ADD is stange as you can fly direct ex MAN,LHR and LGW( just starting and MAN increasing once again this winter and I can see it going nonstop before long with Ethopian.

Same with Manchester, the demographic shift and population changes continue to be reflected in the viable long haul opportunities. The world of Wardair and Worldways is long gone, B747s and L1011s going West have given way to 615 seat A380s going East.

ADD is stange as you can fly direct ex MAN,LHR and LGW( just starting and MAN increasing once again this winter and I can see it going nonstop before long with Ethopian.

And the same demographic shift at EDI which has only QR going east to cater for Scottish demand for Far East, India and Oz connections yet multiple high season TATL departures due to the currently enormous demand from US and Canadians to fly to/from Scotland.

I agree, a BHX - States scheduled service is probably now never going to happen again as it would rely primarily on UK.based traffic, there just isn't the inbound demand from Americans to fly to Brum.

Very interesting to see how MAN, EDI and BHX are playing to their long haul demographic strengths now.

Its probably a crazy idea ,but Tom Bradys involvement with Birmingham City has certainly been big news in the US according to people I know over there.
Maybe some Americans will open their atlases and look up Brum.
Probably stupid but any publicity is good publicity

Thing is that to an American looking at a small scale atlas they'll likely think Birmingham is a suburb of London.

They are pretty naive when it comes to geography outside their own back yard and thats being charitable!

I agree with the fact BHX just wont get US flights back imho .There just aint anyone who will do it !

BA no question
Virgin have ruled out BHX
TUI do charters only
Aer Lingus have ruled out any more UK bases (IMHO they should've based a couple 321 up at GLA)
American only sees Britain as Hounslow (although their return to another two airports may still occur)
Delta dont do TATL narrowbodies anymore .
United are disinterested in the regions bar potentially MAN next year - however if I had to pick one IMHO they're the most likely within the decade
JetBlue have too much premium seating
Norse 787-9 seems a little too much even for BHX-NYC

Until someone new enters the fray, none of the current TATL carriers will do BHX

The real winner for BHX TATL is the A321XLR. Out of all the airlines listed above, only AA and UA have them on order (not counting EI)
AA's business model now is to feed their JV partners .
UA remains to be seen whether they commit to returning to the regions .

JetBlue
 

I trust you mean the 24/114 config, even BHX would be confident of filling 16/144 if the pound recovers to better levels in the future (these do fly across the pond now) although at this time there is little doubt that they have better options than BHX but they should not be ruled out in the distant future.

Vueling Orly - still nothing beyond 28 October, it does appear to have gone.

Pete

Looking ever so slightly north, I wonder if Air Transat would consider re-starting Toronto at some point? Now they have A321LR's they could be quite nicely suited to 2-3 weekly flights over the summer.

GH ground handling
 

I notice that GH the handling agent for Wizz at LTN and good few airlines at LHR is stating BHX as a station on their website … I didn’t realise Swissport finally had some competion… which airlines do they handle?

GH do not look after any airlines at BHX

Handling Agents - Birmingham Airport Website