Saudia
 

The brand new retro livery 787-10 is currently scheduled to operate Tuesday’s flight.

A summary of new routes and routes resumed for winter 23/24:
Aegean: Athens (A320) on Tue and Sat (- 21/11/2023, 09/12/2023 - 06/01/2024 and 27/04/2024 -)
Avanti Air: Stuttgart (DH8D) arrives Mon 06:45 and departs Fri 15:15 (Private charter)
TUI: Singapore (B788) weekly on Wed from 13 Dec (Cruise charter)
TUI: Kuusamo (B738) weekly on Sun from 10 Dec-18 Feb
Jet2: Cologne (B738) on 6th, 8th , 10th, 11th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 18th, 22nd Dec
easyJet: Salzburg (A319) weekly on Sat from 13th Jan-24 Feb
easyJet: Paris CDG (A320) 3-6 weekly from 29 Oct, daily from 2 Feb
easyJet: Lyon (A319/A320) Mon & Fri from 30 Oct, plus Sat from 6 Jan
Pegasus: Istanbul SAW (A320neo) Tue, Thu & Sat from 21 Dec
Ryanair: Girona (B738/B7M8) Mon & Sat
Ryanair: Budapest (B738) Fri & Sun from 29 Oct
Ryanair: Seville (B738) Mon & Sat from 30 Oct
Ryanair: Valencia (B738/B7M8) Mon & Sat from 30 Oct
Saudia: Jeddah B787-10s on Tues, B789s on Thu & Sun
Sun Express: Antalya (B738) on Tue & Sun

With the building work currently underway, has there been a noticeable increase in the wait times to clear security ? I'm trying to decide if I should splurge £10 fir the Express security lane.
I'm flying out at 11:00 on a Friday, if that has any bearing on the decision.

Queue
 

I flew out yesterday, 25th Ocober, on a 09.30 departure. In the queue at 07.40 for approx 15 minutes.

Flew with Aegean to Athens in Sept on a Saturday morning, arrived security 07.45 thinking it would be awful, although a lot of people queuing, was through in 20 mins wishing I'd had another hour in bed as my flight was 10.45 🙄

Similar experiences myself with security, I fly BHX-DUB 2-3 times a month, Monday 8am on EI263, and security is generally 15-20 mins. It actually pays to be a bit later for me so that the morning bucket & spade rush is out of the way. Outside of school holidays I generally don't bother with fast track, even though my FF status allows it, mainly because you are lumped in to a single queue for screening that moves slower than the regular queues IMO usually due to people having liquids/tablets in bags etc. That will be different next year and it'll be fast track for me every time :ok:

Of course it was a different story through the summer season and fast track was a must but generally the queues were very managed by staff. I even travelled on some of the days where the media were reporting chaos and it simply wasn't the case, yes there were long queues but they were moving and people were being called out for soon-to-be departing flights.

Thanks for the updates. Looks like I can save the £10 express fee for me and my wife, and spend it on something useful like beer !

Beer?.
 

I thought you were a red wine person. Greetings

BEER? Flying out at 11.00am. :8
Lol of course.

Winter Timetable November 2023
 

Please find attached the Winter BHX Timetable for November 2023

Scheduled flights operate from today (29th October) to 30th November.

Charter flights operated from the 1st to the 30th November.



-as usual, all flight schedules/times/aircraft types subject to change

Winter 23/4
 

Matt, having sample checked the various winter timetables yours is a masterpiece, so many late changes and constant revisions not helped with the local half-term only just starting, which Ryanair & Jet2 have reacted to extending seasonal flights but virtually ignored by TUI.

Jon added the new routes above and the only change I have found is a disappointing one and that Aegean Athens will be back on 28 April not mid February.

Some other changes are as follows -

Lufthansa Munich night-stop has ended - service returns to double daily most days, Frankfurt between 3 or 4 a day. The usual January reductions are in place

Eurowings have started using the A321 tonight on the Dusseldorf and although not daily it is eventually listed for Monday morning and Wednesday Thursday Friday and Sunday evening but the mid afternoon service has stopped on Wednesday & Thursday as has the mid morning Tuesday and the major disappointing one is that Prague has ceased for winter

Swiss Zurich - extremely disappointing back to 5 per week from 8 per week last week, mainly Helvetic although Saturday from Feb half term is double daily by Swiss until the end of the winter season

SAS - Another disappointment - The second Thursday flight has stopped and by December so will the second Monday and Friday so back to 6 per week and less in January

Brussels Airlines - a surprise as the A319 reappears from today in place of the Cityjet CRJX

Turkish Airlines - Technically an increase on summer and last winter, as it is a double daily A321 variant which hold more the Max and last winter was 10 per week

Air France - I have lost the plot with them it is all over the place, some days 4 some days 2 over winter. A general rule of thumb on average 3 daily in the week with 2 HOP and one A320 but when there are 4 flights the two AF are A223's. An odd one is Monday's in January appear to be 2 flights only for a few weeks but 3 per day the rest of the week

KLM - Much better and easier to follow - The 5th weekday flight stays until Christmas and returns late February - I can't remember the last time we had 5 winter flights a day

Vueling - Oh dear. Orly has gone and Barcelona 3 per week in November and 4 at best

Sun Express - Antalya is an increase as here all winter twice per week

Emerald via the Belfast City service increase to 5 per day Sunday Monday Thursday and Friday - quite ironic as they struggled at times to maintain 4 daily in summer but all 5 operated today

Ryanair - Budapest has landed with Valencia and Seville starting tomorrow but from last winter Gdansk, Vilnius, Billund Stockholm, Toulouse and Bordeaux are lost plus a few Irish route frequencies so the schedule is similar in flights per week to last year but 6 based rather than 5.

Jet2 - No idea how it compares to last winter but seems up especially as the three A321's are based and operate every day and joined by at least A21N (11 December for TFS). Vienna has been converted from a Christmas Market route to all winter and even the A321 is used in December. A few routes have extra frequencies or operate for longer. Cologne is added to the pre-Christmas flight list (9), with Prague getting 4 flights per week in the same period instead of the normal two, Krakow gets the A321 for a few flights in the same period and Budapest gets a third flight for three weeks over Christmas and New Year. They also have started operating the P&O Tenerife flights and they have Ivalo Santa flights lined up as well. Some days appear to require 13 aircraft but most operating just one flight.

TUI - Again this seems up on last year with the third Boa Vista operating all winter and 3 Sharms until just after Christmas. The January decreases also seem a lot fewer than normal with Enfidha, Marrakech and Agadir all operating in January but it remains to be seen if this happens. Sal moved days from Tuesday & Saturday to Monday & Friday and fitted in nicely for 788 ops but then was downgraded to the MAX and I assume the 788 is required elsewhere those days.

Wizz - No new routes but increases on Craiova from 2/3 to 4 per week, Warsaw & Krakow will be 3 per week from mid December onwards and Bucharest should be 5 per week all winter.

easyjet - Other than the new routes, Lisbon has been downgraded this winter to the A320 from the A21N, Geneva shows a brief new high of 20 per week with 4 daily on Sunday for a few weeks but 3 daily otherwise up from 2 daily last winter and Thursday sees a third flight for a few weeks with Saturday remaining at 4 flights. Glasgow has taken the hit with just 8 flights a week and none on a Saturday, but Edinburgh has been increased to a maximum of 20 per week although January sees some reductions. Belfast gets a 4th Sunday service no surprise with that one. Milan is new for winter operating twice per week

EK of course will be operating the A388 & 77W this winter compared to 2 x 77W last winter and Qatar daily compared to zero last winter - Saudi has been covered by Jon

Pete

Can I just say a big thank you to Matt995 & Olton Pete for your detailed research.

Agreed

Jet2 first NEO due to operate now on 6th November - initially will be GSUND based. Will position from MAN on evening of 5th Nov

A21N Jet2
 

Cheers irishlad06

I can see the Tenerife seat-map for Monday 6 November is showing the A21N replacing the A321 and a couple other Tenerife's that week

My next question is this an extra 321 or replacing a CEO for maintenance or as the base spare?

Pete

Zap - good to hear from you. Saw your post on CC. Currently banned indefinitely due to sense of humour failure by the mods.
To answer your question, no red wine before noon !
Can you say hello to Avril for me, as she seems to care so much.
Thank you.

Pegasus to start BHX-SAW on 23 December 2023 initially 3pw

Pegasus
 

Fantastic news, good to see another new airline at BHX who will for sure attract IST P2P traffic (much lower fares than TK) as well as offering yet further connection opportunities from BHX to points east. Great work from the route development team!

Ryanair
 

Reports that Ryanair maybe basing a seventh aircraft at BHX next summer and launching new routes to go head to head with EasyJet and Jet2.

Ryanair/Pegasus/jet2
 

Ryanair

I think there are some possible clues already, the main one is the 7 late evening arrivals on 6 of the 7 evenings from June although similar things have happened in the past only to change when the final schedule is released with a lot of frequencies changed to away based or cut. The best one was pre-Covid when 4 aircraft were based and they had 7 based departures early one afternoon and it goes without saying it never happened and it was back to 4 with day changes, cancelled frequencies and away based flying but that was just one day out of seven.

The current schedule is also minus Bydgoszcz (2-4 flights) Modlin (2-4 flights), Girona (2-4 flights), Porto (2-3 flights) and Toulouse (2 flights). Bydgoszcz is not a base but is generally one of the last flights to be released and worryingly has been increased to 4 per week this winter like Gdansk was planned to last winter and we know how that one ended. Modlin of course is an issue but could get replaced by Warsaw, Girona is operating now and I am sure will reappear same with Porto but not so confident with Toulouse though.

I can't remember seeing so many days on an initial release where an extra aircraft is required but of course I am also mindful that Ryanair have already sent salvo's to Boeing about aircraft deliveries and it might end up a bun fight to see which airports get extra aircraft as FR keep everything in-house.

Pegasus

Excellent and now showing 21 December which I am sure was the 23rd when I first looked and it should be an A320 per some other booking engines.

Jet2

The A21N has started ops on the Tenerife although it seems to end after the 16th before coming back again on 11 December, if the Jet2 seat-map is correct in the booking engine.

Pete