https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr7z907ndlo

LTNman,

Last years bogie airport was MAN, this summer, certainly the first part. If BHX doesn't sort this fiasco out in time for the Spring BH rush the mud may possibly stick.

How they could ever have thought that using lifts and making stairs a virtually impossible option frankly beggars belief. What were they thinking. For heaven's sake, God gave us legs!

Went through again this week. Better than last time, but not great.

From my 2 recent experiences, the bottlenecks are not the service lifts. But the lack of available working scanners. That takes the queue back to the lifts.

Get the scanners in place with the right manpower so that the lines are open and it ‘should’ work fine (providing this new technology is reliable day in day out).

Listening to a member of the security staff talking to enquiring customers. He was cockily talking along the lines of becomming the UKs No 1 airport for passenger ease and speed of baggage security scanning clearance come the summer. Was probably a Villa fan.

The airports treatment of the paying public is quite abysmal at times yet they seem to still be making a few quid with fast track whist most stand and suffer.

That can be said for pretty well all major airports.

I remember a former colleague once mentioning their view that airports treat the airlines as their customer, not the passengers.

Maybe an over simplified view at first hand, but maybe not when when you break down the customer experience journey, particularly security.

A number of years ago at the same BHX, I was approached by a security junior whilst in the queue and asked about my experience.

I wasn’t in any rush and calmly gave her candid feedback which she refuted and became agitated. “I am not going to argue with you Sir!!”, was a wholly bizarre escalation on her behalf. Don’t approach and VOC me if you don’t want to hear my experiences.

I shut the conversation down advising her I was a customer with choice. She didn’t get it. Didn’t get it at all.

Maybe it was her cocky father we met earlier this week.

Ryanair Winter 24/25
 

It appears Venice is changing to Treviso from Marco Polo twice a week.

It isn't fully bookable but using the usual trick of searching Lodz and changing the last three letters of the web address from LCJ to TSF you can find the days and times for Treviso

Monday 09:30 - 14.25 from 28/10/24

Saturday 15:40 - 20:35

Plodiv - weekly

Saturday 05:45 - 13:10 from 2/11/24

Lodz - 2 per week

07:45 - 13:10 Monday from 28/10/24

06:15 - 11:40 Saturday

Although there isn't concrete evidence of 7 based Friday - Monday (Tuesday - Thursday is very light) it is a record schedule for winter at BHX in respect of Ryanair in terms of the number of flights (around 155)

More rumoured as well.

Other routes

Santander & Girona are the only two losses as yet and the CAA figures for last winter will give the reason why this is not a surprise

It appears Toulouse, Bordeaux and Arlanda stay seasonal along with Zadar, Ibiza, Reus, Pisa and Perpignan plus the Greek flights of course.

Increases on Last winter include Alicante 9-10 per week, Malta 3 to 4 per week, Budapest 2 to 3 per week plus add in Berlin (2) Agadir (2) Marrakech (2) LDY (2), Beauvais (7), Tirana (2).

Grenoble and Turin revert to weekly from two per week. Might be more but still sifting through the schedule.

Summer 24 - A third Toulouse added on a Wednesday from July to the route ends on a based aircraft replacing Dublin which is now away based

Pete

Thanks for the FR update OP!

Good news and I reckon there might be some more new routes.

I do wonder how the BVA is doing? Fares are very light over the next couple of months - but clearly doing well enough to stay at daily or is there an incentive in place?

Interesting to see that (depending on day and time) AF have some very good deals BHX-CDG I guess in reaction to EZY and FR. The mid morning tends to be the priciest but I've picked up a single on Fri afternoon in late June for cheaper than EZY.

Treviso is a very handy airport to fly into - much cheaper hotels than Venice, regular, quick trains to Venice, making it a very easy day trip (and easy train connections to Verona, Milan etc) and a small airport that's a quick cab ride from Treviso itself.

PIA
 

Have seen some online news reports suggesting PIA are due to restart flights to Paris in June and the UK (no specific airports mentioned) from August 24th. Who knows if this will happen but one to watch and if they do, let's hope BHX are part of their plans.

Why are Emirates Skycargo operating their long standing LHR services to BHX? Any ideas? Qatar Cargo have also moved to STN. Did Emirates move the cargo slots to the make the new B77W rotation a daily one?

LHR slot restrictions as they are concentrating on long established cargo & pax flights after covid allowed additional freight flights to start
Airlines are having to re apply for slots etc

Good to se that Easyjet have officially made a statement that the new BHX base (and ALC too) is performing well above the network average. It was included in the statement regarding the retirement of the CEO. Positive news and hopefully a prosperous and expanding future.

Emirates WAS a long established cargo flight, been twice weekly for many years.

EasyJet
 

Loads are a piece of cake to monitor but of course yield’s impossible due to the mix of flight only and packages. Loads on the majority routes are very good even early season and more importantly on the weekly flights which I was sceptical about.

Some flights indicate they could have taken more capacity and others maybe could do better operating on different days or times such as Milan which is away based twice a week Monday & Thursday.

it is a fascinating schedule some aircraft getting two to three hour turnaround times and most back before midnight at an airport that up until now doesn’t use all it’s night slot allowance. I wonder if this will change next summer.

Diversions

A couple of oddballs this week - A Manchester -Heathrow shuttle due night closure at the latter. Something clearly happened here last minute as it departed Manchester 22.58. Currently a Swiss 777 Boston - Zurich planned tech stop in a few hours. Update the latter is Miami - Zurich diverted Boston and thus crew hours probably the issue with possibly a replacement crew flown in on ZRH - BHX this morning.

Freight

Still strong with Silkway MNG, Georgian, Emirates, Star Air/Maersk and National earlier in the week. Also JLR priority freight woke up a bit this week after a long quiet period.

Appears no Champions League overspill flights which I suppose would be a last resort and understandable after doing the coach journey from Wembley the last two weekends, it is okay but not ideal.

Pete

SPD Travels reported earlier this week that Emirates Cargo has slots again at MAN for these flights from June 1st and that DNATA at MAN has just received a load of equipment to handle them, so there maybe more to this episode than previous ones which never saw them wheels on the ground at MAN.

Does DNATA need special equipment to handle a 777 Freighter?

Clearly cargo doesn't have much of a say as to where it starts or finishes its journey, but if its being trucked to or from London then moving the flights further north makes little logistical sense.

Still it remains to be seen if MAN has more luck with Emirates than Air China.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-...-huge-29188491


The photo paints a thousand words but at least it wasn’t raining.

Its a total c0ck up and heads need to roll, not that rolling heads are going to solve the chaos in the short term.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but I am sure MAN had nobody there that had equipment capable of handling wide bodied cargo aircraft...why would they just to sit about getting rusty as MAN hasnt had wide bodied cargo flights for years. DNATA now has, apparently.

What an absolute disgraceful shambles at BHX, have used the Airport a couple of times, NEVER AGAIN!