Evening all,

A few years ago, you had plenty of choice to get to the US and Canada (including Air India to CYYZ, interesting experience on an old 77L) from BHX. However a general browse through their website and Wikipedia suggests that there are currently a grand total of zero flights to NA currently, with Primera starting KEWR, JBOS and CYYZ in June '18.

Towards the end, US flights were extremely expensive. It got so ridiculous that my father's company paid for him to have an executive taxi to Heathrow from the East Midlands and back as that was £1200 cheaper than the equivalent seat from Birmingham!

I guess the question is, how do you solve a problem like Birmingham? For the second city, our transatlantic connections are incredibly poor.

Whilst there are so many flights including upwards of thirty a day to NYC alone just 80 miles down the road with huge price dumping down the back of the bus and via the various consolidators you can’t .

It not just Birmingham but all the other regional airports including Manchester, Newcastle, Aldergrove and Bristol.
All have seen their legacy offers disappear over the years.

The future for regional TALC operations are the new bread flexible fares operators such as Norwegian, Primera and Thomas Cook/Condor in the main.

Manchester remains important in some markets sufficient to retain American to Philadelphia with some big pharma contract traffic and their focus on using this as their main east coast hub point in preference to JFK also helps.

Delta retain their presence via the Virgin brand and whilst the 789 problems persist Manchester is taking a hit on frequency at the moment

United plod on with their daily Newark feeder.

However ultimately Birmingham has added the misfortune of geography to contend with like it or not LHR is literally 1 ½ hours down the road.

Firstly, the airlines need to stop using BHX to their advantage, when it comes to pricing. Just because you have a monopoly on a route, does not nessecarily mean individuals will pay sky-high prices or fly a ridiculous schedule. Especially, around the catchment area of BHX.

2. People need to actually fly from the airport.

3. The airport itself needs to do something about its fees.

Flydude the 757 is generally going away however the yields necessary to cover the costs of these frames necessitated the fare buckets offered to the market.

Again I’ll have to refer you to my previous post there is a glut of capacity especially down the back that needs moving into the market from Slough and Windsor regional sorry but that’s the way it is .

Airport fees are the least of the cost basis in reality.

flydude380 wrote:

Firstly, the airlines need to stop using BHX to their advantage, when it comes to pricing. Just because you have a monopoly on a route, does not nessecarily mean individuals will pay sky-high prices or fly a ridiculous schedule. Especially, around the catchment area of BHX.

2. People need to actually fly from the airport.

3. The airport itself needs to do something about its fees.

I used to live about 30 minutes by road from BHX, and whenever I travelled TATL I always used LHR, MAN and even LGW as the a trip on a 772 with CO was cheaper than their BHX 752 (once a DC-10 beforehand) including taking into account travel and accommodation costs near LGW.

With both MAN and LHR within 2-ish hours, airlines need to realise they still are in some respects required to compete with those prices if they want to utilise those routes and place fare paying passengers onboard. Not once have I flown TATL out of BHX despite it being my defacto local airport for nearly 20 years.
On your second point, there is little reason to use BHX for the most part often due to pricing. I took a trip to GVA a number of years back, and including overnight hotel costs, LH travelling LHR-FRA-GVA was a much cheaper option than using BHX as a starting point. Only once have I used BHX flying KL BHX-AMS-MUC and return once upon a time.

BHX is fine for the holiday charter type flying, and BE seem to do okay with their regional operation. It is also in the awkward position of being close to both LHR and MAN, in that it isn't a great slog to travel to either especially if the fares comparably are so much cheaper even across shorter haul European flights. This probably has a lot to do with your third point.

Sorry about the long rambling post, but this was a dilemma of mine for years before I moved away. The majority of flying I've done out of BHX is either charter, or regional hops to Scotland with the now defunct WW and also BE.

If prices were so high out of BHX, how come United left?

skipness1E wrote:

If prices were so high out of BHX, how come United left?

For businesses it didn't make any sense. As I said in the OP, it was £1,200 cheaper to get an executive car from Leicestershire to Heathrow and return than fly to from Birmingham. When two 2-3 hour taxi rides are a fifth of the uplift from travelling from BHX compared to LHR, you know something is wrong!

The other issue is connection possibilities. I flew DL/KL BOS-AMS-BHX and it was no more expensive than BOS-LHR to be honest and I didn’t have a 2 hour drive each way in god awful traffic from LHR to my family home which is about 45 minutes from BHX
The issue up to now has been the smallest option has been the 757 and that’s a lot of seats to fill and expensive to run. The advent of the LR’s and the Max’s may allow some services to survive.
I would like to fly non stop, but dealing with AMS wasn’t that bad and better than LHR

The word is that there are a lot of connecting passangers on EI flights from BHX to DUB

Cavanjets wrote:

The word is that there are a lot of connecting passangers on EI flights from BHX to DUB

That is true, I know for a fact this is the way my parents prefer to fly when they come to BOS to see me and have done a number of times, which is exactly how IAG/EI want it. Pre-clearance definitely has an advantage. As much as I liked AMS for transiting, the DL security there was overkill and a right PITA.

pdp wrote:

A few years ago, you had plenty of choice to get to the US and Canada (including Air India to CYYZ, interesting experience on an old 77L) from BHX.

How can an aircraft less than 9yrs old be "old"...?

Bhx can fill 2 a380s from EK a day eastbound, you would think it could take a 777 westbound TATL at the very least

Proximity to London.........Simples.

skipness1E wrote:

If prices were so high out of BHX, how come United left?

Because the prices United charged were also high & people would not pay them.

Gingersnap wrote:

With both MAN and LHR within 2-ish hours, airlines need to realise they still are in some respects required to compete with those prices if they want to utilise those routes and place fare paying passengers onboard. Not once have I flown TATL out of BHX despite it being my defacto local airport for nearly 20 years.

Your post demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what any airline would seek in offering a TATL from BHX:
the last thing on Earth that they'd want to do is expense the opening of a new station and/or route simply to duplicate the prices of established station, without the sunk (and therefore lower) costs of that established station.

Or, more simply put: they're not looking to LOWER the fares from BHX across the ocean, they're seeking to offer a service that allows them to RAISE the fares.

rbavfan wrote:

skipness1E wrote:

If prices were so high out of BHX, how come United left?

Because the prices United charged were also high & people would not pay them.

why did they charge high prices if people wouldn't pay them? I thought market forces balance prices with demand where it reaches a certain equilibrium point..

Well, it seems like they have.

Because the big airlines don't want to serve it. They want their passengers to go to Heathrow. There are new airlines like Primera that do seem to want to so hopefully they'll be a success and look at other smaller airports across the UK.

LAX772LR wrote:

pdp wrote:

A few years ago, you had plenty of choice to get to the US and Canada (including Air India to CYYZ, interesting experience on an old 77L) from BHX.

How can an aircraft less than 9yrs old be "old"...?

It was filthy outside and in, many things were broken, there were various insects in the aircraft, and the toilets... Well. Good curry though, cheap too.

I think going Amritsar - BHX - YYZ - BHX - Amritsar constantly had taken its toll!

For those saying about proximity to London and Manchester, on a good day it's realistically two hours to both, closer to three if the M25 or M6 is jammed.

LHR isn't even 2 hours from Birmingham......... 'nuff said, I guess.

WYLTK wrote:

LHR isn't even 2 hours from Birmingham......... 'nuff said, I guess.

But probably a lot more than 2 hours during rush hour. Besides, Heathrow is already overcrowded and very expensive. That's the reason LCCs generally avoid Heathrow and for them Birmingham would work fine. Don't count on the legacies here as they prefer Heathrow, but since Birmingham is cheaper than Heathrow it can capture low-cost traffic.

One thing I find surprising about recent history with BHX and TATL is Icelandair. With United leaving, one would have thought that this should have benefited Icelandair, as a good one-stop option to the USA. However, the opposite has happened, and they have very abruptly stopped their service, giving barely 8 weeks notice - quite unusual. I think perhaps a daily Icelandair service may have stimulated growth for them.

Some rumours suggest Icelandair were unhappy with Primera and the way BHX are so heavily promoting them, and the deal they got. Unsure if there's any foundation to that. But I feel Icelandair is a big loss to BHX and its offering.

Primera has to work.... if it doesn't then BHX can probably forget any TATL scheduled ops for the foreseable. Norwegian didn't try BHX, and infact have pulled all their shorthaul as well. Can't think of anyone else who might want to have a go? Anything UK based will be diluting other bases (BA, VS, MT) and we can forget the US legacies. Maybe jetBlue if they to go transatlntic?

Been a rough few months for BHX, will be an interesting 2018 and 19....

Bogof7478 wrote:

Bhx can fill 2 a380s from EK a day eastbound, you would think it could take a 777 westbound TATL at the very least

I think going east you have the double whammy of a dominant carrier (EK) able to funnel large volumes of passengers through its hub before distributing them around Africa, Far East, Indian Subcontinent and Australasia. Going west you lack the dominant EK type carrier with a major east coast hub, you also lack the same geographic spread of destinations.

There should be demand for at least a B777 worth of passengers, but without critical mass of passengers via any of the east coast hubs in the US, and with the pull of LHR to the south and MAN to the north on the UK side, its a tough sell.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

WYLTK wrote:

LHR isn't even 2 hours from Birmingham......... 'nuff said, I guess.

But probably a lot more than 2 hours during rush hour. Besides, Heathrow is already overcrowded and very expensive. That's the reason LCCs generally avoid Heathrow and for them Birmingham would work fine. Don't count on the legacies here as they prefer Heathrow, but since Birmingham is cheaper than Heathrow it can capture low-cost traffic.

Birmingham will indeed be cheaper than LHR but it's certainly no London lowcost airport like Luton or Southend is. Qatar and Emirates operate premium cabins from here.

I think the US-EU Open Skies really hurt secondary British cities. The last version of Bermuda II allowed pretty open rights to fly to any airport other than LHR and LGW and that ultimately spurred attempts at flying to the US from secondary cities (CO flew to several secondary British cities since they were locked out of LHR). Even airports close to London still had value to airlines that couldn't fly to LHR. Now the American carriers are content with focusing on LHR (especially given that AA and DL can take advantage of JV slots) and the rest of the UK suffers as a result.

RJNUT wrote:

I thought FI might switch out their Boeings with a Q400 much like ABZ and BFS, just to stay in the market but they may not have the spare equip. for that type rotation

Too far for the Q400. Poor yields for years apparently.

I'm kind of shocked Icelandair will be cutting BHX. Out of all airlines, they have a lower cost base and much lower fares than more European carriers. You can get to many American destinations via KEF which I thought would have made the planes full.

No doubt the proximity to LHR and other airports/airlines that have better connecting options like DUB (Passengers could fly BHX-DUB-JFK/EWR) killed UA in BHX. If you can't fill a 757-200 and be profitable, it's gonna be cut.

TheLion wrote:

Good points. Greedy neoliberal capitalism is dying though, at least at the political level.

Someone's been watching a bit too much Secular Talk/TYT/etc if they believe that.

TheLion wrote:

I wonder when corporations will evolve to thinking more about customers and thus product and experience. There has to be a tipping point...

That's an easy answer: never.
In keeping with the theme of the former post, that demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what a corporation actually is:

It's a construct whose sole objective, its sole reason for existence-- is to maximize value for its owners, i.e. shareholders. Not workers. Not customers. Owners.

At times when "thinking more about customers" can elicit that effect, then they do it.
But contrary to common AvGeek theory, that isn't always the case. Especially in the short term.

********************************************
For there to be a "tipping point" that permanently changes such, you'd need a new type of entity. Because asking when a corporation is going to focus on building value for anything other than the owner(s), is like asking when a predatory animal will become herbivorous. That's asking it to do something that defies its entire design.

Same concept.

I've been using BHX on a regular basis for years, it's a decent airport, not perfect, it has it's moments, but decent enough. As a local resident I use it because it is convenient, but the TATL offering has been unimpressive for some time. Previously I flew in a BA 767 to JFK, an AA 767 to ORD, and CO757's and CO DC10s to EWR. More recently I would not fly UA because my experiences with them have generally been poor.

Going via AMS recently has been my preferred route, I'd rather get checked in at BHX, a short hop to AMS and then enjoy the KL/DL service onward. AMS is a peach of a transfer. Via CDG is also OK, but CDG can be a bit difficult to deal with.

I prefer this to flying in and out of MAN or LHR, as I hate driving after a long flight or paying for parking.

How does the train from Manchester airport to Birmingham New Street suit you? It's under two hours but a change of train at Crewe or Manchester Piccadilly is needed.

That would be an option, but I just don't trust uk public transport to get me to a flight on time. Add to this most TATL departs the U.K. In the morning, and a two hour check in is required, which will make the train expensive.

I was really making the point that I don't think the problem with TATL from BHX is soley due to bleed off to MAN and LHR, there are other options, with connections, wich are more comfortable and cheaper than the trawl up the terribly unpredictable M6, or the M40 and M25. Towards the end of their service at BHX, it felt like UA were trying to kill the service, by funnelling traffic via DUB.

Perhaps I'm not the average traveller, I'm a bit nerdy, as I pay attention to a/c type and airline service rather than just picking the cheapest off KAYAK or Skyscanner, and I'd rather spend time in the air rather than fighting with ground transportation.

MikeofBrum wrote:

That would be an option, but I just don't trust uk public transport to get me to a flight on time. Add to this most TATL departs the U.K. In the morning, and a two hour check in is required, which will make the train expensive.

I was really making the point that I don't think the problem with TATL from BHX is soley due to bleed off to MAN and LHR, there are other options, with connections, wich are more comfortable and cheaper than the trawl up the terribly unpredictable M6, or the M40 and M25. Towards the end of their service at BHX, it felt like UA were trying to kill the service, by funnelling traffic via DUB.

Perhaps I'm not the average traveller, I'm a bit nerdy, as I pay attention to a/c type and airline service rather than just picking the cheapest off KAYAK or Skyscanner, and I'd rather spend time in the air rather than fighting with ground transportation.

Just to quote you regarding check in,

I am a frequent traveler and I can assure you that I very rarely check in two hours before departure for any flights despite what airlines suggest, check in online, go to the airport bag drop off 'if your taking any bags', proceed through security using your boarding card via your app on your phone, through the departure lounge and proceed to your gate and board the plane simples, as long as it's over 60 minutes before your departure time your be fine.

Cunard wrote:

MikeofBrum wrote:

That would be an option, but I just don't trust uk public transport to get me to a flight on time. Add to this most TATL departs the U.K. In the morning, and a two hour check in is required, which will make the train expensive.

I was really making the point that I don't think the problem with TATL from BHX is soley due to bleed off to MAN and LHR, there are other options, with connections, wich are more comfortable and cheaper than the trawl up the terribly unpredictable M6, or the M40 and M25. Towards the end of their service at BHX, it felt like UA were trying to kill the service, by funnelling traffic via DUB.

Perhaps I'm not the average traveller, I'm a bit nerdy, as I pay attention to a/c type and airline service rather than just picking the cheapest off KAYAK or Skyscanner, and I'd rather spend time in the air rather than fighting with ground transportation.

Just to quote you regarding check in,

I am a frequent traveler and I can assure you that I very rarely check in two hours before departure for any flights despite what airlines suggest, check in online, go to the airport bag drop off 'if your taking any bags', proceed through security using your boarding card via your app on your phone, through the departure lounge and proceed to your gate and board the plane simples, as long as it's over 60 minutes before your departure time your be fine.

Good to see someone normal, and well... Like me!! Lol

When I'm a pax, I try and get there around 1.5 hours before departure.

As a passenger service agent, I've had some strange people show up five hours prior to departure and they end up yelling me lol I just tell them to read the airline website next time and that I was still in bed five hours ago!!

As a BHX local for the last 50 plus years I have seen plenty of airlines come and go and have nothing to add re the proximity to Manchester and London as it is fairly obvious/relevant but after 21 years of only using BHX only (all leisure), last year I tried Virgin @ Gatwick and BA @ Heathrow (Avios) as well as Monarch @ BHX and I can firmly say that travelling for leisure with a family then using my local is definitely my preference even at extra cost but I realise that is not always everyone's priority.

The time taken to drive, get a hotel and arrange transfers (if not included) and then even worse a motorway or train journey home after a long-haul flight really takes its toll. Heathrow T3 arrivals the evening I arrived was appalling and the staff very unhelpful with the whole process so slow it made my BHX August arrival look efficient and that is saying something after last summers problems.

It is pretty clear now that BHX's hope remain with the likes of Primera (or even Jet Blue in the future) and hopefully this will work out and certainly the amount of traditional as well as social media/Internet advertising has been stepped up recently. It was fantastic flying direct to JFK on the BA 757 and sort of good in 2016 on the AA 757 (worse product I have ever known) and it is priceless to arrive just 4-5 miles away from my house on the return.

As for United I used to monitor loads and fares (realise the booking engine is only a guide) business was full most of the year although of course these could have been FF upgrades but one noticeable aspect was what appeared to be the lack of premium economy advanced sales in you can trust the seat-maps.

Also fares were mentioned in an earlier post in respect of United and I can concur they were never cheap but surely United only tried to sell them at rate they needed to make a profit and over the last 12 months they didn't or couldn't? Although the CAA stats show that the BHX service was comparable for load to EDI, GLA and MAN I firmly believe it simply it was not profitable or at least there was better use of the aircraft. True they could have followed what AA did and sell tickets at £350 return which I paid at the end of June 16 and look what happened to that route (AA flight was still not full even at £350).

Icelandair - They quoted low yields but rumours as per the earlier post have been doing the rounds about that they were not happy with BHX/Primera but we will probably never know.

We have probably seem the last full service airline going west but it is not all doom and gloom at BHX especially going east and who would have thought that two 615 seat A388's a day would mot be enough capacity going (if only during Holiday periods) and this last week has seen the EK 77W additions albeit briefly. Hopefully the third service will be back in the not too distant future.

Air India - The Toronto service I believe was a 772 not a 77L and the aircraft used were quite old and one particular aircraft (VT-AIR?) had a particularly bad reputation.

BHXRunway15 wrote:

Air India - The Toronto service I believe was a 772 not a 77L and the aircraft used were quite old and one particular aircraft (VT-AIR?) had a particularly bad reputation.

You're probably right, it was a right state! I've never seen an aircraft with that level of dilapidation before or since...

Also, I would *always* leave 2 hours to check in at BHX, the number of times I've seen Monarch passengers having to be put through the priority security queue because of the long queues beggars belief!

klakzky123 wrote:

I think the US-EU Open Skies really hurt secondary British cities. The last version of Bermuda II allowed pretty open rights to fly to any airport other than LHR and LGW and that ultimately spurred attempts at flying to the US from secondary cities (CO flew to several secondary British cities since they were locked out of LHR). Even airports close to London still had value to airlines that couldn't fly to LHR. Now the American carriers are content with focusing on LHR (especially given that AA and DL can take advantage of JV slots) and the rest of the UK suffers as a result.

So whose fault is this, the UK for wanting to protect its LHR hub while allowing its carrier to service multiple airports in the USA or the Americans for allowing a one sided agreement?
Did BHX really get going because it was wanted or because the foreign carriers did not have much of a choice?
EK at present is showing how they can use the airport to fill A380's so maybe the second coming is in the opposite direction?
Time will tell, perhaps local folks should follow EK and travel in the opposite direction.