Birmingham Aviation
Elite-Member
To follow on from Nwoody post
9 based aircraft
9 based aircraft
Birmingham: Ryanair Route Flights, New Routes & Base Updates
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IanFarquharson
Elite-Member
Same as this Winter
Birmingham Aviation
Elite-Member
Some spaces for new routes however it’s probably increases to more routes already served
I wouldn’t be surprised if Paphos was axed as it’s not comparable for 1 weekly compared to Jet2 + tui airways
Stockholm and Sofia would be a shock if not served during summer 2027
New routes I predict earlier in the summer for next were
Naples
Thessaloniki
I wouldn’t be surprised if Paphos was axed as it’s not comparable for 1 weekly compared to Jet2 + tui airways
Stockholm and Sofia would be a shock if not served during summer 2027
New routes I predict earlier in the summer for next were
Naples
Thessaloniki
IanFarquharson
Elite-Member
Ryanair CMO on growth, air traffic chaos and why the UK is taxing itself out of the market
“We’re about getting you from A to B cheaply, safely and on time,” he says. “If we do that, passengers vote with their feet.”
The numbers back him up. Ryanair carried 148m passengers before the pandemic. This year, it expects 214m, and it’s aiming for 300m by 2034. Last year’s 208m or so was more than easyJet and Air France-KLM carried combined.
Birmingham is part of that story. Ryanair has just added a ninth aircraft at the airport, taking its investment in the West Midlands to US$900m. But Brady is clear the growth could go elsewhere if the region gets its tax policy wrong.
A West Midlands tourist tax on hotel stays, on top of Air Passenger Duty (APD), would amount to “double taxation” on passengers, he warns.
“Why would you continue to put additional growth in aircraft into Birmingham if they’re going to tax themselves out of the marketplace?” he says. “We can go to Bratislava, where they’ve got rid of the tax.”
The government has proposed giving regional mayors powers to charge a levy on overnight stays. Brady says that puts the UK at odds with the rest of Europe, where countries such as Sweden, Hungary and Slovakia are scrapping aviation taxes to attract growth.
Even Sweden, “the home of Greta and environmental taxes”, has decided to scrap its aviation tax to get its market growing again, he points out, and several Italian regions have done the same with their own local taxes.
“If Birmingham were to introduce a double taxation, I think it would be a very bad move for the market,” he says.
A ninth aircraft for Birmingham
Birmingham is one of Ryanair’s biggest UK airports, and the airline is its largest operator, working with it under a long-term deal. It expects to carry just over 4m passengers to and from Birmingham this year, up 21%.
Each aircraft brings around 30 direct jobs across pilots and cabin crew, Brady says, meaning at least 30 more this winter, on top of the 3,270 local jobs Ryanair already supports. “There’s a knock-on downstream impact into your hotels, your restaurants,” he adds.
The extra aircraft will add Copenhagen as a brand new route, three times a week, while Marrakesh, Tirana, Warsaw and Rome, which already run in summer, will continue through the winter for the first time. Ryanair will offer more than 40 routes and almost 200 flights a week from Birmingham this winter.
“We could be growing by a hell of a lot more”
Brady says the biggest risk to Birmingham’s growth is “probably not Birmingham themselves”, but the UK government.
Thanks to APD, the airport is at a £15-per-passenger disadvantage before it does anything, he says, while competing with European airports that charge nothing.
Asked whether 21% growth at Birmingham undermines Ryanair’s argument that APD is holding regional airports back, he says: “Not really. We could be growing by a hell of a lot more.”
He wants the government to take a more targeted approach, arguing that regional airports need extra support given their economic impact, and that the regions are “a very different proposition” to London.
Ryanair has been calling on Andy Burnham’s government to act now, and Brady says that if APD were cut significantly, “you would see us respond as we have done in the past”.
With 300 new aircraft arriving over the coming years, Ryanair has more airports asking for planes than it can supply. “Those aircraft have to go somewhere,” he says. Airports that keep their costs low and have the infrastructure to grow will be best placed to win them.
The competition for them could get fiercer. Brady warns that fares could rise “significantly” next summer as fuel costs squeeze the industry, and that “a lot of airlines mightn’t survive”. With less capacity in the market, Ryanair would be one of the few airlines with aircraft to place, and the UK would have to compete hard against European countries cutting taxes.
So what decides where those aircraft go? Mostly, it’s what each airport charges, he says. Ryanair reviews its network every summer and winter, and “it doesn’t take a lot” for a tax rise to change those decisions.
For now, he says Birmingham is getting it right. “We’re putting in a ninth aircraft, which shows that it is competitive,” he says. “It has to remain competitive to the dynamics of what’s going on in the marketplace.”
“Asleep at the wheel”
Brady was scathing about the two UK air traffic control failures in September, and the disruption caused by previous outages, including one he was caught up in himself, stuck at Luton for around six hours.
He says national air traffic service NATS has become “the boy who cried wolf”, having promised after a previous major incident that it would not happen again.
“It’s highly unacceptable,” he says. “There’s a lot of cheap talk about apologies and won’t happen again, but it continuously does.”
He accuses Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander of “dodging and dithering”, and repeats Ryanair’s call for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to go, saying he has been “asleep at the wheel”.
“He’s not done a good job. It’s happened way too frequently, and it’s time now to shake it up.”
A new chief executive should focus first on backup systems that can get services running again within minutes, he says, and on hiring enough air traffic controllers to keep up with growth.
“It’s a bit like us with pilots and cabin crew,” he says. “We know the aircraft is coming, so therefore we plan for it.”
“It’s not rocket science,” he adds.
“We do what it says on the tin”
Ryanair regularly tops “worst airline” polls, but Brady says the airline pays them no attention, describing surveys from the likes of Which? as clickbait.
Around 90% of passengers who fill in Ryanair’s own satisfaction survey are happy, he says. Where things go wrong, the airline is investing in its app to improve updates and communication during delays.
But the real proof, he argues, is that Ryanair has been the fastest-growing airline since the pandemic.
“We’re not about slogans or adverts or shiny corporate image that would make us more likeable,” he says. “We do what it says on the tin, and we make no apologies for that.”
“We’re about getting you from A to B cheaply, safely and on time,” he says. “If we do that, passengers vote with their feet.”
The numbers back him up. Ryanair carried 148m passengers before the pandemic. This year, it expects 214m, and it’s aiming for 300m by 2034. Last year’s 208m or so was more than easyJet and Air France-KLM carried combined.
Birmingham is part of that story. Ryanair has just added a ninth aircraft at the airport, taking its investment in the West Midlands to US$900m. But Brady is clear the growth could go elsewhere if the region gets its tax policy wrong.
A West Midlands tourist tax on hotel stays, on top of Air Passenger Duty (APD), would amount to “double taxation” on passengers, he warns.
“Why would you continue to put additional growth in aircraft into Birmingham if they’re going to tax themselves out of the marketplace?” he says. “We can go to Bratislava, where they’ve got rid of the tax.”
The government has proposed giving regional mayors powers to charge a levy on overnight stays. Brady says that puts the UK at odds with the rest of Europe, where countries such as Sweden, Hungary and Slovakia are scrapping aviation taxes to attract growth.
Even Sweden, “the home of Greta and environmental taxes”, has decided to scrap its aviation tax to get its market growing again, he points out, and several Italian regions have done the same with their own local taxes.
“If Birmingham were to introduce a double taxation, I think it would be a very bad move for the market,” he says.
A ninth aircraft for Birmingham
Birmingham is one of Ryanair’s biggest UK airports, and the airline is its largest operator, working with it under a long-term deal. It expects to carry just over 4m passengers to and from Birmingham this year, up 21%.
Each aircraft brings around 30 direct jobs across pilots and cabin crew, Brady says, meaning at least 30 more this winter, on top of the 3,270 local jobs Ryanair already supports. “There’s a knock-on downstream impact into your hotels, your restaurants,” he adds.
The extra aircraft will add Copenhagen as a brand new route, three times a week, while Marrakesh, Tirana, Warsaw and Rome, which already run in summer, will continue through the winter for the first time. Ryanair will offer more than 40 routes and almost 200 flights a week from Birmingham this winter.
“We could be growing by a hell of a lot more”
Brady says the biggest risk to Birmingham’s growth is “probably not Birmingham themselves”, but the UK government.
Thanks to APD, the airport is at a £15-per-passenger disadvantage before it does anything, he says, while competing with European airports that charge nothing.
Asked whether 21% growth at Birmingham undermines Ryanair’s argument that APD is holding regional airports back, he says: “Not really. We could be growing by a hell of a lot more.”
He wants the government to take a more targeted approach, arguing that regional airports need extra support given their economic impact, and that the regions are “a very different proposition” to London.
Ryanair has been calling on Andy Burnham’s government to act now, and Brady says that if APD were cut significantly, “you would see us respond as we have done in the past”.
With 300 new aircraft arriving over the coming years, Ryanair has more airports asking for planes than it can supply. “Those aircraft have to go somewhere,” he says. Airports that keep their costs low and have the infrastructure to grow will be best placed to win them.
The competition for them could get fiercer. Brady warns that fares could rise “significantly” next summer as fuel costs squeeze the industry, and that “a lot of airlines mightn’t survive”. With less capacity in the market, Ryanair would be one of the few airlines with aircraft to place, and the UK would have to compete hard against European countries cutting taxes.
So what decides where those aircraft go? Mostly, it’s what each airport charges, he says. Ryanair reviews its network every summer and winter, and “it doesn’t take a lot” for a tax rise to change those decisions.
For now, he says Birmingham is getting it right. “We’re putting in a ninth aircraft, which shows that it is competitive,” he says. “It has to remain competitive to the dynamics of what’s going on in the marketplace.”
“Asleep at the wheel”
Brady was scathing about the two UK air traffic control failures in September, and the disruption caused by previous outages, including one he was caught up in himself, stuck at Luton for around six hours.
He says national air traffic service NATS has become “the boy who cried wolf”, having promised after a previous major incident that it would not happen again.
“It’s highly unacceptable,” he says. “There’s a lot of cheap talk about apologies and won’t happen again, but it continuously does.”
He accuses Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander of “dodging and dithering”, and repeats Ryanair’s call for NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe to go, saying he has been “asleep at the wheel”.
“He’s not done a good job. It’s happened way too frequently, and it’s time now to shake it up.”
A new chief executive should focus first on backup systems that can get services running again within minutes, he says, and on hiring enough air traffic controllers to keep up with growth.
“It’s a bit like us with pilots and cabin crew,” he says. “We know the aircraft is coming, so therefore we plan for it.”
“It’s not rocket science,” he adds.
“We do what it says on the tin”
Ryanair regularly tops “worst airline” polls, but Brady says the airline pays them no attention, describing surveys from the likes of Which? as clickbait.
Around 90% of passengers who fill in Ryanair’s own satisfaction survey are happy, he says. Where things go wrong, the airline is investing in its app to improve updates and communication during delays.
But the real proof, he argues, is that Ryanair has been the fastest-growing airline since the pandemic.
“We’re not about slogans or adverts or shiny corporate image that would make us more likeable,” he says. “We do what it says on the tin, and we make no apologies for that.”
nwoody2001
Well-Known Member
- Dec 1, 2014
- 1,985
- 133
In short.... RYR like BHX, but are not a fan of the UK Govt!
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