News: Easyjet to launch first Birmingham flights this winter
Flights > News > # 1354 (11/07/2007)
Easyjet will operate flights from Birmingham International for the first time this winter.
The no-frills airline has previously shied away from Birmingham because of the airport’s high handling charges, however it will be starting flights from Britain’s second city to Geneva (Switzerland) and Grenoble (France) in December.
The new services will be aimed primarily at the ski market, with daily flights to Geneva taking off on December 14, followed by twice weekly flights to Grenoble from December 22. Both cities provide easy access to resorts such as Chamonix, Courchevel, Meribel and Val D’Isere. Grenoble also serves as a secondary airport to France’s gastronomic capital, Lyon.
Easyjet’s UK regional manager, David Osborne, said the airline’s first flights from Birmingham would be great news for Midlands-based skiers, adding: “With the daily service to Geneva and twice weekly flight to Grenoble they now have the opportunity to fly to the major ski gateways for the French and Swiss Alps.
“Our expansion in Birmingham reflects our commitment to growth across the UK, we recognise the strong demand for low-fares with convenience and Birmingham's great potential.”
Easyjet is also expanding its ski services from Bournemouth, with three flights a week to Grenoble from December 13.
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It is well known that both Easyjet and Ryanair have been courting Birmingham airport for sometime, although each one has been using its own style to do so. Easyjet founder Stelios had previously suggested that either Birmingham or Coventry airport should make him an offer he couldn't refuse, whereas Ryanair's Michael O'Leary has continued to lambast Birmingham airport management over its handling fees, despite recently announcing new flights to Shannon from Birmingham.
Europe's two biggest no-frills airlines still don't quite seem ready to commit to establishing a major presence at either of Britain's two biggest regional cities - there are still no Easyjet flights from Manchester, whereas Ryanair's Manchester flights network is limited to just Dublin and Shannon, as is the case with Birmingham. Ryanair might have been more outspoken in their criticism of both Birmingham and Manchester airports, but Michael O'Leary has certainly been proven to be 100% correct in his prediction that British Airways would be pulling out from the UK regions - if anything, this happened sooner than might have been expected, but it was unsurprising nonetheless.
So why would either Easyjet or Ryanair want to operate more flights from these airports, when alternative low-cost hubs are available nearby (East Midlands and Liverpool)? The principal reason has to boil down to the proximity that Manchester and Birmingham offer to their respective city centres, and the high value potential customers that they could bring in. When Easyjet started, the airline made a big deal about the fact that it could offer its passengers cheaper flights by using a low-cost airport like Luton, instead of expensive and congested London Heathrow. Since then, the market has matured a great deal, and major hubs like Birmingham and Manchester can no longer rely on lucrative business traffic from traditional scheduled airlines like British Airways.
Whatever low-cost airlines like to say about being cheaper than each other, they rarely like to operate against each other on identical routes, and many of the most lucrative routes from Birmingham and Manchester are already served by other no-frills airlines like Bmibaby, Flybe and Jet2. On routes where there is enough demand to sustain competition - for example flights to Malaga and other popular destinations in Spain - there is already additional competition from the likes of Monarch Scheduled, Thomsonfly, and other dedicated charter carriers. Competition also exists from the traditional network carriers on flights to city break destinations such as Amsterdam (KLM), Paris (Air France), etc.
We have always felt that an airline like Ryanair could open up a base at just about any airport if the deal was right, because they could always join the dots with the other low-cost destinations on their network, especially as they have little competition on so many of their routes. The prospect of an Easyjet base at Birmingham might not seem likely for the time being, but there are still several airports on the Continent where Easyjet has a strong presence, and which currently have no flights to Birmingham. The most obvious would be the Spanish capital Madrid and the German capital Berlin, two of the most glaring omissions from Birmingham's route list since BA Connect pulled out. Ryanair already operates cheap flights to Madrid and Berlin Shonefeld from East Midlands. Another Easyjet base which would have a strong mix of business and leisure passengers might be Switzerland's industrial powerhouse of Basel, which was previously linked with Birmingham by Swiss.
