It seems in recent months that anyone and anything in the south-east of England is finding a way to incorporate the word London into its name in a bid to boost business. First we had the ridiculous spectacle of London Oxford airport, so named despite it being nearly 60 miles from the capital (even a stretch by Ryanair standards). Then to top that we had North Londonshire – the promotional campaign launched by Northamptonshire. Their marketing team clearly found nothing to attract people to the region other than it being just under 100 miles from the capital.
So why not London Birmingham airport? Ok, it’s a little over 100 miles from London and it does serve a city of a million people and a metropolitan area of closer to 4 million, so it can claim its right to stand by its own name. But I suspect many people living in and around London have no idea just how easy it is to fly from Birmingham International Airport (BHX). Perhaps if they did, Birmingham could attract a lot more traffic from its southern big brother.
I must admit when I was invited to Ireland on a press trip last week and told I would be flying from Birmingham, my initial reaction was not one of unabated joy. I figured it would take me a long time to get there from St Albans, and would have been better off going from a London airport. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was in fact a journey of less than 90 minutes: equivalent to my journey to Gatwick, Heathrow or Stansted using public transport. The journey from London Euston is 1 hour and 10 mins, also making it a viable option for those who live in north west London.
On top of this, the high speed Virgin Train from Watford to Birmingham International was a lot more comfortable than the First Capital Connect trains that I would otherwise have endured, and even offered a pleasing selection of overpriced snacks on board. The Air-Rail link monorail is a quick and easy way to transfer from the dated rail station to the thankfully more modern airport.
One problem that airlines face in getting southerners to travel to Birmingham for their flights is the cost of the rail fare. My ticket was £43.70 return. My flight by bmibaby to Knock could potentially have cost less than this. If passengers are travelling on a low-cost airline where fares can come in well under £100, then a taking a hit on the rail fare is not an attractive proposition. You can travel on this route for £15 return, but it does require good forward planning and a lot of seriously good fortune with flight times coinciding with the cheap trains. Airlines would do well to negotiate discounted rail fares to BHX if they want to present an all-round low-cost option to travellers.
So is there a case of London Birmingham airport? Relative to other recent rebranding attempts it’s certainly not the worst suggestion. Of course it won’t happen; the good folk of Birmingham would never allow their regional airport to be tarnished in this way and rightly so. But given the good connections with the capital (and the future potential for an even faster link) perhaps a London Birmingham name might attract a few million southerners up to the Midlands to fly off of their holidays.
I flew out of Birmingham to Knock as a guest of bmibaby on an organised press trip, with my rail fares covered by Birmingham International Airport.
Nice article, Andy. I use BHX all the time; it’s is a real boon to me – most of all because I believe I’m right in saying that it is the only airport in Britain that is directly bound into the intercity rail network (Manchester Airport has trains, but I think only local services from Crewe and Manchester city centre…).
Taking a train from your local town to the nearest international airport is completely normal, standard practice in virtually every country in Western Europe – but not in Britain, where we have the ridiculous spectacle of the Heathrow Express (the world’s most expensive train, on cost-per-mile), the Gatwick Express and the Stansted Express – all of them one-trick ponies, shuttling back and forth into central London only. Local trains do exist, but they’re not exactly useful. Leicester to Stansted Airport? A distance of 95 miles, covered in 2 and a half hours on a crawling local train: you could virtually cycle it quicker. Oxford to Heathrow? 45 miles – but the only direct service is a bus. Canterbury to Gatwick? 66 miles – but the only option by train is to change at London St Pancras. Journey time: 2 hours. This is barking mad.
Your suggestion is not so nutty, you know:
Journey time by train Birmingham International to London Euston: 1hr 14mins.
Journey time by tube Heathrow Terminals 1-2-3 to London Euston: 1hr 8mins.
And as for the customer experience at BHX, as compared with LHR – well, there is no comparison. I’m sticking with Brum!
Not the worst suggestion, as you say. But if there’s one untapped market that regional airports such as Birmingham, Glasgow – and, particularly, Manchester – it’s the transit market wanting cheap budget airline flights to Europe.
A classic example is a guide piece I recently wrote about Lisbon for a newspaper in Australia. No airlines do a one stop flight to Lisbon from Sydney, so you’re best off getting to a major European hub, then buying a budget airline flight. The obvious choice – whether it’s flying from Australia, Asia, the US or the Middle East, is to fly into London.
Except most long haul flights land at Heathrow, and most budget flights go from Stansted, Luton or Gatwick – which are a pig to get to if you’ve just had 24 hours on a plane. In the end, my advice was to get a one-stop flight with Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways or Singapore Airlines to Manchester, then switch to the BMIBaby flight to Lisbon.
Because the long haul flights and budget short-hop flights go from the same airport, it’s far less hassle, less time consuming (and arguably less costly when you factor in the price of getting across London to one of the ‘London’ airports that is actually nowhere near London).
Savvy travellers from these long-haul destinations will soon start cottoning on to this – if you want to get to Continental Europe on the cheap and relatively stress-free, you’re better off avoiding London and using Brum, Manchester or Glasgow as your hub. And, from this perspective, confusing the issue by putting London in front of the airport name isn’t a good idea.
Perhaps BHX could continue to work its proximity to the capital into its marketing strategy, but it should never, ever, incorporate the world London into its name.
True, Birmingham has great transport links, facilities and infrastructure. In fact, it’s a great city in its own right. It’s doing all it can to promote itself in a positive light, but after years – centuries – of bad press (mainly from London) its hardly surprising that the vast majority of people just will not listen.
I enjoyed your piece and the points you raise are all valid, it’s a great alternative to the London airports. But while calling the airport London Birmingham might please those who revel in a homogenized, identikit world, with a Starbucks on every corner, it would frankly be an insult to the 1m-strong population of the city of Birmingham, and a sad day for Britain. But I think you know that anyway…
Matthew – you’re wrong on Manchester airport. I get a direct train there from Sheffield. Northern Trains often uses Manchester Airport as the terminus rather than Manchester Piccadilly, so I suspect you can get direct trains to the airport from the likes of Leeds, York, Newcastle, Hull and Liverpool as well.
I totally agree with your frustrations on the airport connections though. I’ve used Exeter rather than one of the London airports before, which is absolutely absurd, but made very little difference in terms of time getting there. The airports need to be integrated properly in the national rail network – not left to hang out on a limb like black sheep that no-one wants anything to do with. Build lines THROUGH the airport stations, not orphan branches going to them.
Thanks for the comments gentlemen. Don’t worry James, I’d no sooner have London Birmingham airport than any of the other ridiculous examples listed. As everyone has pointed out, BHX is one of the only UK airports that is actually on one of the high speed lines. We really do need better rail to air connections, yet it seems like the LHR rail link is going to face the axe. Not good.
Re: Manchester airport, I’ve enjoyed its convenience from other northern cities (could go direct from Leeds and from Durham when we lived there). Since we’ve moved south, it’s much less convenient to get to, requiring changes in strange places such as Wilmslow or Stockport to reach it (it’s a dead end line, so no through trains if I remember rightly).
Integrated transport in the UK is a long way off….