England's Birmingham Airport route network begins to reflect its ambitions

The UK's Birmingham Airport enjoyed one of its best ever years in 2015. Britain's seventh biggest airport serves its second largest city, and recent route gains lend weight to its drive to grow accordingly.

The airport has stiff competition from huge hubs such as London Heathrow and outright low cost airports such as London Stansted alike, quite apart from local rivals. Birmingham is similar to mid-sized businesses in other industries in that it feels the pinch from either side of the economic spectrum. But with essential infrastructure in place, the prospect of a high-speed rail line, and aggressive route marketing Birmingham Airport is finally closing in on the status that its public and private sector owners demand.

The concentration of direct routes from Birmingham is clearly on Europe while existing and planned routes, some of them quite new since the opening of a runway extension, are evident in the Middle East and South Asia, in addition to two US routes.

This report looks at present and future growth trends at Birmingham airport, the local airport statistics, how the airport matches up to competing airports on either side of its catchment area across a range of metrics, at construction activities and at its ownership.