Birmingham International Airport (EGBB)

Flew into Birmingham International in our DR400 on Thursday 5 July to visit the National Motorcycle Museum. The flight from Blackpool was only 50 minutes, although we ended up orbiting on downwind for about 10 minutes due to commercial traffic ahead of us. ATC were extremely helpful and accommodating. We used Signature as our handling agents and they collected us from the aircraft and drove us directly to the museum and collected us again later in the day. The total fees for landing and handling, including the free ride to the museum was only £88. For one of the busiest airports outside London, this was exceptional good value and the signature staff were just great.

No Avgas is available at Birmingham as mentioned by previous posters, and on the day, the Signature reception building was also unavailable due to flooding (Yes really! Plumbing rather than rain I believe). None of this caused us an issue and we used the signature office in their hangar to do the paperwork.

Birmingham prefer the use of R/W 33 up to a 5Kt tailwind due to noise sensitivity, but at 3,000 metres, this is unlikely ever to be an issue for a SEP. On departure, (to the north at least), they are likely to route you via Frankley Reservoirs VRP to give early separation from IFR traffic. However, as soon as they were happy they had sufficient separation (It’s pretty much a 90 degree turn away from runway heading), they allowed us to resume own navigation.

For a visit to the NEC or the National Motorcycle Museum, this is an excellent destination and I was surprised at the low cost for such a busy airport.