Winter 2007/2008 has as expected been a busy one and once again one of endless variety for the aircraft enthusiast at Birmingham Airport.

It also brought a few surprises not least the announcement by Ryanair that it had selected Birmingham to be its 25th base from 17th June 2008. This move followed the arrival of Easyjet when they started seasonal services to Geneva and Grenoble on the 14th December 2007.

Meanwhile bmibaby also continued to grow its Birmingham operation by adding new routes while Flybe consolidated its operations following the acquisition of BA Connect at the start of the 2007 summer season.

While the IT/Charter market continues to consolidate, with MyTravel now absorbed into Thomas Cook. The greater use of foreign IT airlines to boost capacity in the peek holiday season just adds to the variety with this summer seeing two Egyptian charter airlines at Birmingham for the first time.

Whatever the ups and downs of the airline market there is always plenty of interest to see at Birmingham, including the new Boeing 737-800(W)'s on delivery to Air India Express on their way to India and numerous visitors to Flybe's maintenance facilities at Birmingham. There is also a never-ending number of sub-charter, one off corporate charters and executive aircraft movements.