On this page (5 sections)
The route in one look
Two Belfast airports, and at Birmingham the airline decides which one you get.
Birmingham flies to both of Belfast's airports. Reckon on about an hour and a quarter to Belfast City and a little over an hour to Belfast International, the gap coming from the aircraft rather than the distance: the City route is flown by a turboprop and the International route by a jet. George Best Belfast City (BHD) is 226 miles from Birmingham; Belfast International (BFS) is 238 miles. The difference in the air is small. The difference on the ground is not.
- Belfast City (BHD) sits three miles from Belfast city centre. The airport describes it as a five minute hop, its taxi partner quotes ten minutes to City Hall, and a shuttle bus reaches Belfast Grand Central Station in around ten minutes. Sydenham rail halt is a short walk along the Sydenham Bypass, with trains to Lanyon Place and Grand Central.
- Belfast International (BFS) is at Aldergrove, about 13 miles north-west of the city, with no rail station. Getting into Belfast means a bus, a taxi or a car, and it takes noticeably longer than from the city airport.
What makes this route different from the other Belfast services out of England is that the airport and the airline are one decision, not two. Aer Lingus Regional serves Belfast City. easyJet serves Belfast International. Neither flies to the other, so you cannot pick a convenient airport and then shop for a fare across carriers.
The page serves both directions. Belfast to Birmingham is the same pair of airlines, the same pair of airports and the same flight time, and the choice between them is identical in either order.
Who flies it
Aer Lingus Regional to the city airport, easyJet to Aldergrove.
Aer Lingus Regional operates Birmingham to Belfast City. The flights are flown by Emerald Airlines, which is the exclusive operator of Aer Lingus Regional, using ATR72-600 turboprops rather than jets. Belfast City to Birmingham was the first route Emerald flew from the airport when the operation launched in March 2022, and it remains part of a regional network from Belfast City that also covers Manchester, Leeds Bradford, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Exeter and Southampton. Tickets are sold through both aerlingus.com and britishairways.com, and Avios are earned on Aer Lingus Regional flights, which matters if you are collecting them.
easyJet operates Birmingham to Belfast International on its own Airbus fleet. Belfast International's airline roster is easyJet, Jet2, Ryanair and TUI, and easyJet is the one flying this city pair. Belfast International is a substantial route for Birmingham in its own right: it handled 344,184 passengers in 2025, which put it tenth among the airport's busiest routes, though that was down 4.0 percent on the year before.
Both services are direct, and a connecting version of a 226-mile hop makes no sense. The turboprop is worth a word: an ATR is slower than a jet in the cruise, but on a sector this short most of the block time goes on taxiing, climbing and descending, so the difference in door-to-door time is small. The airlines flying from Birmingham page sets both carriers in context, and the live departures board carries today's Belfast times and gates, which is where they belong rather than in fixed text.
Flying versus the alternative
There is no train, and from Birmingham the sea route is barely an option at all.
On Birmingham's routes to Scotland the railway is a genuine competitor. To Belfast it is not, because there is no rail link between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The only surface alternative is driving to a ferry port and sailing: Cairnryan in south-west Scotland, or Liverpool. From Birmingham that means several hours of driving before you reach the boat, then the crossing, then the drive at the far end. Against 75 minutes in the air, it consumes most of a day.
So flying wins this one outright, and it is not close. The only reason to take the sea route from Birmingham is if you need your own vehicle in Northern Ireland, and even then the drive north to Cairnryan is long enough that the ferry from Liverpool is often the more sensible choice. Nobody is taking the boat to save time.
That leaves the real decision, which is which Belfast airport to fly into, and because the airline comes with it, the two considerations have to be weighed together:
- Belfast City with Aer Lingus Regional if your destination is Belfast itself. Three miles out beats 13, and on a short trip that saving is the single biggest variable in the whole day.
- Belfast International with easyJet if the fare is the point, or if you are heading for Antrim, the Causeway coast or Londonderry, where Aldergrove is already on the right side of the city. If you are collecting a hire car and driving out, the distance from the centre costs you nothing.
At the airport
One terminal at Birmingham, and no border control in either direction.
Birmingham has a single terminal, so there is nothing to work out on departure: bag drop and security are the whole process, and the airport map shows where they sit. Both Belfast airlines check in from the same building, so the airport end of the trip is identical whichever one you have booked.
Belfast flights are domestic, which means no immigration control at either end in either direction. You land, collect any checked bag and walk out. No passport is required at a border that does not exist, though both airlines still require accepted photo identification to travel, so check what yours accepts before you go, and non-UK travellers should carry a passport anyway.
The bag rules are where the two airlines differ most, and where the cheaper fare can stop being cheaper. Both sell hand-luggage-only fares as their headline price, and both charge for a cabin bag or a hold bag on top. Price the trip with the bags you are actually taking rather than on the fare you first see, and read the baggage allowances before you book rather than at the gate.
Who it suits, honestly
A route that beats every alternative, where the only real question is which Belfast.
Fly it, and do not think too hard about the alternative. With no rail link and a ferry option that costs a day, this is one of the clearest cases for flying anywhere on Birmingham's network. Roughly 75 minutes against a drive-and-sail itinerary is not a close comparison.
Take Aer Lingus Regional to Belfast City for a short trip or a meeting. The city airport is three miles from the centre with a taxi, a shuttle bus and a rail halt on its doorstep. If you are going to Belfast for a day or two, the hour or so saved at the far end usually beats a lower fare into Aldergrove, and the Avios and British Airways booking route are useful extras if you already collect them.
Take easyJet to Belfast International for a holiday, a hire car, or a tight budget. Aldergrove is the cheaper end of the route and it is better placed for the Causeway coast, Antrim and the north-west. If you are picking up a car and leaving the city, the extra 10 miles is irrelevant and the fare saving is real.
Check both before you book, because they are not interchangeable. The usual instinct is to search one airport and take the best price. On this route that hides half the market: the two Belfast airports carry different airlines, different fares and an hour's difference in ground time. Search them as two separate options, and pick on total trip time rather than on the headline fare.