Not Rich Pickings

[pug]

To further my view on scheduled services i do not believe that there will ever be a market at HUY

Eastern Airways are not interested in anything other than what they offer.

If a further hub destination was added it could affect KLM's yields and i believe that route should be kept at all cost.

The best i will hope for is a based leisure operator which can run a number of lucrative spanish routes year round with perhaps the odd city destinations if things recover that way.

I think after this year HUY will ride out better than alot of other airports of its size. If MME dont replace their lost services then it will be on a par with HUY soon.

[richardtaylor]

Could places like Esbjerg, Gronigen, Rotterdam not attract a market? In other words, an oil niche. Even if we're talking about say 3weekly & not daily.

[pug]

Im not sure as there are often ad-hoc chartered flights to Esbjerg and RTM is served well on the AMS flight. Thing is i bet that all of those destinations are often used via AMS from HUY and as i pointed out, it could affect KLM's yields if competition is sought. I do happen to have travelled to CPH a couple of times in the past, each time a considerable number of HUY pax also caught the connecting flights too.

The main thing is keeping the KLM feeder and if it can find a market then build around it. If they could generate more who may connect through CDG then that could be a (remote) possibility in the future as yields were high on the Gill service, hence operating longer than MME.

[pug]

Looking on the port site for Immingham, i have learned that there are scheduled daily sailings to Belgium, Denmark,Netherlands, Sweden. Every 2 days there are sailings to Germany and Norway. There are even more weekly. Surely there could be something there for airlines to pick up on. I know Humberside has strong ties with Denmark....

[Humberside]

DFDS, one of the major shipping lines at Immingham, has it's HQ in Copenhagen. And from Copenhagen you can get to many places in Scandinavia (Esbjerg is the only notable exception). Im sure a link between HUY and CPH, ideally operated by SAS to offer onward connections, would be sustainable in the long term, albeit it would probably need to be funded while it established itself. Also right now probably wouldnt be the best time to start a route. Maybe in a year or two's time?

Also I would consider South/West Yorkshire when looking at the potential market considering the nearest airports with CPH services are NCL/MAN/BHX

[pug]

I believe Corus have strong links with Denmark also. Add to that the various oil and gas links with Scandanavia and im surprised nothing has happened. Perhaps they should get onto Yorkshire Forward for assistance and get putting the word out there?

For some reason though, it seems we will be speculating forever with no real improvement.

[pug]

MANCHESTER AIRPORT IS SPREADING its influence to other parts of the UK, and has now become the second largest airport operator after BAA. Following the purchase of a 82.7% stake in Humberside Airport in June 1999, it recently acquired full control of East Midlands and Bournemouth International airports from National Express for £241m (US$350m). In the process, it beat Copenhagen Airports, TBI, and Australia's Macquarie Bank. National Express put the two airports up for sale last September, as they were no longer part of its core business.


At the completion of the deal, Manchester Airport chairman Councillor Brian Harrison said: "These acquisitions are a good deal for the shareholders and will yield a good return, as well as expanding the Group's range of activities - especially with the cargo prospects at East Midlands." Manchester's optimism about East Midlands is understandable, since the establishment of a new airline by DHL will give a boost to the cargo business at the airport. But Manchester's chief executive Geoff Muirhead says that it will use its proven expertise in pro-active airport management and development to make full use of EMA's catchment area to boost scheduled passenger traffic, although he accepts that there is more mileage in the charter market at regional airports. Muirhead also believes that Bournemouth is ideally placed to attract traffic from the congested London airports, but history is not on its side. The airport has struggled to sustain a scheduled services network, and has lost out to neighbouring Southampton, which is owned by BAA.


The complete article appears in the following

From janes airport review 2001.

The reason i posted this article is that interesting quote about history not being on BOH's side.

It seems to echo HUY's predicament at the moment, with most articles refering to 'tough competition from Robin Hood airport'.

Could this skepticism over HUY be turned around when things improve?

[Humberside]

If HUY starts growing over a sutained period and DSA doesn't, then yes. But I cant see any significant gfrowth at HUY any time soon so I think we will always be in DSA's shadow

[pug]

It all comes down to carving a niche. I know the catchment area may not be in the high earnings bracket but when you look at the real catchment there are around 1.4 million people within 45 minutes, regardless of DSA. People will still fly from where they get a good deal at conveniant times. If that means management grobbling/offering better deals to the likes of Jet2 then it could work.

At the moment the market is clearly saturated and there is uncertainty surrounding the sustainability of DSA under Peel.

Tony Lavan himself acknowledged that the catchment area strongly supports HUY and, particularly with the charters being supported so well over the years it will look good come an upturn. The thing to do is use MAG's expertise and links to try and get a based year round operation for the charter routes. It looks likely TOM are going back into LBA in a big way and i dont see why they couldnt justify a based machine at HUY along with DSA.

Afterall TOM are based at every other MAG airport so could, if they wished, use it as a bargaining tool.

[richardtaylor]

There's a lot of talk about "renewables" helping to sustain the Aberdeen economy in the future when oil finally runs out. Could offshore wind, water, tidal, carbon capture etc do the same for HUY in the future? Things will turn, I'm sure.