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Post by d2 on Feb 20, 2010 20:16:49 GMT
time will reveal all on this. i dare say the forums of Heathrow, gatwick, luton, stanstead were saying the same about each other & probably still are. LBA is only going to be able to expand so far, unless they start bulldozing peoples houses. DSA has alot of potential land on which to expand. i do believe though for DSA to become successful it will need a change of owners. i am very surprised that HUY hasn't done better than it has with manchester airports group in charge.
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Post by d2 on Feb 20, 2010 20:27:22 GMT
Belfast may not be filling the planes, but the other routes out of DSA have very good pax figures & more times than not are nearly full. going by the rising prices of the routes easyjet are starting in April it looks as though they'll be a hit. Amsterdam & Prague were always very popular when Thomsonfly run the routes, but were dropped when Thomson decided to concentrate on the holiday side of their business instead the city breaks. as ive said, DSA is a very young business, like my own. it takes time to get your name around & get known. others have had many years head start. London city proves a new airport can survive & do well against older long established airports. it's all about finding your own customers. competition never hurt anyone.
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Post by pug on Feb 21, 2010 1:52:47 GMT
Comparing London airports to the ones in Yorkshire is pointless. There is far more demand from LBA than DSA and HUY, not helped by EMA being down the road and MAN. LBA can comfortably grow to meet demand, i believe the masterplan goes upto 10 million p/a doesnt it? Im sorry but DSA will never reach half of that.
Why are you surprised about MAG not bringing success to HUY? What is your idea of success? Its in profit for one thing. Do you believe that they have had no interest from airlines? I think you would be surprised. Its not just the airlines that decides you know...
Anyway, this thread has gone way off topic, we will see how well the route does in a few months. If it does ok then i suggest it will open up potential for other routes too.
I kind of agree with you though Humberside, though i see no reason why Jet2 would offer more than a weekly AGP themselves, if they were to come in that is.
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Post by d2 on Feb 21, 2010 2:32:04 GMT
if people get cheaper flights from DSA than other airports they will use DSA. time will tell. why is it pointless to compare the london airports? cos it doesn't suite your argument? you said earlier about the sniping coming from the DSA side. well looking at some of your posts celebrating DSA losing pax & flights ( like every other aiport in the country ) i don't think you can complain about others. as i say, i'm a supporter of BOTH airports. SZD was finished long before DSA came along.
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Post by pug on Feb 21, 2010 3:07:05 GMT
Theres no harm in that, many of us believed DSA wasnt needed before it was even built...
London, a major world financial centre and home to over 9 million people plus a major international hub. Of course you cant compare with Yorkshire!
"SZD was finished long before DSA came along."
All depends on what you've heard to be honest. You may well find this was not the case if you do a bit of digging.
Ive been told that the post on the DSA forum was deleted, funny how your posts have not been deleted on here. Point is when there was good news for DSA i was posting saying it was good news. You posted on here saying BHD wont work cos it doesnt do well at DSA. You say that then you should expect a reply.
Im no way saying BHD will work, i think going by other scheduled ventures it has a 50/50 chance. The fact that they are starting small and cautious could be a good thing, BE obviously think there is something in it otherwise they wouldnt start it.
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Post by d2 on Feb 21, 2010 3:14:27 GMT
i seem to remember when London city was being talked about & built, people were saying " why does london need another airport?" well i think pax at london city proves the point. i did say, that this area hasn't got the potential pax of the london area, but it's a good comparison as to what a new airport can do against older more established airports. with the predicted growth in air travel there should be a healthy future for both local airports. i don't call 330,000 odd pax a year a success for an airport thats being around as long as HUY. DSA did 600,000 in its first year, which was April to Dec. that figure would be considered a good year at HUY. i agree this forum has gone way off track. i've had my say. some people may not like what i think, but life would be boring if we all thought the same. one final point. alot of DSA's debt is from the start up costs, admittedly its losing money, but what business hasn't in the disasterous 18months this country has been through & it aint over yet. if the local airports have the flights that people in this region want to use & they are priced competetively against LBA,EMA, MAN, people will use those flights & not go elsewhere. easy's flights out of donny were cheaper than LBA, EMA & MAN. Goodluck to LBA & EMA with Ryanair, i suspect they may need it.
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Post by pug on Feb 21, 2010 3:23:52 GMT
Id call an airport that is in profit without having to put all of its debt onto infrastructure a success. Then again, what do i know?
I think its naive to think that these established airports dont know what they are doing. Fair enough though, things will pan out over the next couple of years. I sincerely hope both do well and come out of this stronger than before.
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Post by d2 on Feb 21, 2010 3:39:09 GMT
i DIDN'T say it WOULDN'T work! if you read what i said & not try to distort things, i actually said " if dsa to belfast is only half full at best, what makes HUY think they can do any better? " correct me if i'm wrong, but that isn't saying it won't work. we don't know the reason why that forum was deleted off egcn, but from what i saw there was no reason for it to be deleted. if people running a business don't like competition, they shouldn't be doing it. i happen to think, DSA will grow to a fair size & with a runway the size of that, it will attract cargo handlers in the not to distant future, along with more airlines & pax. all airports have lost pax & flights in the last 18mths. some alot more than DSA & HUY. when the recovery comes both should be able to expand. my point was & is, HUY should be handling more passengers & have more airlines on board than it has, for an airport of this age. people can't complain if a new airport comes along & does better than what they're doing. that's competition i'm afraid.
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Post by d2 on Feb 21, 2010 3:45:57 GMT
correct if i'm wrong. wasn't DSA the first commercial airport to be built in uk for 30years? no company no matter how big can afford to do that with money out they're own pockets, without having a debt to pay off. it aint cheap setting a business up, as i well know!! all businesses have lost money in the last 18mths. DSA isn't any different to all of those.
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Post by d2 on Feb 21, 2010 3:56:06 GMT
going by what you say, any business making a loss is a failure? well if that's the case the uk wouldn't have many companys left after the last 18mths. mr o'leary tried to bully manchester, didn't get what he wanted & spat his dummy out. LBA wouldn't have got those routes had mr o'leary got his way with manchester.
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Post by pug on Feb 21, 2010 3:58:54 GMT
Does that scupper your own argument about LCY then? And SZD.
Dont know where you got that info from but you will find you are wrong. They droppen MAN after they announced LBA too, plus MAN was never a base like LBA will be.
Now im not too sure but dont you think Peel (Holdings) will have made a nice profit from developing SZD business park and the land at Finningley business park. Its Peel Airports that are the ones you gotta watch, hence trying to sell a share in the business. The losses they have been quoting, whilst probably exaggerated, were operating losses. This could suggest that if they sell their share at a going concern then it would need to include the whole site with the business park. I could be wrong but if not then it could be classed as insolvent.
Anyway, perhaps some more good news for you if Fedex decide to move from MAN... I did work for said company in the past and they stuck with MAN after taking over ANC who have a major hub in Stoke. You never know though.
anyway, i thought you were leaving the thread alone now. Back on topic. I think Humberside might need to do some cutting and pasting when he sees this thread. Sorry H.
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Post by expressflight on Feb 21, 2010 8:22:45 GMT
d2 If I could just jump in here between rounds as it were, your 4:39am post is a bit rich as your earlier comments clearly show your view is that "HUY-BHD won't work". There's no doubting that Flybe think it can work and I'm sure they have better information than you on that score. As for saying that HUY is a failure because it has a throughput of 330,000 pax, you cannot judge an airport's success just by raw numbers. It's there to provide a service to its catchment area and if it does that and makes a profit for its owners it's doing its job. I think that one thing this recession has taught us is that automatic year on year growth on existing networks is now behind us and airlines will be looking at niche routes which they didn't need to bother with in the past as they could just up frequencies on existing routes. It's now a case of having to find utilisation on aircraft sitting at existing bases at quiet times of day: EDI-MSE, MAN-BOH and BHD-HUY are examples of this strategy announced in the past couple of weeks. I don't have any axe to grind for HUY but you must admit they've had a better start to 2010 than have most airports by way of route announcements. As a final thought, with respect, could I just suggest you consolidate your posts somewhat as your views would appear as less of a rant than they currently do?
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Post by d2 on Feb 21, 2010 9:25:58 GMT
express. i would agree, HUY have had a good start to 2010, DSA also has with the arrival of easy & aer lingus. 40% increase. good luck to them both. some will be pleased to hear this is my last post for now. HE HO
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Post by elmfield on Feb 21, 2010 9:37:45 GMT
There are facts, most of which are unfavourable, that supporters of DSA fail to recognise. Most of the unfavourable submissions to the Public Enquiry have been justified whilst most of the wildly optimistic "evidence" has yet to be realised. As a one time regular business flyer based in Sheffield I would still fly out of MAN or EMA...DSA is no quicker to access from most parts of Sheffield than is the latter and MAN offers a much wider range of destinations. Most importantly, DSA has virtually no business flights...something else which was forecast in expert opinion submitted to the Enquiry. I do know of some colleagues who have, occasionally, used HUY but the saddest loss to the local business community was the City Airport...10 minutes from the fourth city's centre...sacrificed for DSA...and that is a fact! SZD was built on 80 acres of land which was leased for 999 years at a rent of £1.00 by a developer who was GIVEN a further 42 acres of land on which to develop a Business Park... part of whose profits were intended to support an "operating subsidy" for 10 years. The Airport cost just £6 millions to build and that was paid for in 2000 by the sale of some of the FREE land. The Airport wasn't expected to make a financial return for at least 7 years yet it was effectively closed ,within 5 years of its first commercial flight. It was never anything to do with SZD being "finished"....DSA was offered by Peel Holdings as a "better" alternative and the City Council fell,"hook line and sinker", for the proposal...to the point of publically supporting Peel at the enquiry. A clause in the Lease allowed the developer to buy the 80 acres for a £1.00 providing, after 10 years, the Airport was financially unviable.( and that has never been independently proven) This "soft" contractual term had much to do with the future of the Airport and its potential to add to the largest and best connected Business Park between Leeds and Leicester. It was probably the best land deal since the Louisiana Purchase! The Sheffield Development Corporation, under whose instructions the Airport was built, were under no illusions as to the likely difficulties having received advice from the likes of a Sheffielder, Richard Jenner, the then MD of HUY which, at the time, was handling 300,000 passengers per annum who pointed out the critical nature of the link HUY had with AMS as well as the availability of slots for smaller aircraft which contributed less income to a hub than say a 747. This isn't really the correct forum to discuss SZD but I cannot let some of what's been said go unchallenged. I will add that the European Commission are currently investigating the whole issue...including that of European Regional Development Grants! I
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Post by kirmingtonuser on Feb 21, 2010 13:32:44 GMT
The Flybe route from Belfast Harbour to Humberside was reported in yesterday's Daily Telegraph (page 5 of the travel section).
I, too was sorry to hear about what happened to Sheffield City Airport, as , like Kirmington, it provided a high proportion of civilised, full-service flights. I tend to shy away from airlines which use the mad-scramble system of seat allocation !
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