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Post by flyer on Aug 15, 2022 9:06:06 GMT
Press reports confirm the Vulcan presevation society have been told they will need to be away from DSA by June next year. They are looking at 2 possible new homes.
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Post by kirmingtonuser on Aug 23, 2022 17:17:57 GMT
Peel have extended the consultation period to 16th September despite there being no ''tangible proposals'' to address its ''underlying lack of viability''. A request for an extension of discussions to 31st December was rejected because, without tangible proposals, the resulting uncertainty would be untenable for employees, business partners, airlines and passengers.
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Post by flyer on Aug 24, 2022 6:42:55 GMT
Not a whiff of anything positive for DSAs future in aviation in that statement. Of course it is possible for things to change in these 3 extra weeks of review but, as the statement says,they've only been given out of respect for the the vocal, hard fought public campaign.
Stakeholders remain in limbo - workers, passengers, business partners. TUI and Wizz must surely have well advanced plans. Will they decide to end the uncertainty for their customers sooner? Wizz more likely than TUI I think. I'm looking at a Malaga flight from there at Christmas. Very good price but I need to know where I will be flying from to plan the to and fro the airport. I wonder what this (now extended) period of uncertainty has done to TUI sales from DSA.
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Post by pug on Aug 24, 2022 16:21:07 GMT
Not a whiff of anything positive for DSAs future in aviation in that statement. Of course it is possible for things to change in these 3 extra weeks of review but, as the statement says,they've only been given out of respect for the the vocal, hard fought public campaign. Stakeholders remain in limbo - workers, passengers, business partners. TUI and Wizz must surely have well advanced plans. Will they decide to end the uncertainty for their customers sooner? Wizz more likely than TUI I think. I'm looking at a Malaga flight from there at Christmas. Very good price but I need to know where I will be flying from to plan the to and fro the airport. I wonder what this (now extended) period of uncertainty has done to TUI sales from DSA. According to the person on PPrune who seems to have a great deal of insider knowledge, Peel have held meetings with TUI regarding exit strategies. I feel the relationship with Wizz may be slightly less cordial. Think TUI will continue to sell holidays departing DSA until such time that there is a public announcement regarding the future of the airport, passengers will then be simply transferred to other departure airports in the network. Perhaps HUY will benefit, who knows, but the majority of it will be absorbed by the existing bases with assets redeployed there.
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Post by kirmingtonuser on Aug 25, 2022 20:20:06 GMT
So far there has been no sign of any buying interest from potential public or private sector prospective purchasers. The obvious precedent for this situation is Teesside.
The new mayor of Teesside brought the airport back into the public sector for £40m (£35m for the 758 acre airport and £5m for 61 acres of the site which had planning permission for housing) in March 2019. The company balance sheet showed net reserves of £16.7m (capital of £19.4m and reserves of £49.7m reduced by accumulated losses of £52.4m). All the airport's assets appear to have been held within the operating company and included £19m worth of investment properties.
Peel seem to treat airport ownership as an asset-backed speculative investment. They seem to have been happy to fund continuing losses knowing that the development land value was rising at the same time.
The total DSA development cost and accumulated losses has now reached £250m. Does this imply that the site value at Finningley is much higher than at Middleton St. George? The Finningley site has 800 acres and is connected to the M18 with a fairly recently built road. Parcels of development land are for sale in the area at about £750,000 per acre. If a large proportion of the site carried this sort of valuation it certainly would be a barrier to a potential purchaser expecting to fund several years losses on a going concern and therefore offering something nearer to a nominal £1.
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Post by pug on Aug 25, 2022 22:48:28 GMT
So far there has been no sign of any buying interest from potential public or private sector prospective purchasers. The obvious precedent for this situation is Teesside. The new mayor of Teesside brought the airport back into the public sector for £40m (£35m for the 758 acre airport and £5m for 61 acres of the site which had planning permission for housing) in March 2019. The company balance sheet showed net reserves of £16.7m (capital and reserves of £69.1m reduced by accumulated losses of £52.4m). All the airport's assets appear to have been held within the operating company and included £19m worth of investment properties. Peel seem to treat airport ownership as an asset-backed speculative investment. They seem to have been happy to fund continuing losses knowing that the development land value was rising at the same time. The total DSA development cost and accumulated losses has now reached £250m. Does this imply that the site value at Finningley is much higher than at Middleton St. George? The Finningley site has 800 acres and is connected to the M18 with a fairly recently built road. Parcels of development land are for sale in the area at about £750,000 per acre. If a large proportion of the site carried this sort of valuation it certainly would be a barrier to a potential purchaser expecting to fund several years losses on a going concern and therefore offering something nearer to a nominal £1. Interesting take on it Kirmingtonuser. How much of the land in total do Peel own between the Jct3 FARRRS and the airport itself? An argument could be made that the costs of the airport be offset by the surrounding development land, but I believe the airport itself is run as a stand alone business and therefore cross subsidy would be illegal? I think DSA is worth more as development land to Peel. The deal with the Teesside mayor is an interesting one, nobody tends to mention that Peel acquired the site for £500,000 just under 20 years ago and sold it back to the public for £40 million. Not a bad investment on their part.. Difference being, Peel bought an ex raf station from MOD and sunk huge amounts of capital into bringing it up to airport standards. They have far more invested in DSA to the point that I find the costs would be far too prohibitive for public purchase, and the private sector just won’t be interested in an airport that has failed to attract sustainable airline growth.
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Post by filton75 on Aug 26, 2022 15:57:34 GMT
It has been reported today that the South Yorkshire mayor is seeking potential investors for the airport. The Tees Valley mayor had Rishi Sunak as chancellor at the time of the Teesside deal, so seemed to have lots of public money available - I’m not sure if the S Yorks mayor has as many powerful friends.
I wonder if the fact that East Midlands Airport is one of the proposed freeports has worked against Peel? Any new freight companies will surely take advantage of the freeport incentives rather than be located at DSA.
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Post by pug on Aug 26, 2022 17:18:28 GMT
It has been reported today that the South Yorkshire mayor is seeking potential investors for the airport. The Tees Valley mayor had Rishi Sunak as chancellor at the time of the Teesside deal, so seemed to have lots of public money available - I’m not sure if the S Yorks mayor has as many powerful friends. I wonder if the fact that East Midlands Airport is one of the proposed freeports has worked against Peel? Any new freight companies will surely take advantage of the freeport incentives rather than be located at DSA. I’m not sure if the chancellor helped pull any strings with the Teesside Mayor, or whether the vanity project was purely Ben Houchen trying to win hearts and minds at the expense of funding for other things in the Tees Valley region. Either way the venture is failing. I think the simple answer is that Oliver Coppard knows how expensive DSA could be to purchase - Peel haven’t offered to sell, after all! So wants the risk reduced by seeking a Private investor to either take a majority share in the ownership or purchase outright. Their hands are tied, either way you look at it. Peel will happily sit on the site for decades rather than lose further money by keeping it open. I’m not sure there’s anything stopping them ripping the hard standings up for hardcore either, is there? Pretty certain planning laws or land use clauses wouldn’t stop this from happening. Some people believe Peel own the mineral rights for the site, be pretty hard to fight such an action I would think.
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Post by kirmingtonuser on Sept 12, 2022 21:40:04 GMT
The Mayor of Doncaster, Ros Jones, has identified 'one group that we believe is an extremely serious proposition' as an 'additional and/or alternative investor to secure the long-term sustainability of DSA'. Peel have stated that 'As a mark of respect for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, we will postpone the scheduled announcement regarding the conclusion of the strategic review until 26 September'.
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Post by flyer on Sept 14, 2022 6:27:44 GMT
I see ITV news reported yesterday Peel's response to the Mayors statements. Peel have not had sight of the proposal despite asking for it. They will consider it when they see it but on the basis of what they've read so far they say it doesn't address the basic issue of viability of DSA as an airport. No mention of extending the Review but the local MP has tweeted the findings will be delayed to 26th to respect the period mourning.
Has anything changed since July 13th? I can't see it yet if it has.
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Post by pug on Sept 14, 2022 9:32:18 GMT
I see ITV news reported yesterday Peel's response to the Mayors statements. Peel have not had sight of the proposal despite asking for it. They will consider it when they see it but on the basis of what they've read so far they say it doesn't address the basic issue of viability of DSA as an airport. No mention of extending the Review but the local MP has tweeted the findings will be delayed to 26th to respect the period mourning. Has anything changed since July 13th? I can't see it yet if it has. I think this puts Peel in a tricky position. They own the land, but public support and political opinion could force their hand if this viable consortium is genuine. However, the working group may be calling bluff to force Peel to extend the review period further. It is true, you cannot assess viability and source private sector backing in just a few weeks, but Peel know this. Interesting to see what transpires in two weeks.
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Post by flyer on Sept 22, 2022 11:44:29 GMT
Local MP tweeting to say the DTI are meeting with the area's Mayors this pm following which the DTI will speak with Peel.His tone seemed very downbeat to me on the video and I have to say the tone of all the local politician statements recently has been characterized by a sense of something like "we're doing our best". This quite often is used in communication to say "but I don't expect success."
TUI have indicated the uncertainty is effecting sales and they want the issue sorting. We will know Monday.
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Post by pug on Sept 22, 2022 17:07:41 GMT
Local MP tweeting to say the DTI are meeting with the area's Mayors this pm following which the DTI will speak with Peel.His tone seemed very downbeat to me on the video and I have to say the tone of all the local politician statements recently has been characterized by a sense of something like "we're doing our best". This quite often is used in communication to say "but I don't expect success." TUI have indicated the uncertainty is effecting sales and they want the issue sorting. We will know Monday. I assume you’re referring to Nick Fletcher? In which case I don’t believe he’s been made privy to the specifics of the work going on behind the scenes by Oliver Coppard and the working group. What is clear is that Peels stance has remained pretty solid during the strategic review, the little they have given away has been pretty dismissive of the press releases from Oliver Coppard and Ros Jones. In my view Nick Fletcher knows it’s a done deal, and will be using this as a stick to bash the regional Mayor with. Unless there is some significant pressure from DfT this afternoon (which given their recent forecasts for growth at DSA, to me seems either unlikely or highly contradictory), then I don’t think there will be much that can be done to stop Peel doing whatever they decide to do following the review. I don’t expect the results of the review to be made public on Monday, they’ll have to have a consultation period with stakeholders and employees.. However, some ‘in the know’ members on PPRune will likely post any info on there first.
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Post by flyer on Sept 23, 2022 6:52:41 GMT
Yes Pug, Nick Fletcher. Agree, politicians positioning along Party lines to blame each other if it closes. Government says it's up to the local authorities and local authorities saying they need extra government money to do so. Likely outcome now is closure and public vilification of Peel for doing what any company must do - use its assets to best effect.
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Post by pug on Sept 23, 2022 7:09:20 GMT
Yes Pug, Nick Fletcher. Agree, politicians positioning along Party lines to blame each other if it closes. Government says it's up to the local authorities and local authorities saying they need extra government money to do so. Likely outcome now is closure and public vilification of Peel for doing what any company must do - use its assets to best effect. I think ultimately the blame (at least in the public mind) will be placed upon Oliver Coppard. Following this occasionally as I do, it seems that Nick Fletcher is using this as a self publicising tool, constant updates on various platforms that don’t really say much or add anything new, apart from photos of himself and sometimes with other people of influence in Government, with the inevitable comments from his followers thanking him for all his efforts. Meanwhile it would appear that Oliver Coppard is doing the hard graft behind the scenes to try to secure the future of the site by investigating other ownership options and having dialogue with potential investors. Yes he has devolved spending powers, but you don’t just go buying a hugely expensive loss-leading airport at the expense of other perhaps more pressing schemes. Nick Fletcher knows this, and is using borderline gaslighting techniques to slope his shoulders and pass the buck whatever the outcome. Again this comes down to Peel, nobody can influence a sale. They’ve been steadfast in their few public announcements that the airport is not financially viable in its current state, and as yet nobody has approached them with a feasible proposal to continue running the site. Bit of a mess really, and I don’t think Peel are trying to hold everyone over a barrel they just simply have other ideas for the use of their land. Perhaps this was the plan all along? I feel it unlikely, though was always a worst case scenario backup plan, In which case who gave them the funds to prime up the land?
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