Originally Posted by
DC3 Dave
I think it's important to see the railway as a link to London and little else. None the population centres over 100,000 in Essex are linked directly to the airport, other than Rayleigh (around 100,000) and Southend itself. (I am not including London Boroughs within the historical Essex boundary). The railway does little for those in Southend, Basildon, Castle Point, Thurrock, Chelmsford, Harlow, Colchester and Clacton.
At this moment in the airport's evolution, it seems that few see it as a destination, rather it is a departure point for pleasure and leisure seekers. So throwing big money into rail - bearing in mind an express service calling Stratford and Liverpool St only, would probably only shave 6 - 8 mins off the journey - seems pointless.
I am not saying the rail-link is unimportant, without it, it ceases to be a London airport, but short of building a Maglev rail with trains capable of 300mph, I don't see any large scale investment making enough difference to be justified.
I hate to burst the bubble of optimists here wanting the cash proceeds from the divestment in Eddie Stobart to go into rail or airport infrastructure projects - but it won't. It will go to paying dividends to shareholders.
Currently the 12p annual dividend costs Stobart Group in excess of £41m. The Group cannot cover that from operating profit so it has to sell assets to pay shareholders. The proceeds from the Eddie Stobart deal will cover the dividend for the next 2 years and a bit.
The downside is that the shareholding in Eddie Stobart gave the Group approx £7m per annum in income. This is now lost and with airport not profitable and the airline leasing business facing increased costs (less profitability) due to the sales and leaseback deal, the future is a full gamble on achieving 2.5m pax and then selling the asset.
I can't see that happening.