DERRY/LONDONDERRY

[scodaman]

I think there was a technical problem with the Faro departure. The on-line departure board showed it as delayed and it said 'AWAITING TECHNICIAN' or something like that.

So it may have been a replacement 737 to fly the passengers to Faro or a plane bringing the man with the spanners from Stansted.

[bad bear]

Caa stats for September out today and LDY down again, just over 350,000 pax for last 12 month period (rolling). Could be down to 340,000 for the year. With reduction to services to FAO and ALC and BHX outlook not great for 2015?.

Page 36 of the "Master Plan" suggested a low estimate for 2015 would be 480,000 passengers with the plan being 510,000 and high estimate of 550,000.
Not going to plan?
The report also moans about the terminal struggling to cope with 3 fully loaded 737s in the space of an hour, but today shows only 2 flights for the whole day.

£50m and £10m "invested" in the airport since 2008??

Some interesting quotes from the report

In October 2010, DCC entered into a 10 year contract with Parsons Brinckerhoff, a Balfour Beatty Company, through a Managed Services Agreement to operate the Airport

The Airport supports approximately 380 full time equivalent jobs in the local economy and contributes approximately £14 million of GVA to the Northern Ireland economy and £7 million to the local economy per annum. By 2022 it is estimated that the Airport will support 800 jobs in the local economy and add £35 million GVA to the Northern Ireland economy

How many jobs does the airport currently support?

bb

[Kinocker]

To be fair, a lot of predictions made before September 2008 bear little relationship to the world we now live in. We've basically lost six years through economic stagnation that has hindered the growth of facilities such as airports. Having said that LDY has done worse than stagnate in the last six years so there's no doubt that things are not going to any sort of plan at the moment.

[Amelia Earhart]

Ryanair always quote the number of local jobs supported as 1 per 1000 pax so on that basis the airport must be supporting 350 local jobs rather than the 380 quoted in the plan.

Note it does say support local jobs not directly employ so who knows. Personally I suspect that there would be much more than 350 fewer jobs if the airport were not there. Think of Seagate for a start.

[dan saaf]

RYR just emailed to tell me that they're cancelling the BHX-Derry flights between 6th Jan and 28th March due 'an operational review'

[GAZMO]

That does not look good for LDY
Will any of the other routes be next?

[cuthere]

Why would any of the recently loaded summer routes be next? BHX was not loaded past the end of the winter schedule and it was always my suspicion it was for the chop sooner rather than later. A shocking schedule, operated by a B737-800 meant the route was always going to struggle.

I do wonder GAZMO. I really do.

[Geolog]

BHX

Actually nothing bookable to BHX after 20th November - so they have even abandoned the Christmas holiday flights.

[mart901]

Shame because the route did well when it was moved from EMA. However of late timings have got worse, like a stop gap in the schedule without even a Sunday flight, useless for a weekend. On top of which BHD/BFS has become hotly competitive with BE loosing ground and seemingly gaining back without EZY loosing. Shame really because LDY is a great little airport and cuts out a lot of driving if your heading that way.....wish EIR or BE would appear.

[Amelia Earhart]

BBC News - City of Derry airport: Ryanair flight to Birmingham axed

It's official but merely confirms what we already knew: Birmingham has been axed.

I suspect Glasgow could have been joining it if they hadn't been relaunching the routes from Glasgow International.

It doesn't augur well for the airport if it cannot sustain flights to the 2nd city of the UK.

With the history of the Bristol route I won't be expecting any other airline to pick up the route. If there was any interest the airport would already have had an operator lined up as they must have known the route was going to be axed prior to last Friday.

Mind you there are now several large gaps in the provision which could prove attractive to the right operator. Manchester has previously attracted 40K pax p.a. , Bristol nearly the same and Birmingham even more.

[scodaman]

Hopefully due to the flights-not-yet-loaded excuse but Faro is strangely only bookable for July next year at the moment.

Can't see them limiting it to one month? Something tells me they may have put July up to 'see how the bookings go' before deciding to commit to extra months.

The July Faro prices are terrific value compared to the Easyjet from Aldergrove and Aer Lingus from Belfast City

2 adults and 1 child Monday 6th July - Monday 13th July approx £545 from Derry, that's the base price with no bags etc.

Same dates from the 2 Belfast airports each coming in at a min £800 base price before bags etc.

[AIRPORT66]

airport66

How many pax used the Bhx service from Derry each week or month.

[cuthere]

Airport66

Wouldn't it be great if there was somewhere you could find such information?

Oh. Hang on. What's this?

Aviation Statistics | Aviation Intelligence | About the CAA

Or even better. Wouldn't it be great if people did a breakdown of routes on this very thread? But hang on. That would involve bothering to look.

[litefoot1]

Thanks, I'm new to the site and didn't know anything like that existed Very handy. *bookmarks*


http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/80/airport...ng_Airport.pdf


Birmingham to Derry figures for August very similar to Prestwick to Derry figures. I wonder what effect the move to GLA will have.

[cuthere]

Indeed. Also BHX-LDY figures were very similar as BHX-NQY/INV on BE.

PIK was always an oddity as the sector was incredibly short. I'd imagine the psychological impact of landing at GLA rather than the coast of Ayrshire will make the route more popular.

[bad bear]

interesting article in one of the local papers this week

Derry City Council currently pays an annual grant of £2m to keep the airport running, a bill that will shortly be jointly shouldered by ratepayers in Strabane, despite the fact that only 4% of the local population actually uses the terminal.

With the added subvention, that amount is set to rise to £2.5m for the year 2015/16.

It is understood other council budgets will be trimmed to meet the increased grant allowance to the airport.

[GAZMO]

Very interesting article in BT
If the new council feels it's money well spent then who are we to argue

[justmaybe]

It's not Council money, it is ours, public, money, and it begs the question whether those monies are being properly utilised. Rather interestingly, just down the road at Enniskillen 'airport' almost £2 million of public money was used to build a massive hangar that has never been occupied since it was erected nearly four years ago. That sort of financial wastage cannot be tolerated in the present times.

[scodaman]

Ratepayers pick up the tab for City of Derry Airport's £449,000 loss of Ryanair route - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

Link to before mentioned B Tel article above.

On a different note I am a great supporter of the airport and hope it succeeds, I'm flying to Faro next summer from Derry but I've noticed on the City of Derry Facebook and Twitter pages that certain staff seem to attend so called business social dinner functions quite often as they seem happy to post their glad rag pics on the official Twitter and Facebook feeds.

I'm all for business networking but these functions usually have a cost, the airport (Derry rate payer) will be paying for their attendance, and I question the value of these knees ups especially considering the precarious financial situation that the airport is in.

[NorthSouth]

Surely just another demonstration of the myth of low cost air travel. It's only achieved by lumping the costs on to someone else.