The council is actually upset that the airport is avoiding building a whole new terminal on the northern part of the airport - with the associated improved infrastructure and direct road link. They are irritated that the airport will just add to the existing terminal, with no plans for improved infrastructure. For 4m passengers per year this is too little. Hopefully this will force the airport to re-consider the brand new terminal. The way its going at the moment, the airport will achieve the 4m sooner rather than later.
All of this comment from the council would be a little more credible if there were firm plans for delivery of the northern A338 link road... but at the moment it's 'at least' 2014-15 and could be later. With atrocious access to the north side until this road goes in, the airport would be crazy to develop the north side of the site.
Following that chain of logic, the airport needs to expand in the next 9-10 years, and the most effective way to do that is to grow the existing terminal. But even if the new road comes in later, it would be madness to mothball the existing terminal and spend £20-£30m on a new one!
The traffic point is highly spurious - the vast majority of traffic on Parley lane is travelling from Ferndown/Wimborne to Christchurch or vice versa. The council could solve the problem at a stroke, by blocking Parley Lane off west of the airport. All access to the airport would then be via A338, and other traffic would have to route around, using the A338.
Sounds like local councils behaving themselves as usual.
"The county response also calls for the master plan to contain more measures to offset the environmental impact of the predicted growth of the airport with increased air and road traffic adding extra greenhouse gas emissions and noise to threaten neighbouring residents and surrounding areas of protected heathland."
[From above article]
Really do wonder why LA's have been given remit to cover greenhouse gas emissions, and just exactly how great the noise and CO2 emissions will be on that heathland - pretty minimal I'd guess!
Sure, agenda 21 should cover road transport, and should perhaps ensure that buildings are as energy efficient as possible, which airports often are for PR reasons, but it is highly disingenous of one authority to deny an airport expansion on the grounds of CO2 emissions, as all this will mean is a longer road journey to another airport, usually in the London area, and therefore considerably more delays on the ground and in the air.
I'm not trying to detract from the importance of the CO2 debate, but just think it is usually trundled out as an excuse for lazy nimbyism and ill-informed regulation by local busybodies who cannot see beyond a few lost votes at the end of the runway.
In fairness a large part of the airport's boundary is onto SSSI and so the heathland is a protected area. I'm sure that the Environment Agency will have had an input to the council's opinion in this respect.
But I agree with your points about air vs road travel.
I dont think the council will be able to do much to stop Bournemouths apparent leap into the low-cost arena. They won't exactly be saying no if airlines want to open more routes. The ONLY short-term solution would be to expand the existing terminal. Reckon 2007 will see 1.1m passengers.
About ten years ago Bournemouth was getting quite a bit of attention as far as the charters went, Ryanair was there quite a lot too and of course European Avition was at the start of a short-lived boom.
It is a shame that it has become an ever more "ignored" airport because it had a n oklocation and the infrastructure was not too bad, but from what I have seen it has gone a bit downhill in some aspects..........
The fact that the flying schools have vapourized is also a sign of less interest in the airport, but then again, who knows maybe there will be a "boom" again!!
Are you sure you have all the facts regarding BOH?
10 years ago BOH handled 157,000 passengers (source C.A.A.) and in the winter was lucky to have more than a single flight per day, namely the FR to Dublin.
This year BOH will handle almost 1 million passengers and this winter will have upto 15 flights per day. Most of these being loco flights. Just check out the BOH airport website and you'll see the extent of it's growth.
Regarding the charter market it's at least double that of 10 years ago!
The future for BOH airport is looking really good and they expect to handle 2 million passengers within the next 2 years.
Last edited by FLYboh : 14th October 2006 at 00:29.
Reason: update stats
if anything the airport has never been so busy. i think that the commercial side like airline services will take over. Employers like NATS, BASCO Chan Ex and some flying schools may have gone/are going, but that makes room for further commercial growth opportunites. There are plans to change the NATS building into a deluxe hotel for crew and passengers for example.
Location: Sittingbourne Kent and at Wimborne Dorset
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Quote:
Originally Posted by loveJet
The council is actually upset that the airport is avoiding building a whole new terminal on the northern part of the airport - with the associated improved infrastructure and direct road link. They are irritated that the airport will just add to the existing terminal, with no plans for improved infrastructure. For 4m passengers per year this is too little. Hopefully this will force the airport to re-consider the brand new terminal. The way its going at the moment, the airport will achieve the 4m sooner rather than later.
Where abouts do you mean for a new terminal on the northern part of the airport where the 747's are normal parked?
Where abouts do you mean for a new terminal on the northern part of the airport where the 747's are normal parked?
james
The proposed A338 link would come in pretty much at the closest point between the A338 and the airport - i.e. along the line of the existing (single-lane!) access road at 'Rivergate' onto the NE business park.
That would effectively open up the whole north side of the airport to business use (as the road would include a link around the N end of the big taxiway across to the NW business park). However, in addition to the large tenants BASCO and FR on the NE sector there are a lot of smaller sites, e.g. flying club plus some light aircraft businesses. I assume that this is the area that the council are talking about as a site for a potential new terminal.
The more you think about it the crazier it is. To move out of the existing site would create a 'white elephant' that would be unlikely to be used for any other purpose. Once the link road is in the Southern Sector becomes the hardest part of the airport to get to!
That is the plan to extend the terminal both sides and to use the old short term car parks , Jet 2 offices ( which they have been given notice on to leave by May 2007 ) and the old ground handling offices will all make way for a much larger and improved terminal building
If you look on the Bournemouth airport web site under Master Plan you can see the proposed new development in great detail for 2015 and 2030
BOH are predicted 2m pax per year by 2009 calendar year. This is sourced from the Bournemouth Airport book just published by Mike Phipp. If this is true, then it looks like some major development will be taking place soon - probably a confirmation of a Ryanair/easyJet base.
It's also in the airport Master Plan, so as you say there has to a big announcement within the next few months. My money is on Easyjet as they still have to release their summer 07 schedule. But, with their poor showing this summer in regards to flight cancellations, I would prefer Ryanair.
I would have to agree with you there FlyBOH as Ryanair will be able to achieve much better volumes/margins than easyJet too. They are so much more reliable and better able to stimulate the market. Not that I would be unhappy if easyJet announced anything - but relations would be rather more consistant with Ryanair. (and damaging to Flybe at SOU)
More Ryanair represents a lot of eggs in one basket to me. And if they were really serious at BOH it would have been a base 2-3 years ago. Have you noticed that most of the recent announcements are only 3x weekly services? Clearly Ryanair think that there are fatter routes out there for them to focus on.
Easyjet would be a real coup - the 3 largest LCCs in Europe (Ryanair, Easy and Air Berlin ) all at BOH!
coasthugger, we have been demanding a base operation at bournemouth for some considerable time now. it's not us that are the problem, its MAG. They take a long time to agree to how much we can expand and where. but hopefully within the near term we should be able to overcome that obstacle and set up a proper hub. it will be a 3 aircraft base.
Really? Didnt seem to be a problem at NEMA, and it was Ryanair that pulled out of HUY not the other way around... Obviously MAN is seen as the 'crown jewels', and being regulated is never likely to offer an attractive price to FR, but I'm amazed if BOH has ever seriously restricted FR growing. Look at all the work they did recently to facilitate Thomsonfly starting up.
where the 747's are normal parked? 
) all at BOH!
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