HUY potential?!!

[apron]

Does anyone know of any traffic development for Humberside in the future...any plans been intimated?

Not to hot on HUY........what kind of potentialdoes it have for traffic development in charter, LoCo, schedule etc?

Any views on the matter??

[Eh Hello?]

May depend on how http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=96345 turns out?

[niknak]

Schedules - Nil chance, they only have scheduled services to Amsterdam and Aberdeen, several others have been tried but have been dismal failures.The lack of a significant number of interested passengers in the local catchment area may have a lot to do with it.

Lo Cost - no chance whatsoever, if it was going to happen, it would have done by now, reasons as above.

Charters/IT traffic - they seem to do this quite well, as the only other options are to travel to Manchester or East Midlands, however they can only compete on this level so far, after which it becomes more cost effective to go elsewhere.

As EH says, the future very much depends on what happens at Finningly - if it develops as planned, HUY will be sunk without trace, although it will be very nice for the North Sea helicopters and the flying clubs to have a 2000m runway and all that apron to themselves... ;)

[Chillwinston]

NIKNAK - "Schedules - Nil chance, they only have scheduled services to Amsterdam and Aberdeen, several others have been tried but have been dismal failures.The lack of a significant number of interested passengers in the local catchment area may have a lot to do with it."

Intresting statement, Citibus (Do228) started the HUY to LCY and seemed to have potential, operator went into liquidation before route was a sucess. EuroDirect operated to Brussels (I belive) but again the airline went bust. Genair opertated to various points throughout the Uk and to Esbjerg and this route was very sucessful in terms of revenue / profit but airline went into demise 1984. Air UK operated the Heathrow service, Eastern Mk 1 took over the route, again this was popular and sucessful until their demise.

The airport caters for the cities of Lincolnshire (city of Lincoln), South Yorkshire (Sheffield) and East Riding (Hull) so dont believe the catchment area is a problem, believe the problem is attracting operators not just for Humberside but the entire East Coast market.

I believe there is a market for scheduled services within the Uk and to major european cities (maybe not direct) from the airport but feel that HUY has missed the opportunity to expand to such services with the future looking not too good with the Finningley development commencing services in 2005.

[MerchantVenturer]

EXT has just attracted Flybe as a sort of low cost operator and is I believe smaller than HUY at present in passenger number terms.
I would not have thought that EXT's catchment area was any better than HUY.

Flybe have stated they intend to open another base in due course. Unless they go somewhere that already has a low cost airline base, as far as I can see the only two English options are HUY and NWI. I am ignoring BOH because Flybe have a big operation next door at SOU and would be unlikely to compete against themselves. Wouldn't they?!

Hull is a pretty big city in its own right.

[zed3]

The problem with Humberside and Hull city and East and North Yorkshire is the location. The Humber bridge crossing makes a taxi very expensive , I don't know if there is a bus ? There wasn't fifteen or so years or so when I last used the Air UK (Aaah) service to EHAM. I live in the south of the Netherlands - to take one example - and we have a flat in Scarborough , about an hour north of Hull. I use Dusseldorf (45 mins drive) to Manchester and thence train , +/- 3 hours , door to door 8 1/2 hours . Amsterdam is at least 2 1/2 hours by train then Schiphol to Humberside 1 hour then expensive taxi and then train . Total +/- 8 1/2hrs , door to door on a good day. By the way my fastest car time door to door , on a Saturday via the Channel Tunnel was 8 1/4 hrs! (low level )

[Golf Charlie Charlie]

While Humberside and Exeter may have similar catchment areas, I just wonder whether in Humberside the population is slightly less prosperous and well-off, and with few retirees who would add to the demand via visiting friends and relatives. Also, would people in the old East Riding, north of the Humber, even think about going south of the Humber, or would they still think of Leeds/Bradford and maybe the future Finningley as their local airports ? It seems to me, based on the track records of the low-cost airlines to date, that part of their success has been due to airports with bigger and more concentrated catchment areas than both Exeter and Humberside - but if I had to choose between these two, I'd go for Exeter.

[Chillwinston]

Golf Charlie Charlie

Humberside is no more, the county was split into its original counties prior to becomming Humberside, 1974 I believe?!

"I just wonder whether in Humberside the population is slightly less prosperous and well-off" -

Lincolnshire is no further "Well Off" or "poorer" than most counties of the Uk, the North & South divide seems to be clouding your judgement? For instance, Hull has its problems like most major cities and like most cities it has its propsperous and not so prosperous parts to the city.


Zed3 - I agree with you, in the past the transport from and to the airport has been very poor but even us "Northerners" (Sorry. Golf Charlie Charlie) now do have a regular bus service to and from the airport. As for the high Taxi fares, us poor people from Lincolnshire (Once again, Sorry GCC)have to charge excessive taxi fares to compensate for us living on or below the breadline!

GCC - ever get the feeling that i'm slightly pi**ed off at your comments, suggest a visit and even you might change your mind and just for your knowledge Ive moved to South Yorkshire, wanna slag that area of too??

[Golf Charlie Charlie]

Chillwinston, thank you, but my remarks had nothing to do with north/south divides and all that - indeed, I am a northerner myself by origins and loyalty. I am not saying that airports in the "north" don't make good low cost-airline bases (clearly many do), but that in a direct comparison between Humberside and Exeter, I'd have thought Exeter would offer greater potential.

And while I don't want to cause too much thread migration here, the economy in Yorkshire and Humberside is more exposed to a dependency on manufacturing/industrial jobs than many (note, not all) areas of the UK and that new job substitution in the service sector is not as vigorous as most other UK regions. Moreover, Gross Domestic Product per capita is below the median for the UK as a whole, the region in the 10 years up to 2003 had the smallest percentage of working people in work in the entire UK, it had the second smallest decrease in the percentage of working age people in workless households of any region in the UK, it has the highest percentage of single elderly households experiencing fuel poverty, it has the lowest percentage of 19 year olds with NVQ Level 2 qualifications, it had the equal highest recorded burglaries and vehicle thefts per 100,000 of population. On the other hand, the region does quite well environmentally and in quality of life. (Source : DEFRA statistics)

So what ? Well, I just think that with Leeds/Bradford already having a better franchise due to its more central location, the chances for a low-cost budget carrier at a second airport out on the coast are - can I put it this way ? - not yet fully proven.

[Point Seven]

The question about potential at EXT and at HUY is not only who wants to fly from there, but who wants to fly TO THERE. One is the gateway to the "English Riviera" and the other is Humberside. This has as mush to do with it as catchment areas.

And one other thing - folks from Lincolnshire consider going to Humberside to be a holiday so what do they want to go abroad for? ;)

P7

[JB007]

Britannia are operating a B767 out of HUY 4 times a week this summer, ALC and FAO are some of the destinations. Takes up the entire Southern Apron !!!!! Thats pretty good catchment, although like all charter movements from HUY, they are all "W" patterns...

Other than that, having spent the last few months flying out of HUY, I would say KLM UK and Scotia Helicopters was about the majority of movements.....

[MerchantVenturer]

"The question about potential at EXT and at HUY is not only who wants to fly from there, but who wants to fly TO THERE. One is the gateway to the "English Riviera" and the other is Humberside. This has as mush to do with it as catchment areas."

Point Seven,

I would love to think you are right and that Flybe's new routes next year from EXT to ALC and AGP, for example, would bring in crowds of Spanish tourists, but I shall believe that only when it happens.

The new GLA and EDI flights have better potential for this sort of thing and it would be very interesting if the airline or airport did a survey after say a year to see the proportion of incoming tourists on the flights.

[Chillwinston]

Thank you for the DEFRA stats, I stand corrected as whom am I to argue with DEFRA!

As for HUY, the airport itself is as good as any other regional airport, just a pity that services to and from HUY are so poor, lets hope Finningley offers a better route network than HUY

[boredcounter]

Summit else there, but I just can't put me finger on it.

[682ft AMSL]

The situation in Yorks is a result of low supply as opposed to low demand. The Govt's recent consultation exercise on the future of air transport revealed the degree to which this was the case around 1999-2000.

Yorks & Humberside
Population : 5.0m
No of air passenger journeys where ultimate origin or destination is in region: 7.0m

of which: 25% use airports in region. 75% use airports outside of region

North West
Population : 6.9m
No of air passenger journeys where ultimate origin or destination is in region: 14.2m

of which: 94% use airports in region. 6% use airports outside of region

North East
Population : 2.6m
No of air passenger journeys where ultimate origin or destination is in region: 3.1m

of which: 82% use airports in region. 18% use airports outside of region

The question is therefore, why do the airlines & tour operators only service 1/4 of the demand to/from Yorks at airports in the region? The explanations of course revolves around the fact that (a) airlines exist to make money and not to provide the most convenient service to the general public and (b) regional boundaries are artificial and do not prevent passengers from choosing to fly from other airports on the grounds of price, convenience, preference of airlines, frequency, timings etc. Nonetheless, the potential for airport operators and/or airlines in the Yorks region is clearly there.

682

[Capt BK]

Afraid I don't know much about economics or Exeter but I can speak from a local resident point of view. In my experience when it comes to holiday destinations most people I know fly from HUY if they can. Although a taxi can be expensive it is nothing compared to a taxi to MAN where most other holidaymakers head for. In anycase if you can get a lift of a friend/relative the extra price of the flight is easily outweighed by convenience. This is quite simply due to available routes.

As 682 states with his stats there is clearly a market there but up North we do tend to lag behind the South. Where as ten years ago someone from the SE or SW may not have thought twice about travelling to LHR or LGW to jet off, now the population is demanding a more local base to fly from. Until we catch up, people are still prepared to make the 2-3hr journey to the airport.

I personally feel HUY needs investment to attract routes and routes to attract investment! If it can get either within the next couple of years then it may be able to hold Finningly back for a fight but if Finningly makes a strong start HUY is doomed! HUY has in the past favoured a steady growth but it's going to have to get tough.

To coin a phrase, this town ain't big enough for the both of us!