Originally Posted by
SWBKCB
Yes - why do you think other airports have "a maze of duty free shops"? Passengers might like a short walk, but are they prepared to pay for it? Look at the fuss over the £6 fee.
It will be interesting to see the plan to improve the profitability, although I think the underlying losses (ie stripping out Peel's fees and one offs) are closer to £1m rather than £2m - still big numbers in any case.
However, 70,000 departing passengers a year probably raises something just under £350,000 in departure fees for the airport (deducting the VAT and assuming that 99% of pax are adults). I can't see that remaining if the mayor wants to tempt back TUI or Ryanair - so the airport would be faced with significantly lower income than today.
So how will they increase the revenue? More routes might mean more landing fees, although in order to attract new airlines, landing fees would probably have to be heavily subsidised (or even free) for the first year or so. Car parking charges are already high so difficult to see how they might realistically be increased. The duty free shop could easily be reopened but does anyone make money on selling duty free to EU passengers? (although Brexit could make selling duty free very attractive again).
Of course, more passengers would mean extra income for the cafe and lounge but the place will need a hell of a big injection of passengers (and also freight) to balance the books.