Originally Posted by
caaardiff
CWL was heading in the right direction, pre-flybe & Covid. TCX could've been recovered from, Flybe will be a lot harder.
If you look at their Management structure, it's very similar to CWL.
Each has a CEO, CFO/FD, HR Director, Ops Director & Commercial Director (With Spencer currently covering CEO)
PIK has 4 non executive Directors, whereas CWL has 3, also with Deb currently an Executive Director role until she leaves in Oct.
So seems a similar structure in both. I'm not sure of the Prestwick business setup, but the CWL team are also managing St Athan Airfield Ops & VLY Passenger services.
Secondly they may be similar in size, but very different in Operations.
2019 Passengers carried - CWL 1.65m / PIK 640k
There's a big difference in aircraft movements. CWL had about 7,000 more aircraft movements, with commercial flights comparison being CWL 16,549 vs PIK 4637
However there's a big military operation at PIK which saw 4292 at PIK vs 346 at CWL
Private non-commercial movements also account for 1915 at PIK vs 6155 at CWL. These flights are likely going to bring in less revenue than military flights.
Lastly there's a huge difference in Cargo carried 13054tn at PIK vs 1803tn at CWL. The majority of PIK's cargo throughput is from Cargo aircraft, whereas most of CWL's is schedules flights (Mainly QR).
PIK is also positioned well to be a cargo hub for Scotland, whereas CWL's location is more difficult as it would have to compete with a massive hub in EMA. So passenger wise PIK may not be doing well, but it has the ability to diversify.
I still don't understand why the Management team are continuing to get a bashing when CWL have already driven operational efficiencies and looked at costs pre-covid, whilst having to make investments in the Terminal and Airfield to remain attractive. They get scrutinised by the WG, as well as the media and general public. They aren't going to be p*ss*ng money up the wall with that kind of focus on them. I have still yet to see any solid evidence from an informed source that they are doing so.
But in fairness you're comparing CWL against PIK but do you truly wish to compare CWL against an airport that has been a white elephant since the day that it was built and, what with longer range aircraft needing lesser length runways, has pretty much no marketplace in modern day aviation and even for transatlantic fuel stops has always been in competition with SNN.
And I honestly do not know how these shall compare but how about comparing with the likes of EXT, BOH, NWI and HUY for perhaps some more realistic comparisons.
But of interest, to my business mind rather than my personal mind, is that it is directors being itemised, I note that CWL has a Commercial Director, would he/she be responsible for Sales in the absence of any Sales Director, so the CD is the 'Chief', how many 'Indians' does he have beneath him/her banging the telephones and out there knocking on doors trying to sell anything aviation related.
Of particular note during these times is that the CWL directors have two less than anywhere near fully utilised airfields seemingly just begging for business, below is a recent picture of BOH, would anyone care to post a recent picture of St Athan or were the CWL Commercial team, of seemingly one, too preoccupied having meetings to decide when the next meeting may be whilst other airports were out there doing some marketing?
