Cavokblue,
No the Council is not arguing with itself as LLAOL is the private airport operator who pay concession fees to LLAL that is 100% owned by the Council. The concessionaire has in effect turned off the income stream to the Council’s airport company so LLAL is arguing with LLAOL. LLAOL are saying the Council doesn’t have a leg to stand.
LLAL have been caught in the perfect storm. They are committed to high expenditure while having a zero source of income. The claim is that the building of the Dart was the result of a planning permission condition for 18m passengers but the question then becomes if that was the case why is LLAOL not building the Dart as the concessionaire was meant to fund all the airports expansion projects as a condition of an extended franchise. The answer will be that the concessionaire could not see a way to make a profit out of it so the Council took on the project via LLAL.
If the Dart is not needed for 18m passengers, which it isn’t, as the airport reached 18m passengers without it, why is it even being built? While the shuttle bus was the airports big weak spot it did not stop the airport reaching its legal permitted limit.
From memory the expansion of the airport to 18m cost around £100m to add 6m passengers a year so shows a financial return. The Dart is costing £243m and doesn’t add a single passenger. The cost to the airport to get existing passengers from the station to the terminal is £0. The time saving will be around 2 minutes but comfort will be greatly increased as will the passenger perception and experience.
From next year St Pancras to the terminal can be completed in under 30 minutes making it quicker than London to Gatwick or Stansted. The airport was hoping for 4 non stop trains an hour but got 2, which is better than the 1 non stop train at the moment. The rolling stock to be used will be a big disappointment though.
Last edited by LTNman; 18th Apr 2021 at 21:03.