Doppelmayr, who built the trains have a 5 year contract for day to day maintenance of the trains, track and running gear with an option for an extension These will be highly paid jobs compared to the airport average with management roles including operations centre manager paying £50,000 and technical operations manager.
Then there will be a selection of low paid jobs that will be contracted out to a third party who will manage the day to day passenger operation. I expect they in turn will subcontract out some of the duties like cleaning but that is just a guess.
I have heard nothing about the airport operator running the Dart and I doubt they will but that could change in 10 years time when the franchise chances and so might be a condition of the franchise.
Separately, there is the question of why is LLAL even building the Dart when it was never required for a 18 million passenger airport that was achieved in 2019? Within the existing airport footprint using the existing terminal the plan is for an extra 3.5 million passengers so is that the secret justification? £283m seems an awful lot of money to spend for an additional 3.5 million passengers. I can see why LLAOL said no as there was no financial case for its construction. Also despite repeated Freedom of Information requests to the Council they have refused to supply the business case based on H.M. Treasury Five-Case Business Model for Public Authority Funded Projects as there wasn't one.
LLAL holds the operators licence and carries all the financial risks. That will be something they will be keen to off load but might find difficult to achieve within 10 years.
Last edited by LTNman; 5th Sep 2021 at 07:08.