Originally Posted by
SKOJB
you know for a fact they were loosing money?
I’m certainly no expert in financial obligations but I believe there has been a requirement for Doncaster Airport Ltd to post its annual financial performance, and this is available to view. I’ve no doubt that there has been some clever accounting as you would expect from an organisation such as Peel, but DSA has been posting operating losses since it opened. General consensus seems to be that the airport have been charging too much in landing and handling charges creating a barrier to growth, but this would seem to contradict the fact that it has been losing money in spite of a fairly buoyant passenger throughput. Peel have stipulated a critical mass that has not been reached, which suggests to me that they’ve been offering very favourable deals to airlines to operate from there with the understanding that a minimum passenger throughput is reached in order to generate profit from ancillary revenue (car parking, retail). Worked with TUI but not so much with the other airlines that have been and gone.
Not sure on the legalities of cross subsidies from other land surrounding the airport? Perhaps an operator like MAG may run things differently in that respect. Airport operating costs have increased significantly in the 17 years since DSA opened. There is clearly a bigger picture here and sadly Peel have not given sufficient time to allow for a truly independent scrutiny process to be completed.