I said I was confused over the stands situation at the airport. Having re-read the airport’s Statement of Intent re the Aviation White Paper I am even more confused.
The Statement is dated February this year and states, “It is estimated that up to 30 aircraft stands may be required to handle 9 mppa (the estimated annual pax numbers using the airport to be reached between 2015 and 2020). This requires an additional 12 stands compared with the current provision. These additional stands can be provided by expanding the airport apron to the west of the control tower and in the longer term to the east of the fire station.”
The airport seems to be saying it currently has only 18 stands whereas we have been told in this thread that there are stands numbering from 1 to 27 but not including 17, 18, 19 or 20. Even my dodgy maths makes this a total of 23.
Anyway, the airport seems confident that it can handle almost double the current number of pax with not that many more stands than at present, and without having to go outside the current airport boundary. It does accept that the current terminal building will have to be extended significantly though.
Graham,
CAA stats for 2004 show a shade under 242,000 scheduled pax used the NCL-BRS-NCL route last year, an average of over 20,000 every month. easyJet had the route to itself last year so they were all their customers. I believe this is the busiest route, in passenger number terms, between two English provincial cities. 143 charter pax also travelled between BRS and NCL in 2004. Don’t know what that was in connection with.