Originally Posted by
Aero Mad
Don't get me wrong, in its current shape the airport just won't work. But if they cared to extend the runway a little and put in the necessary investment as Stobart has at Southend then they could see healthy returns.
If someone develops SZD as an airport again, extending the runway, installing navaids, and so on, they could aspire to attracting some regional services, perhaps AMS and DUB. I'm not sure what other routes are going to be economically feasible for airlines - there are fewer and fewer regional carriers around, certainly fewer than when SZD was operating, and those that survive are becoming increasingly risk-averse (for obvious reasons!). So there wouldn't be a large range of possible airline candidates to serve those routes - the list would be pretty short, and if either the guys in blue or the guys in green said "no", the airport business case would be somewhat impaired.
Forgive me for saying it, but that doesn't seem like a lot of return on what would be at the very least several million pounds of investment.
Given the prospective shortage of runway capacity in the southeast, I'm not sure that the comparison with Southend is entirely valid.
And the question which I still have in my mind: if there is indeed a demand for these services from the local area (which I'm perfectly prepared to accept), then why aren't these destinations served from DSA?
C.