I also welcome this news. As well other members of this forum and getting a little tired with some of the contributions made by the same pro Luton / Anti Everywhere else North of the river.
As previously stated on an earlier post, I too am impressed with MAG's management of MAN and the turnaround of a run down airport.
With plenty of spare capacity MAG know they need to invest nothing for a few years but just service the debt.
I am struggling to find the logic of some people's understanding, in terms that MAG have bought and an Airport for £1.5 billion and now are not going to invest in the infrastructure and marketing.
Stansted is the worst located of the London area airports
I am quite sad and have done a quick look on transport direct website. The above search i have done was leaving the below airports at 8am on the 23rd January 2013 via public transport only.
LTN - Docklands - 1 hour 46 minutes
STN - Docklands - 1 hour 38 minutes
LTN - Bank of England - 1 hour 19 minutes
STN - Bank of England - 1 hour 7 minutes
LTN - Westminster - 1 hour 13 minutes
STN - Westminster - 1 hour 14 minutes
It has a smaller catchment area than LHR, LGW or LTN
Although catchment areas provide some sort of useful data, this should not be used soley for an argument. Firstly, 18 million pax a year in 2011 through STN would say that this argument does not really hold too much water Travellers also take into account the price of flights, destinations flown from the departure airport, timing of flights. Its more complicated than just saying "smaller catchment areas" would not attract airlines.
Ground links are poor - the M11 only links London and Cambridge, and rail services are infrequent and slow
Although not ideal, rail travel is expensive and slow, every 15 minutes is not infrequent. on the plus side, Coach travel into C.London is fairly cheap and frequent. Roadwise, the M11 past the M25 can get rammed, so can the M4 from LHR to C.London and the M1 down to the M25 can be murder as well. There is no real direct route in c.London that I can think off that doesnt involve a painful wait in traffic.
New operators will be up against Ryanair
Ryanair on the main fly to out of town airfields not airports. EZY have / can compete. The change to SEN was mainly due to the financial rewards Stobarts were offering not so much due to the the direct competition from FR.
Gatwick and Luton both have some available capacity
Struggling to find what the point you are making with this. More competition can only be good a thing for all involved surely?
Stansted will not be able to compete financially as long as it is saddled with debt
The only way to pay off debt is to make a profit. Investment will be one of the highest priorities for MAG.
I for one am looking forward to MAG joining in the competition for London Traffic. Let the competing commence!!