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https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-stewart-1885078
This guy cannot be serious. He's surely been in the industry too long to believe the words he's saying here....
"It's what we need at the airport and it's what the local people want too," he said, adding that it would be "absolutely fantastic" if Prestwick could follow the example set by Ireland and lure the UK's first US pre-clearance facility to Ayrshire.
Yup, you and every UK airport that serves the US.
I've seen recent news reports about London and Manchester potentially applying for it, but I think for both it would be extremely difficult to achieve.
Easier than PIK? He uses the SNN analogy but Ireland has way more daily directs to the US than Scotland.
SNN EI BOS JFK UA EWR ORD AA PHL DL JFK = 6
EDI AA JFK UA ORD EWR x 2 DL JFK = 5
GLA AA PHL UA EWR = 2
Even if you throw in the totality of Thomson, Thomas Cook and Virgin's US bound Scottish traffic, PIK would need to have transatlantic gateway status re-established to make this viable, and surely EDI or GLA is a better bet. The only airline who could make PIK-London viable is Ryanair, so again,
incredible. I am staggered he think this is a realistic strategy, or more likely it's window dressing for public comsumption to show they're doing something. But gimme a break if he honestly thinks PIK will get US CBP status before any other airport that has an existing transatlantic operator. Completely fantastic.
US pre clearance has to be paid for and there has to be a major ROI to this. You would need the totality of Scotland-US each day to make this a credible proposition. Or potentially it's just fluff for the voters, but ina fight against GLA/EDI/MAN/BHX etc, what possible reason would the US CBP have to choose PIK? NWA wouldn't even come back to PIK in 1994 when they were offered the use of the airport for free. Come on!
They need to stop living in the past. The false monopoly of transatlantic "glory days" are never coming back, Ryanair now operate GLA-STN. If they are serious, they need to cut the business down to size, cut losses and stop chasing yesterdays rainbows.
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