Originally Posted by
Andy_S
They’re not good comparisons, though. Both those airports have substantial passenger traffic, so don’t need to maximise freight in the way Manston would need to.
History would suggest otherwise. Whatever volumes of fresh produce were being flown in, wherever Manston stood in the freight rankings, it was never enough to make the airport commercially viable. Various people have tried, without success.
The trouble is that really only works for intermittent freight deliveries. If Manston were to start dealing with the sort of volumes of freight that would make it commercially viable, that rapid turnaround time would be degraded and any time advantage compromised.
Good points Andy, however the financial failure of the airport was down to the freight income not being sufficient to cover overheads that were in place to attract pax operations. The 24 hours fire cover being just one example. If they had concentrated solely on freight the P&L would have looked different.
To grow freight they needed night time flying which I believe was granted just prior to the sale to Ann Gloag.