Flightrider

Now look to be thinking about a move to Manston. Various slot applications have been made overseas for the following:

Daily Malaga
Daily Alicante
Daily Faro
2 x daily Paris CDG
3 x daily Amsterdam

all from Manston and not Luton. I wonder if they've found some money at Manston?

jmc-man

A strange development. That would require a fundamental change to the business plan. Luton benefits from a developed "Low Cost" catchment, and is readily accessible. Manston is a whole new market and is significantly less accessible.

Going to be intersting to watch how this plays out, but ultimately it will all rest on NOW's ability to raise the capital funding it needs. I thought there was a stated deadline of Mid January for "make or break" decisions.

Lite

I would think its about time that Manston got a low-cost, no-frills airline.

The airport has a number of reasonably sized towns close by including Dover, Folkestone, Canterbury and the Medway Towns. Similarly the airport could easily put on a bus service to Ramsgate Station where the train ride to London is just over an hour.

Although this does rubbish the Now philosophy of flying to the main airport and not a "field in the middle of nowhere" but I hope that Now and Manston make a success, because between them they have a great team of people.

**777lover**

Hi,

Just a quick question what routings would you assume these planes would take and if need be what holds would they use? Also how much traffic does Manston get now as i know currently its only freight!

Thanks Dave

LTNman

I bet Luton Airport management will find this interesting seeing that Now have been occupying offices in an airport owned building for months at next to no rental on the promise of lots of new routes from Luton.

Whippersnapper

Where did this information come from? I haven't heard it before and am still with them (and still being paid too, before any smarta**e remarks come back). If it's true, it could be as a second base; the expansion plans were due to be rapid, and things are reportedly getting back on track.

jmc-man

I must assume it came from the slot co-ordinators at the respective airports. It might just be a bet-hedging excercise.

Whippersnapper, I think any discussion of "expansion" is a little premature until there is something to expand. Glad you're still being paid though. Any word on what has happened to the pilots?

Lite, reasonably sized towns will not be able to supply sufficient passengers to fill the flights listed, bearing in mind that all these services are available from various London Airports.

Buster the Bear

This has to be a New Year wind up?

Now have survived so far on Govt dept hand outs and Regional re-gengeration aid supplied via the East of England/EU. Luton is seen by Govt/EU as an area lacking in manufacturing since Vauxhall stopped building cars, so available funds are in place to create sustainable employment.

Now, a new PAPER airline moving to Manston, my mate at Wiggins (Sorry, Plane Port) will be laughing forever at me! The only company that owns a Black Forrest......gateux.....airport. Laarbruch.

Now! Ciao-Fly!



I meant Lahr and Plane Station!

Whooops.

Now and Wiggins, my mate will hound me if true, forever!

Flightrider

Buster, I limit my wind-ups to 1 April. This is straightforward info.

Start dates for all look to be 25 May and as far as I can work out, it looks like two aircraft at Manston.

Tarek Nor

Whippersnapper

How are you still getting paid when the rest of
us got shaffted and are not ??

CAP670

Why would anyone want to fly from Manston to Paris when you can do it to the city centre from Ashford Intl and Eurostar in about three hours without fear of ATC delays at Paris, below-minima weather at Manston (no Cat 2/3), etc., etc.

As for 'London' Manston, it's firmly in the MoL book of definitions, being around 70 miles from the capital.

Personally, for an 'out of town' London airport I'd prefer Southampton (which has its own mainline railway station) or even Birmingham (ditto) if flying the other way...

As Now is still not taking seat reservations, does not have any aircraft and has still not received its AOC, this is all pure speculation. Applications may well have been submitted, but the proof of the pudding...

Boss Raptor

Agreed, with the MSE catchment area shared with Eurostar Ashford Intl. the MSE-CDG route seems daft to me

MaxMet

Anyone!






Never!

U/S President

47 min over an hour to be exact. The fastest train from Ramsgate to London takes longer than those offered from Southampton Airport Parkway (1 hr 8 min) and Birmingham International (1 hr 32 min).

Boss Raptor

The Ramsgate rail service to London is appauling, I have never done it in 1h47, the more usual stopping train is slower even than this!

Buster the Bear

HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa

This has to be a joke, Now! moving to Manston.

Well Thomson/lyte/fly/flights/lite/budjet/Jet fly soon from Coventry, so anything is possible!

A Very Civil Pilot

Manston doesn't have much of a catchment area for passengers. To the North and East is nothing apart from North Sea. To the West are the Medway towns, but by the time you get to Rochester, it's just as easy to head along the M25/M11 to Stansted where there is more choice. To the South and South West are the likes of Canterbury, Dover etc, but again heading any much further West Gatwick becomes a better option.

Also I think the nearest ATM machine is in Ramsgate town centre!

jmc-man

The more I look at this, the more I see RED HERRING written all over it.

I suspect this is more in line with NOW ensuring they have some downroute slots secured should they get the finance sorted out.

LGS6753

JMC-MAN

You could be right.

Most of the aforesaid destinations are well-served by locos from throughout the UK, so Now would have a fight to win passengers over to them on these routes. However, unlike the destinations mooted on a previous thread (Lisbon, Bordeaux, Rotterdam, Valencia, etc), these already have known demand.

Perhaps the strategy has changed to applying their pricing formula to known 'trunk' routes, so they pick up late bookers put off by EZY and MON high last-minute fares. It's an angle, but a very risky one....

Flightrider

JMC-Man, it is indeed possible that this could be a red herring to secure overseas slots. However, if it were, the implication would be that Now is going head-to-head with easyJet on Luton-Amsterdam, Paris, Malaga, Alicante and Faro. If I were a potential investor (which I hasten to add that I'm not), nothing would send me running for the hills faster than the prospect of my money being used to fuel an outright war with easyJet.