PRESTWICK
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The information came directly from S.A.C. Planning Department. It was sent to local residents who had made submissions to the PIK Master Plan in 2009 and had subsequently received no response from PIK.
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Reports in various media outlets today state that Brian Donahoe, the local MP has raised his concerns about the lack of investment in PIK.
However in the same reports, Tom Wilson has stated that there have been some interested parties in purchasing the airport.
here's one of the articles:
BBC News - MP raises Prestwick Airport investment fears
However in the same reports, Tom Wilson has stated that there have been some interested parties in purchasing the airport.
here's one of the articles:
BBC News - MP raises Prestwick Airport investment fears
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When Prestwick is sold (that's if it ever does get sold) then what really would change??
I think the biggest factor to Prestwick's huge loss of passengers is because it now heavily relies on flying to seasonal destinations far away like the Canaries and Greece of which scale back or competely close for the winter months, meaning based a/c are now operating less rotations a day as they take up a large amount of time to operate and a/c are removed from service in the winter due to the seasonality. With places like Belfast-BHD, Brussels-CRL, Dusseldorf-NRN, London-STN like in the old days, capacity was maintained in the winter and because they are much closer, a/c could do more rotations per day and the airport suffered only midly from seasonality, meaning a lot more flights and passengers.
Any Ryanair growth would no doubt be to more summer sun seasonal destinations as the more regular flying, all year round city destinations like Brussels-CRL, Frankfurt-HHN and Oslo-TRF now go from Edinburgh and it's becoming increasing apprent that Ryanair tend to operate the all year round city destinations from EDI and the seasonal holiday destinations from PIK. That I think is going to be the case for the foreseeable future and with that in mind, passenger numbers are never going to recover to the 2007/2008 sort of levels at 2.5 million with a route network like that.
Other than Wizzair who could increase their route network to places like Budapest, Prague and Vilnius (which I'm surprised they haven't already done!) who else will step in and recover passenger declines?? Personally this is what I want to see next at Prestwick and think more Wizzair flights would be great to decrease the airports dependency on Ryanair but sadly, I can't see Wizzair doing much and think that if they did want to expand further, they would have already done it by now.
Sad to say, I think Prestwick has had its peak and can't see Prestwick lasting many more years. Anybody else got different views???
I think the biggest factor to Prestwick's huge loss of passengers is because it now heavily relies on flying to seasonal destinations far away like the Canaries and Greece of which scale back or competely close for the winter months, meaning based a/c are now operating less rotations a day as they take up a large amount of time to operate and a/c are removed from service in the winter due to the seasonality. With places like Belfast-BHD, Brussels-CRL, Dusseldorf-NRN, London-STN like in the old days, capacity was maintained in the winter and because they are much closer, a/c could do more rotations per day and the airport suffered only midly from seasonality, meaning a lot more flights and passengers.
Any Ryanair growth would no doubt be to more summer sun seasonal destinations as the more regular flying, all year round city destinations like Brussels-CRL, Frankfurt-HHN and Oslo-TRF now go from Edinburgh and it's becoming increasing apprent that Ryanair tend to operate the all year round city destinations from EDI and the seasonal holiday destinations from PIK. That I think is going to be the case for the foreseeable future and with that in mind, passenger numbers are never going to recover to the 2007/2008 sort of levels at 2.5 million with a route network like that.
Other than Wizzair who could increase their route network to places like Budapest, Prague and Vilnius (which I'm surprised they haven't already done!) who else will step in and recover passenger declines?? Personally this is what I want to see next at Prestwick and think more Wizzair flights would be great to decrease the airports dependency on Ryanair but sadly, I can't see Wizzair doing much and think that if they did want to expand further, they would have already done it by now.
Sad to say, I think Prestwick has had its peak and can't see Prestwick lasting many more years. Anybody else got different views???
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I hope you're right but it won't bounce back if it can't find a buyer.
Look at Stansted, in a similar position to Prestwick with large passenger declines and practically a Ryanair airport. It was put up for sale in August and days after there are potential bidders from here there and everywhere and is looking to be sold by the end of the year. Prestwick on the other hand has heard nothing for months. I fear Prestwick is going to be the airport equivelent to BmiBaby. No buyer, no future!
Look at Stansted, in a similar position to Prestwick with large passenger declines and practically a Ryanair airport. It was put up for sale in August and days after there are potential bidders from here there and everywhere and is looking to be sold by the end of the year. Prestwick on the other hand has heard nothing for months. I fear Prestwick is going to be the airport equivelent to BmiBaby. No buyer, no future!
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FR@STN raises a good point, at the moment PIK is very relliant on Ryanair. Wizz operated 3 or so flights a week. Which is hardly massive passenger numbers. Looking at the airlines out there that could be attracted to Prestwick are any of them that likely?
Jet2, Easy, Thomson, Thomas Cook, all up the road at Glasgow and highly unlikely. A possibility could be Monarch, but again this adds to the seasonality problem as Monarch routes would no doubt be bucket and spade.
Which leads us nicely on to city to city traffic, maybe a 738 and an A320 are just too big to operate a sustainable low fares operation from PIK to a lot of cities that could be served as the routes may have to be heavily discounted to fill them. Smaller aircraft like the E-jets, CRJ's and AN-148/158 families may be more suited to this type of operation, but fares would have to be higher to maintain the operation.
Prestwick, unlike Sansted needs a total rebuild to become suitable for this day and age, it does (just about) cope with the current levels of traffic.
For an investor to come in and spend £40million to buy the airport and airfield and then have to spend another £X million to do it up, they are going to want to be sure of their investment and its long term future.
This does not mean it's all doom and gloom for PIK, Tom Wilson was quoted as saying there are interested parties. And with a little forward thinking and some serious long term owners, PIK could become a very tidy and busy little airport...
Jet2, Easy, Thomson, Thomas Cook, all up the road at Glasgow and highly unlikely. A possibility could be Monarch, but again this adds to the seasonality problem as Monarch routes would no doubt be bucket and spade.
Which leads us nicely on to city to city traffic, maybe a 738 and an A320 are just too big to operate a sustainable low fares operation from PIK to a lot of cities that could be served as the routes may have to be heavily discounted to fill them. Smaller aircraft like the E-jets, CRJ's and AN-148/158 families may be more suited to this type of operation, but fares would have to be higher to maintain the operation.
Prestwick, unlike Sansted needs a total rebuild to become suitable for this day and age, it does (just about) cope with the current levels of traffic.
For an investor to come in and spend £40million to buy the airport and airfield and then have to spend another £X million to do it up, they are going to want to be sure of their investment and its long term future.
This does not mean it's all doom and gloom for PIK, Tom Wilson was quoted as saying there are interested parties. And with a little forward thinking and some serious long term owners, PIK could become a very tidy and busy little airport...
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I would have thought MAG would be a good owner. They wanted a Scottish airport and their experience of running Bournemouth is perfect for them to run Prestwick successfully. Bournemouth is essentially the English version of Prestwick at a similar sort of size and also relying heavily on Ryanair. The only difference is that Bournemouth has a good owner and has already had its regeneration with a new passenger terminal! MAG also have a good relationship with Ryanair at all it's other airports and Ryanair recently said they thought MAG were "one of the best around" which also puts both MAG and Prestwick in a strong position!
The timing of it is just totally wrong though as MAG are one of the main bidders for Stansted airport and of course they are going to prioritise that! I think MAG and Prestwick could be extremely successful, not to mention the transformation they'd give to Stansted.
The timing of it is just totally wrong though as MAG are one of the main bidders for Stansted airport and of course they are going to prioritise that! I think MAG and Prestwick could be extremely successful, not to mention the transformation they'd give to Stansted.
Last edited by FRatSTN; 10th Oct 2012 at 20:32.
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I've heard something along those lines but doubt it would happen since its owners are trying to sell and the airport is not doing too well financially. Most would argue that developments like that at this stage are the last thing they need to worry about.
They've managed 2.5 million people p.a. from that terminal before so really isn't neccessary and investment could be made on other improvements, would be very surprised if it happened any time soon!
They've managed 2.5 million people p.a. from that terminal before so really isn't neccessary and investment could be made on other improvements, would be very surprised if it happened any time soon!
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While Prestwick has its problems with falling passenger numbers and an urgent need for updated infrastructure particularly with the terminal, it is different from many other airports which are struggling due to the considerable diversity of its users. This has helped pull it through difficult times in the past and there is no reason to doubt that Prestwick will still be around as an airport many years from now.
I'm probably just being rather pessimistic, but now that Edinburgh and Glasgow are under separaye ownership and thus competing against each other to some extent, can the population of the central belt (less than 4 million) really support airports in Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Prestwick on a long term profitable basis ? There's only so much economic activity in the region to go around...
Last edited by davidjohnson6; 10th Oct 2012 at 21:34.
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It's worth seperating out the passenger business from the rest in this discussion. I suspect that passenger activity will never be able to generate a business case to rebuild the taxpayer funded 1964 terminal building, particularly when the main customer is Ryanair.
The heyday of having Polar, Singapore, Atlas, Evergreen and Lufthansa cargo all flying through PIK has gone. Even the Atlas, Evergrenn and Polar tech stops have gone. That leaves Air France and a much reduced Cargolux schedule to cross subsidise passenger activities, and to be clear, I am not sure that is enough anymore.
However traffic remains interesting and buoyant as ever on the rest of the airfield, the trick is reducing losses on the terminal side and making as much from ad hoc as possible.
The heyday of having Polar, Singapore, Atlas, Evergreen and Lufthansa cargo all flying through PIK has gone. Even the Atlas, Evergrenn and Polar tech stops have gone. That leaves Air France and a much reduced Cargolux schedule to cross subsidise passenger activities, and to be clear, I am not sure that is enough anymore.
However traffic remains interesting and buoyant as ever on the rest of the airfield, the trick is reducing losses on the terminal side and making as much from ad hoc as possible.
Last edited by Skipness One Echo; 11th Oct 2012 at 19:06.
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Well pointed out SOE. It may be that the passenger terminal is all about Ryanair, but the rest of the airfield certainly is not. The rest can presumably be profitable evidenced by three handlers who presumably would not be there if there was not the traffic to sustain them. And remember it was and is the only UK airfield to stand up to take 'Olympic' and other forced diversions, rescues several fast jets a year, weather and medical diversions, circuit training, freight, outsize freighters, SAR and maintenance. Presumably BA would not have extended the lease on the now BA hangar for 5 years and be about to introduce new maintenance lines, if the airfield were to close ? Focusing on Ryanair is about the passenger terminal and Ryanair do keep a reduced program through the winter. The whole airfield operation should certainly be in profit this week ! One unpleasant route to all round profit may indeed be to get rid of Ryanair and the costs of the staff that support them. But Glasgow doesn't want them ! Ryanair themselves have given their own market away, to Jet 2 at GLA and by stopping the Stansted flights. We used to use them on business to Stansted, Brussels and Stockholm, but they are now useless to business. Anyway, it's not all about Ryanair.
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Possibly it is a catch-22 situation for the terminal side of the airfield.
To invest in the terminal, money needs to be made from it, which means more airlines, passengers, routes or whatever, however, perhaps, airlines aren't attracted to it because of the lack of investment in the terminal to bring it up to modern standards, creating a cycle of neglect.
"if we can't attract business, why invest in it?"
So for terminal to be successful, something may have to give, maybe a (new) owner taking a punt on it and coming to an agreement with an airline to fly from PIK if there is investment in the terminal. A sort of "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" type deal, but this is going to be highly unlikely in this financial climate.
Having said all this, I flew from PIK recently and internally it was fine. It's really just the boarding corridor that needs a major rebuild at the moment. Check-in, departures and arrivals were all ok, they would suffice for the forseeable future.
To invest in the terminal, money needs to be made from it, which means more airlines, passengers, routes or whatever, however, perhaps, airlines aren't attracted to it because of the lack of investment in the terminal to bring it up to modern standards, creating a cycle of neglect.
"if we can't attract business, why invest in it?"
So for terminal to be successful, something may have to give, maybe a (new) owner taking a punt on it and coming to an agreement with an airline to fly from PIK if there is investment in the terminal. A sort of "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" type deal, but this is going to be highly unlikely in this financial climate.
Having said all this, I flew from PIK recently and internally it was fine. It's really just the boarding corridor that needs a major rebuild at the moment. Check-in, departures and arrivals were all ok, they would suffice for the forseeable future.
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To invest in the terminal, money needs to be made from it, which means more airlines, passengers, routes or whatever, however, perhaps, airlines aren't attracted to it because of the lack of investment in the terminal to bring it up to modern standards, creating a cycle of neglect.
"if we can't attract business, why invest in it?"
"if we can't attract business, why invest in it?"
GPA had been in recent negotiations with Virgin Atlantic and had come very close to securing a Virgin Atlantic route. Virgin had decided that on this occasion the balance of risk did not meet their criteria and had decided not to proceed despite Infratil agreeing to invest in the necessary passenger handling infrastructure. Infratil’s position is that it remains willing to make the appropriate investment if it is going to secure a major route from a major airline such as this.
Very positive signals from Qantas regarding A380 diversions to Glasgow Prestwick for medical or weather emergencies.
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A major route from a major airline is not a twice weekly flight to Disneyworld. BAA would fight to keep them and two A330s per week in summer equates to less than a smitten of Ryanair.....
I suspect Infratil are fooling themselves on this score, I don't see VS at PIK anymore than I see VS at Sanford.
To be clear, revenue most years from QF A380 diverts will be zero. If this is all they have, God help them.
I suspect Infratil are fooling themselves on this score, I don't see VS at PIK anymore than I see VS at Sanford.
To be clear, revenue most years from QF A380 diverts will be zero. If this is all they have, God help them.
Last edited by Skipness One Echo; 12th Oct 2012 at 23:33.
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I think that is the third time ive heard that "close to VS deal" over the years. It aint ever going to happen. It is curtains for PIK in its current form, and the sooner the locals accept it and someone devises a future alternative and profitable plan, the better.