NEWQUAY
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So lets try to answer some of the previous assumptions with fact.
St Ives was busy over half term .... well if it wasn't busy as that is a peak week and it is one of the most popular places in Cornwall to see. But why all the Germans? Maybe the arrival of cruise liners Delphin (520 passengers), Berlin (450 passengers) that week into Falmouth has something to do with it. Artania bought 1188 of our German friends the week before and 590 arrive on Astor next week - should I go on?
There may well be a demand for a limited number of high season flights to the Fatherland as Cornishsimon suggest but I venture that demand is limited and would not change the airport's fortunes.
Paully:- to quote John McEnroe..... " You cannot be serious"
Phileas:- You are getting to used to that Tropical Island, the Winters here are great (compared to my other home anyway) its the Summer that is the problem.
Plymspotter:- Car hire at Newquay Airport is limited. Not surprising when just down the road in Truro you have a choice of Hertz,Avis,Europcar etc and half a dozen local companies most of whom will deliver to the airport if required!
Getting here, true the rest of the UK has more attractions than Cornwall does but then it is a bit bigger. The trains are slow though we are promised this is being attended to and Mr Cameron has granted the cash to widen the pinch point on the A30 at Temple to match the rest of the dual carriageway/ motorway which will then reach all the way to Scotland! Add the planned improvements to the A303 and Reading to Heathrow rail link and journeys will be much swifter
Many German and Dutch people arrive in motorhomes and towing caravans, the journey is no problem and IS the holiday. Last year we took our motorhome the other way through France, Switzerland,Germany etc.... do you know what in France I went into a shop and the b@ggers started talking FRENCH! Disgusting!!
Finally yes the airport is hampered in being run by the Council but we all have to understand Newquay is and always will be small regional airport with a limited catchment area so they have a bit of a battle on.
It has three choices:-
Continue at a loss, attracting the scraps where possible
Diversify into other areas, the Helicopter Maintenance Base is a good example
Go to Devon with Plymouth - oh sorry that should read Heaven not Devon.
Sent from Kernow - Land of the friendly folk.
St Ives was busy over half term .... well if it wasn't busy as that is a peak week and it is one of the most popular places in Cornwall to see. But why all the Germans? Maybe the arrival of cruise liners Delphin (520 passengers), Berlin (450 passengers) that week into Falmouth has something to do with it. Artania bought 1188 of our German friends the week before and 590 arrive on Astor next week - should I go on?
There may well be a demand for a limited number of high season flights to the Fatherland as Cornishsimon suggest but I venture that demand is limited and would not change the airport's fortunes.
Paully:- to quote John McEnroe..... " You cannot be serious"
Phileas:- You are getting to used to that Tropical Island, the Winters here are great (compared to my other home anyway) its the Summer that is the problem.
Plymspotter:- Car hire at Newquay Airport is limited. Not surprising when just down the road in Truro you have a choice of Hertz,Avis,Europcar etc and half a dozen local companies most of whom will deliver to the airport if required!
Getting here, true the rest of the UK has more attractions than Cornwall does but then it is a bit bigger. The trains are slow though we are promised this is being attended to and Mr Cameron has granted the cash to widen the pinch point on the A30 at Temple to match the rest of the dual carriageway/ motorway which will then reach all the way to Scotland! Add the planned improvements to the A303 and Reading to Heathrow rail link and journeys will be much swifter
Many German and Dutch people arrive in motorhomes and towing caravans, the journey is no problem and IS the holiday. Last year we took our motorhome the other way through France, Switzerland,Germany etc.... do you know what in France I went into a shop and the b@ggers started talking FRENCH! Disgusting!!
Finally yes the airport is hampered in being run by the Council but we all have to understand Newquay is and always will be small regional airport with a limited catchment area so they have a bit of a battle on.
It has three choices:-
Continue at a loss, attracting the scraps where possible
Diversify into other areas, the Helicopter Maintenance Base is a good example
Go to Devon with Plymouth - oh sorry that should read Heaven not Devon.
Sent from Kernow - Land of the friendly folk.
Mr Cameron has granted the cash to widen the pinch point on the A30 at Temple to match the rest of the dual carriageway/ motorway
which will then reach all the way to Scotland!
Interesting stuff Groundhog. Didn't know about the cruise ships, which may have contributed to the German numbers, but there were an awful lot of "D"-regged motors (and a few campervans) driving around aswell.... plus the usual "D"-regged bus squeeze down the narrow, windy road into beautiful Porthcurno, when we went on our annual pilgrimage down there.
What will be really interesting is to see what happens to the London "trunk" route from NQY when Flybe pull off it next March.
By the way, whatever you may be told by the Govt about the trains, they will not get any faster west of Exeter until someone straightens out the lines and levels them a bit....although it does make a great journey if you're not in a hurry!
What will be really interesting is to see what happens to the London "trunk" route from NQY when Flybe pull off it next March.
By the way, whatever you may be told by the Govt about the trains, they will not get any faster west of Exeter until someone straightens out the lines and levels them a bit....although it does make a great journey if you're not in a hurry!
Last edited by Wycombe; 5th Jun 2013 at 20:58.
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Yes the NQY/LGW is the critical one and as has been much discussed here. A bit of a catch 22 situation. It needs the frequency but cannot support 100 plus seat aircraft and the chance of getting slots in Gatwick for anything suitable is virtually nil.
I really do not know the answer
I really do not know the answer
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Wycombe - if only trains did 75mph until Plymouth. The average speed is about 55mph, past Newton Abbott and much of the line is capped at 40mph. There is growing uncertainty at the future of the railway anyway; the Transport Secretary recently ruled out a diversionary route to avoid Dawlish as 'uneconomical', so it will continue to be at the mercy of the weather and sea level rise.
Groundhog - tried that. Nearest available car was Plymouth, no delivery option to NQY.
Groundhog - tried that. Nearest available car was Plymouth, no delivery option to NQY.
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Newquay will never make up the £3m or so shorfall in it's numbers through aviation-related revenues, they have to be much more adventurous with the property portfolio and the land they've gort there - things like a top end aero park with homes with pools and hangars for those wealthy private aviators, exhibition, conference, film studio facilities, some motorsports activity etc. etc. The weather's better down there in terms of sunshine than most of the rest of the UK, the beach is minutes away, there are a raft of trendy new top end hotels etc.
The demographics of the people who go down either for holiday or to there second homes is very broad in wealth terms - half the home counties set are down their as often as they can get down.
With Gatwick's links pulled next year, what you need is runs to the likes of Oxford and Cambridge on the London region periphery, where the money is, where the second home owners come from. Southend/EZY will suffice to a small extent but ideally one needs a London City run again - Fridays, Sundays, Mondays, trouble there is the costs.
However, its the property development that can only subsidise the costs of runing what is pretty significant infrastructure - it's not a little runway. You can't just rely on pulling in aviation maintenance or support companies as the world and their dog are trying that game all over the rest of the country.
The demographics of the people who go down either for holiday or to there second homes is very broad in wealth terms - half the home counties set are down their as often as they can get down.
With Gatwick's links pulled next year, what you need is runs to the likes of Oxford and Cambridge on the London region periphery, where the money is, where the second home owners come from. Southend/EZY will suffice to a small extent but ideally one needs a London City run again - Fridays, Sundays, Mondays, trouble there is the costs.
However, its the property development that can only subsidise the costs of runing what is pretty significant infrastructure - it's not a little runway. You can't just rely on pulling in aviation maintenance or support companies as the world and their dog are trying that game all over the rest of the country.
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Every other sunday evening or so, the weekend's TV movie on the German National TV channel 2 is a Rosamunde Pilcher movie set in the most beautiful parts of Cornwall (with the most popular German TV actors acting as British aristocrats or countryfolk). Despite the beautiful scenery I am at a loss why millions of (older) Germans watch those TV movies because they are always the same - after x years working in London and with an unhappy marriage/partnership in tow, someone returns to his/her hometown in Cornwall, meets a new squeeze, Drama unfolds for an hour or so in beautiful gardens, on horseback, in old convertbile cars or on boats and then - happy end. The next days some watchers undoubtedly storm German travel agencies to book a summer holiday in Cornwall and end up pestering you.
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And most welcome they are too....and the Dutch and French who seem to be increasing in numbers all the time, see quite a motorhomes with NL and F plates these days...
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What about a seasonal Saturday service from LHR?
BA has obviously decided there is value in using Saturday morning slots at LHR for leisure routes. The Mark Warner charters have been running for a couple of years. IBZ and PMI also launched this year, with LPA following in the winter.
BA has obviously decided there is value in using Saturday morning slots at LHR for leisure routes. The Mark Warner charters have been running for a couple of years. IBZ and PMI also launched this year, with LPA following in the winter.
Last edited by Omnipresent; 6th Jun 2013 at 12:16.
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If the flybe 3x daily NQY-LGW disappears and isn't replaced in any form (I still suspect we'll see EZY will at least one daily A319 year-round LGW-NQY) then I could see sense in BA operating one daily LHR-NQY with perhaps some extra Saturday & Sunday seasonal summer flights too.
Since BA seem to be happy to shovel slots onto a 3x daily LHR-LBA and are known to have "slot sitting" frequencies on some of the other domestics such as LHR-MAN I'd think that a NQY could work for them and, as already commented here, be a useful route to fling on some of those summer weekend slots that they don't see to have much of a use for on anything else..
Since BA seem to be happy to shovel slots onto a 3x daily LHR-LBA and are known to have "slot sitting" frequencies on some of the other domestics such as LHR-MAN I'd think that a NQY could work for them and, as already commented here, be a useful route to fling on some of those summer weekend slots that they don't see to have much of a use for on anything else..
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Putting global connectivity aside, trouble with LHR is that in practice, were you coming down to Cornwall, the time it takes from arriving at LHR to actually running down the runway, you'd be more than halfway down to Cornwall in your car, doesn't really stack up on that front. LCY would be much nicer on that front or any of the SE UK, London region 'regional' airports, a hour from downtown London.
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LHR-NQY on BA would be a dream route as it would open up Europe and the world to Cornwall.
Seems Far to sensible to me
Seems Far to sensible to me
BA aren't going to serve it just because you happen to have a house there.
then I could see sense in BA operating one daily LHR-NQY
Last edited by Skipness One Echo; 6th Jun 2013 at 15:53.
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BA tried LGW-NQY and it was flying a fuselage full of little more than fresh air most days
Nobody ever said LBA would happen (and even if it did, never thrice daily - 'why wouldn't they just shove more frequencies on the other domestics?', came the regular protest) - yet since BE pulled out of LGW and the BM slots have been inherited it has happened.
an utter waste of a LHR slot in the mid afternoon long haul departure period
It might be unlikely but certainly not 'no way'.
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Of course I wouldn't expect anything regular or business orientated, but if BA can serve LBA, IBZ, PMI as well as the charters out of LHR then I see no reason why NQY doesn't stand a chance. Nobody ever said LCY would get its IOM route. It did, and on a Saab 2000... whoever says they saw that coming is telling a porky.
LBA has a little under three million passengers and is borderline LHR material, currently struggling but with some hope to make it.
NQY has under 170,000! In all seriousness you'd see JER, GCI and INV well before NQY ever got a LHR link.
Apples and pears.
Last edited by Skipness One Echo; 6th Jun 2013 at 16:50.
On my recent run to Conwall, we drove down from Berks on the Friday evening at the start of half-term week (24th May), running through Exeter at around 11pm and arriving in west Cornwall a couple of hours later.
Even past midnight, there was a fairly heavy stream of high-speed westbound traffic along the A30 into Cornwall, and it was noticeable how most of the vehicles were, shall one say, at the higher-end of the market (LR's, Jags, Beemers, Mercs etc)
How many of these vehicles were occupied by the "second-home set" on the race west from London and the home Counties for the weekend? A fair few, I bet?
Even if only 25% of them were happy to leave the car and fly to Cornwall, you could have easily filled a 319 from LHR or LGW that evening.
I also saw (on a rail users forum) that every train to Devon/Cornwall that afternoon/evening from Paddington was reserved solid, including the sleeper. All those people (an HST carries nearly 500, not including those left standing!) obviously didn't feel the need, or have the means to take a car. The quickest trains from Paddington to Penzance take 5 hours, and some a bit more.
I realise this is an example from a peak travel period, but the demand must be there for some sort of daily (at least) service to NQY once Flybe pull out.
Even past midnight, there was a fairly heavy stream of high-speed westbound traffic along the A30 into Cornwall, and it was noticeable how most of the vehicles were, shall one say, at the higher-end of the market (LR's, Jags, Beemers, Mercs etc)
How many of these vehicles were occupied by the "second-home set" on the race west from London and the home Counties for the weekend? A fair few, I bet?
Even if only 25% of them were happy to leave the car and fly to Cornwall, you could have easily filled a 319 from LHR or LGW that evening.
I also saw (on a rail users forum) that every train to Devon/Cornwall that afternoon/evening from Paddington was reserved solid, including the sleeper. All those people (an HST carries nearly 500, not including those left standing!) obviously didn't feel the need, or have the means to take a car. The quickest trains from Paddington to Penzance take 5 hours, and some a bit more.
I realise this is an example from a peak travel period, but the demand must be there for some sort of daily (at least) service to NQY once Flybe pull out.
Last edited by Wycombe; 6th Jun 2013 at 17:12.
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OK so I cannot reveal too much at the moment but when Flybe stop operating and IF no one else takes over the Gatwick route and IF NQY play ball something is afoot that the naysayers will say is impossible and will really make you think!
Necessity is the Mother of Invention, the "experts" told my old Company we couldn't put our 737's on GB Airways AOC and we did, they told Stelios that easyjet was not possible from Luton and Michael Fish said there wouldn't be a hurricane...
So with a little help from my friends watch this space
Necessity is the Mother of Invention, the "experts" told my old Company we couldn't put our 737's on GB Airways AOC and we did, they told Stelios that easyjet was not possible from Luton and Michael Fish said there wouldn't be a hurricane...
So with a little help from my friends watch this space
Last edited by GROUNDHOG; 6th Jun 2013 at 20:58.
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Looking at the situation, I would be surprised if easyJet turned down a once daily to Newquay - I can even see 8/9 weekly with an extra few services around the weekend. To me the question mark is, from which airport will it operate?
LBA has a little under three million passengers and is borderline LHR material, currently struggling but with some hope to make it.
NQY has under 170,000!
NQY has under 170,000!
Then again this new route to Iasi may not last that long... !