Chester (Hawarden) Airport

[tibbs87]

''As of September 2013 Aviation Park Group has almost completed a small passenger terminal at the airport. Once completed APG will start negotiations with commercial airlines to run routes to other airports in the UK and Europe.''

Anybody got any information on this development?

[Capetonian]

No concrete information but I am following this with interest and am aware of it as I go to Chester a lot. The current links are MAN and LPL. Neither has direct train services to Chester. MAN one change, LPL bus + slow suburban train. Taxi £40-60. BHX is another option and has direct trains but is a longer journey.

I do wonder though given the proximity of those three established airports if there is sufficient demand for services to Hawarden to be viable. Chester is a very attractive tourist destination, in fact was recently voted the fifth most beautiful city in Europe, and rightly so.

[nigel osborne]

Capetonian,

Is their any update on runway suitability for the A330 yet.

Seen a few aviation articles last year, saying Airbus were looking at basing the next Beluga on the A332 but were working out if one could fit on the runway at Chester ?

http://imageshack.us/a/img42/1089/beluga.png

Nigel

[LAX_LHR]

In terms of rail links from Chester to MAN, arriva Wales currently run services early AM and late PM as an extension of the Llandudno-Manc Piccadilly service, but are trying to get more paths to the airport as the train sits in a siding for 1 hour at Piccadilly. At the moment however, it is too busy to get the paths to the airport.

[Capetonian]

Don't know about runway details but I have a friend who works for a company on site (CASA or EASA I think) and will ask him. He probably won't have much of a clue as he's an IT fellow and probably doesn't know the difference between a wing and an undercarriage!

Thanks for the tip about direct trains, I'd forgotten there are indeed a couple of directs from MAN airport to Chester but only two or three a day. I usually change at Oxford Road which is not a big deal.

LPL used to be served by a bus (501 I think) that went to Liverpool Parkway South then you had to change at Lime Street or James Street. Never very convenient.

[FQTLSteve]

I am old enough to remember seeing a British Eagle timetable from late 60's and they operated from Heathrow to Chester, I seem to think that Cambrian Airways may have operated scheduled services way back then. I think they used Viscounts?

[racedo]

Wiki says 2000 Metre / 6700ft.

Much as location is a good one its difficult to see who would be interested in operating services from here with both Man and LPL not that far away.

Going back to thread before Christmas the issue is excess number of airports struggling to survive rather than need for additional ones.

[tibbs87]

Runway characteristics for Chester -

Runway desig- TORA TODA ASDA LDA
04 1962m 2112m 1962m 1663m
22 2043m 2236m 2043m 1743m

http://www.ead.eurocontrol.int/eadba...2013-09-19.pdf

[willy wombat]

Someone will need to revive British Eagle (have there been any sched services at Chester since?)

[davidjohnson6]

Have Citywing ever considered turning Chester into something more than just a diversion airport for days when the weather on Anglesey is abysmal ?

Am trying to think of where there might possibly be sufficient demand for scheduled passenger flights from Chester - only places I can think of are Edinburgh, Dublin or Amsterdam. Anyone else have some better ideas ?

[tibbs87]

Chester could become Ryanair's new base & be marketed as Manchester-Chester or the 'Tri-City Airport'. Haha.

[Phileas Fogg]

Am trying to think of where there might possibly be sufficient demand for scheduled passenger flights from Chester - only places I can think of are Edinburgh, Dublin or Amsterdam. Anyone else have some better ideas ?

KLM tried AMS to/from LPL and it didn't work, not up to date with services out of LPL & BHX but I'd suggest they have services to/from Scotland covered, that just leaves Hawarden with services across the water to Ireland, but BHX, LPL & MAN already have those covered also so Hawarden may become just another airport that isn't really required.

[chris789]

It would always be a niceh airport, but a few things are going in its favour:
- Unlike many airports, it is viable without any commercial aviation, thanks to Airbus factory. Costs needing to be covered would be low
- An Airbus operator such as easyJet may be able to negotiate extremely low fees subsidised by Airbus.
- The Welsh Assembly may subsidise a service, or at least help with the marketing and promotion of the airport
- There is a train line which passes right past the airport- it would not be difficult to add a station if required in the longer term.
- The airport is closer to major routes than Liverpool airport (M56, A55, M53). If you are coming from North Wales, then Liverpool is not the most convenient.

I am not confident that flights will start from Hawarden/Chester, but I think there are a few things working in its favour.

[Capetonian]

Since Chester is unlikely to ever usurp LPL or MAN for business traffic, it will need to generate its own, and my guess is that it won't generate much business (high revenue) traffic, specially if the flights are not at least on a daily rotation. On that basis, it's going to have to look at leisure traffic primarily and as it's very much on the tourist map there seems to be potential for services to/from other tourist rich destinations such as Paris, Edinburgh and Amsterdam.

I am in the process of obtaining some numbers.

[nigel osborne]

Thanks Racedo and Tibbs.

Nigel

[turbroprop]

Hi Chris789

Never work mate. Read the Oxford Kidlington post. They could not get bums on seats. Darwin at Cambridge is another case. Me thinks if low cost wanted to be there they would be there by now.

Would be nice though in a few years time to post on here. "so I was wrong!"

[Trossie]

I very, very much doubt that this will (excuse the pun) get off the ground.

That runway is far too limiting for anything other than biz-jets and regional jets (although even then the regional jets, etc., need to look very closely at their performance when full, wet, warm, and so on).

Belugas, and any A330 based replacements, only fly out of there with newly manufactured but unfinished and empty wings, so the load that they'll be carrying will be way, way less than a full set of seats-with-bums-on, so they'll most likely be a long way from their performance limiting loads.

Nice airfield though and lovely city.

[Skipness One Echo]

The UK airport market is already over segmented, in short we have so many the necessary investment is lacking in the ones that we *really* need.

Doncaster, Teesside and Cardiff are struggling badly, Sheffield is gone.

[Yak97]

Welsh Assembly

Wasn't there a plan by the WA to do a PSO on Hawarden to serve North Wales like they do with Anglesey? I know Chester is in England but it is the closest airport. I thought it was scuppered because Bae wouldn't play ball?

[davidjohnson6]

Train from Cardiff to Chester runs twice per hour and takes between 3h00 and 3h20
I would struggle to see a good reason for that route needing air service with a large taxpayer funded subsidy when the rail service is likely already receiving a big dollop of Govt cash

Cardiff-Liverpool and Cardiff-Manchester both require longer by train and would likely generate more economic activity in comparison to Cardiff-Chester. There is also an argument that Cardiff-Manchester by air would give Cardiff additional access to some sort of an air hub.
No airline currently offers CWL-LPL or CWL-MAN.
Can only conclude that a Cardiff-Hawarden air route would be purely about Govt pork / political chest-beating with almost no economic benefit to the UK overall