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Old 23rd Sep 2016, 07:24
  #261 (permalink)  
 
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Every successful airport needs a railway station https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tees...ailway_station
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Old 23rd Sep 2016, 09:08
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The one factor that LA leaves out is the price of the tickets..People are price conscious and will always check fares from Man/LPL as well as Leeds. The often significant price difference is what makes people from Dewsbury/Cleckhuddersfax and elsewhere in the greater Yorkshire area jump on fast convenient trains. Thats why they run them and that is just one of many reasons why something east of Leeds is a complete non starter
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Old 23rd Sep 2016, 11:36
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The one factor that LA leaves out is the price of the tickets..People are price conscious
My mother, and her mother before her, were from Yorkshire and the pair of them were tighter than ducks backsides
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Old 23rd Sep 2016, 12:16
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Is LEEDS APPROACH the only person here who actually believes there is a need for another commercial airport in this area?

Whilst LBA is undoubtedly one of the most difficult airports I have ever had to get to by road (along with BRS!) there is already DSA serving South Yorkshire / North Notts', and a much bigger fish, in EMA, which is only around 1 hour south of Sheffield given a fairly clear run down the M1.

The UK needs fewer, not yet more nonviable commercial airports. I seriously wonder why banks and other institutions seem keen to support these kinds of ventures. Airports handling less than 1m passengers p.a. must be marginal, from a financial perspective - unless they have other revenue streams such as cargo operations to fall back on.
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Old 23rd Sep 2016, 15:31
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It's a relatively cheap way of picking up large amounts of flat, drained land with at least soms roads to it - and just about anything you do after the aircarft have gone is less noisy and intrusive to the neighbours so you have an easier time with planning
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Old 23rd Sep 2016, 17:20
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Originally Posted by Andy_S
I would have thought having "fierce and efficient competition all around your catchment area" was an excellent thing for passengers within that catchment area.
Absolutely not if you think about it. It's not good for the passengers within that region and it's not good at all for that region. If you are having to travel out of your region because the airport is difficult to get to or has very difficult access in combination with the increased unreliability due to weather and / or it doesn't pool the catchment to make a certain route work (Cork, Copenhagen, Dubai, Frankfurt, Florida, Brussels etc etc) then the region loses the custom and the passenger has to pay again and again to get to a competing airport that is easy to get to and sustains the route. That is exactly the point the region needs to encourage passengers to stay in the region - not dividing up the catchment so that routes cannot work. The passenger and the region wins.
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Old 23rd Sep 2016, 17:29
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Originally Posted by Barnstable
Meanwhile, 30-odd miles down the A1, you already have an international airport close to the M18 and the East Coast main line, with plenty of room for expansion.
Who are you talking about when you say "you"? Because this is predominantly about Leeds City region replacing a poorly located and functioning airport. Finningley will never be a primary airport for Leeds and that is why routes such as Belfast and Dublin will be a struggle [when the deals run out].
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Old 23rd Sep 2016, 17:36
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You've got to admire his indefatigable optimism in the face of the facts.
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Old 23rd Sep 2016, 17:54
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Originally Posted by DaveReidUK
You've got to admire his indefatigable optimism in the face of the facts.
I am optimistic because of the facts not in the face of the facts. The facts show that poorly located and functioning airports within Yorkshire fighting against each other are squeezing millions upon millions of potential customers North, South and West out of the region to use well located and accessible airports every single year [completely needlessly]. Routes, such as Cork are being lost due solely to this reason. I think and hope that your opening post in this thread will prove to be incorrect over quite a bit of time. If it doesn't it will be down to national politics as I've always stated.
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Old 23rd Sep 2016, 17:59
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Originally Posted by blackbeard1
Every successful airport needs a railway station https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tees...ailway_station
Yes having a railway station at your airport will not mean very much if the region's catchment population is too low to sustain basic routes.

Teesside is on a small branchline though not sat on two of the busiest and fastest rail routes in the country.
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Old 23rd Sep 2016, 23:50
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Having a fast and busy railway line is useless if it doesn`t carry the passengers you want
and stop at the doorstep. Very few airports can claim to have a successful rail station
i:e Manchester, Birmingham, Gatwick, Stansted and Heathrow.

Ian
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Old 24th Sep 2016, 00:38
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There are a number of ex military or similar airfields primely located near to major roads and railways that have been discarded as non viable with many of these being better placed to serve as commercial airports than Church Fenton shall ever be.

To name but two, Alconbury with an 8,200ft runway and Upper Heyford with an 8,300ft runway, both discarded and South Marston would have been ideal to serve as a Swindon, or Bristol East , airport, if only back then they had had the vision of how Swindon was to become something of a boom town!

But I do smile at LA's optimism though, I think we all realise that he shall never accept "no" for an answer and he shall always have an answer for everything ... But I find him entertaining
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Old 24th Sep 2016, 05:47
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Very few airports can claim to have a successful rail station
i:e Manchester, Birmingham, Gatwick, Stansted and Heathrow.
SOU, SEN & PIK
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Old 24th Sep 2016, 06:45
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Prestwick has a huge terminal and no passengers though, yes give it to SOU and to an extent
SEN as the station isn`t open early enough for 1st wave of flights and closes to early on last wave
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Old 24th Sep 2016, 08:09
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EDI wasn't on a (useable) railway and manged fine - now they have a tram as well

NCL has an excellent Metro service

It's the number and type of people in the catchment who count - for most people in W & S Yorkshire Church Fenton is seen as miles way in the sticks
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Old 24th Sep 2016, 08:23
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Manchester has the tram but it`s mainly staff who use it from Wythenshawe area
Rail is different as many come from Yorkshire because of the great rail connections and
choice of flights
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Old 24th Sep 2016, 11:52
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Originally Posted by chaps1954
Prestwick has a huge terminal and no passengers though, yes give it to SOU and to an extent
SEN as the station isn`t open early enough for 1st wave of flights and closes to early on last wave
Eh - PIK as a PAX airport is not quite dead yet. 650,000 projected for 2016-17 and railway station (whilst in need of upgrade) is still used fairly routinely
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Old 24th Sep 2016, 12:05
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About 1800 pax a day in a building the size of that terminal. Does the government still own it?

Ian
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Old 24th Sep 2016, 13:42
  #279 (permalink)  
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To be fair, given the choice from scratch between "Yeadon Airfield" and RAF C Fenton for the site for a commercial airfield to serve Leeds and the wider Yorkshire catchment, I think C Fenton wins every time, for many of the reasons that Leeds Approach and others have highlighted before so I won't bother listing them again.

(I lived for 3 years in Headingley regularly visiting LBA, and also for 2.5 years I was actually based at RAF Church Fenton, so am hopefully well qualified to make this assessment. Ask yourself why the RAF left Yeadon all those years ago and kept Church Fenton in the first place!)

However, given the fact that LBA is well developed now, a transfer to "Leeds East" just isn't going to happen. Money talks. Besides LBA works well for basic buisness and sunshine routes, and if you want wider options, connecting via LHR or train to MAN seems to work well for most. And finally not sure LBA is too bothered about having a train station because at present they collect lots of revenue from drop off fees instead?
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Old 24th Sep 2016, 13:56
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Ask yourself why the RAF left Yeadon all those years ago and kept Church Fenton in the first place
MoD (Air) built Lulsgate particularly to train pilots to fly in the cr@ppiest of weathers so why should they leave another such airfield that experiences similar cr@ppy weather?

The list is endless of why they deserted one airfield in favour of another, the only reason that Scampton remains an RAF base is because they don't want to pay to straighten out the A15.
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