As i said before Cuthere, patience is required! The route/s im aware of are bucket & spade. Not sure if we will see any Euro city routes but with FR anything is possible.

Also keep an eye on the airport's website on Monday ;) As far as i'm aware it is nothing to do with any new routes

They're finally updating the flight timetable? Miracles do happen!

City of Derry Airport - Draft Masterplan now available to read on their website. They plan 1.2million pax per annum by 2030.

Derry airport in bid to raise passenger numbers to 1.2m a year - Northern Ireland, Local & National - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk

The master plan is an interesting read, but I feel we need to take with a pinch of salt.
Routes to Germany, if the Belfast airports cannot support German routes it would be surprising if LDY can.
Most interesting is the London market. LGW I suppose could be operated by FR but would take away from STN, which is FR biggest hub, less connections via LGW.
LHR on the wish list also. Unless FR buys some LHR slots I cannot see which airline is going to fly this route LDY to LHR three daily??? Please let us know if you can see this happening
Other routes may be feasible, MAN if FR chooses it would probably take away from LPL. It's not too long ago that BE tried MAN, one season and EIR didn't even take off. LPL LFs not great
Would love to hear other views on the potential new routes

FR could make German routes work from any airport in NI. But as they only operate from LDY, then it's a realistic target for the management.

MAN has been operated very successfully over the years from LDY. I don't know if you read other posts, but BE were averaging a 60-70% LF by the time they terminated the route. This was at a time when numbers on the LPL route were increasing. BE cited APD as the reason for not extending the route. Hence why they're now doing MAN, EDI and LBA from NOC.

EIR have never attempted to fly from LDY. RE did announce flights to MAN and EDI which never happened. RE claimed this was due to poor forward bookings, but I still believe that to be cobblers as they didn't have the aircraft to properly operate the PSO LDY-DUB route, and were about to become EIR.

LGW is entirely feasible. LHR will never happen.

The highlighted bit from the Tele is a bit selective methinks, especially when you read the article.
You need to ask why it's the only airport under public ownership.

Didn't I read the same story 3 years ago? Exactly the same story? Wasn't it 6 airlines talking about new routes? The plan then was to increase to 1.2m passengers in 10 years but there has been almost no growth since, in fact the Manchester and Dublin routes have gone. Where does the claim "fastest growing airport " come from? Does the airport still loose £3.6m PA? That is a lot of money to loose. I think I read that the airport was unsustainable if it did not reach 1.2m passengers, so I guess spending lots of money on rebuilding a taxiway,new terminal, radar and more controllers will only push the break even target even higher. Being totally brutal about the situation, needing a 300% increase in any business to break even is unrealistic even in good times. Planning on reaching the break even number of passengers by 2030 suggests 18 years of losses.
Just how many airports do make money outside of the big cities ? Prestwick route load factor is 65% and Prestwick airport had dropped in value by 3/4 with no buyer in sight, how long will that route last? Is there not an airport further south that has lost its flights after investing and now has huge debts and laid off all but 5 of its staff and no chance of paying creditors? How do those banks explain how they miss judged their "investment"? If Ryanair left, then what? Did I also read that only 11 out of the 48 new airports in Spain ever made money?
Just list the airports that are of making money v/s the ones that aren't and the scales are tilted towards loss making. The question we have to ask is, what would it take to make airline travel take off again and what is the chance of the scenario happening?

If this airport closed tomorrow people would still travel and trade in this area using flights from the Belfast area, claims that the region benefits massively from this airport seem a bit far fetched.

In my opinion spending money on airports that are not already profitable is throwing good money after bad. Its not investment they need its passengers and airlines that will pay the going rate for using the airport.

Opinion was asked for and given.

bb

Yip, I definitely remember hearing this same story before, the only difference is the timescale.

Setting your goals for nearly 20 years into the future is great way of avoiding accountablity - you'll be retired by that stage! Or even dead!

And I don't think City of Culture is going to yield any benefits.

Ryanair are both a blessing and a curse. They are the only operator at the airport and they do attract large numbers of passengers so we must be thankful for that but I fear their dominance is scaring away other operators from other potentially viable routes such as EDI and MAN. There is no doubt that Ryanair could operate both these routes themselves from LDY, the question is what impact would that have on their existing LPL and PIK routes. I suspect by the fact that they have not done so that we have their opinion on it.

Not all doom and gloom
 

The last CAA stats reveal that LDY has passed Norwich International Airport which was listed above LDY in the list of busiest airports in the UK in 2011.

Busiest airports in the United Kingdom by total passenger traffic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LDY is currently at 400,556 pax on the 12 months to October 2012 with Norwich on 392,724. The other challengers of Blackpool, Humberside, Newquay and Durham whom LDY passed in recent years have all faded. Above Norwich were Inverness and Bournemouth but they are continued to grow and wll not be caught by LDY this year at least.

The final figure for this year obviously depends on November and December and whether they are busier than last year but it does also report that October 2012 had 19.8% few flights than October 2011 and 7.9% few passsengers.

Last year the airport carried 405,697 pax. The highest ever in 2008 was 439,033 so 400,000 this year would be 90% of the peak before the recession / credit crunch / aviation crisis / depression.

Airports across Europe with less than 3m pax don't make money , this number increases to 5m when one considers financing capex also. This is according to ACI , Airport Council International the body representing over 400 European airports. Airports are part of regional transportation infrastructure like road, rail and bus etc so it's down to regioanal and national policy makers to decide if they believe air access is critical or not for regional development. Issue is they have avoided making hard decisions on this for years which has resulted in too many airports on the island servicing a population little over greater Mancheseter

Ryanair holding over the airport atm due fog i think!

Probably a marketing error, but current EI sale visual appears to show LDY on the map.

http://f.chtah.com/i/33/175049069//R...1123_r2_c1.jpg

Hopefully a good omen Sawtooth. More likely Aer Lingus Regional rather than mainline though.

A Master Plan will, to quote DfT Guidance

• they will provide an indication of an airport operator's plans for infrastructure development in the light of the high-level strategic policy framework for each airport in the White Paper, and therefore bring greater clarity and certainty for all those affected or with an interest;
• they will inform long-term resource planning for local and regional players, particularly in the preparation of strategies and local plans;
• they will make a useful tool for communicating to a range of stakeholders, including airlines, funding institutions, local authority and other local interests, to allow them to make well informed investment decisions;
• they will help airport operators to make clear at an early stage the key milestones of their development project such as the submission of a planning application, construction and opening;
• they will provide a consistent and publicly recognised vehicle for the Government, Devolved Administrations and their agencies to assess progress being made in delivering the White Paper at each airport;
• they will demonstrate the range of costs and benefits of airport growth; and
• they will enable airport operators and others to assess local social and environmental impacts (including those arising from landtake and habitat loss) and provide an opportunity to develop preliminary proposals on how those impacts could be mitigated.

Government advice is that Airport Master Plans should look up to around 20 years ahead, with the first 5-10 years in detail and the next 10 in outline.Master Plans should be reviewed every 5 years.

So in no way is it avoiding accountability!

I'd say it will be EIR if they come at all. Where are the a/c currently used for WAT being utilised after 6th Janurary? Also EIR have 8 ATR's on order for delivery in 2013, again any ideas where they will be utilised? Would be great to see them give EDI, MAN & SEN a go.

I have read the master plan and it is very good, comprehensive, sufficiently ambitious, and I acknowledge that the management of the airport have been far sighted in producing one as they were not one of the airports required to do so (BFS released it's in 2006 in response to the 2003 'The Future of Air Transport' white paper), but the figures of 1 million passengers were previous targets which will be missed within the original time frame and the new target of 1.2 million pax is for almost 20 years in the future with no intevening targets stated.

For comparison BFS has a target of rising pax from 5 million to 10 million by 2030 but also states how that growth is exepcted to progress in the intervening years.

It is hard to judge progress with just one target 20 years away.

I travelled through LDY in the last week or so having not done so in some time. Was very impessed with the overall look and feel of the place - they have clearly invested a fair bit of money on the terminal facilities and customer offering in terms of cafe/restaurant, shops etc.

Here's hoping they get the pax numbers up to justify the investment ?

Seems the aircraft that came in from PIK went tech this afternoon. The PIK passengers took the STN aircraft when it arrived, they departed at 2059 some 4.5 hours late. The STN passengers are now delayed. Expected arrival in STN now 0100. Anyone know what happened?

EI-EXF is coming to the rescue. Just departed from DUB. New arrival time at STN is 0110.

Nov Stats
 

Nov Month Total - 29,195 / Rolling Year - 398,730

ROUTE - LOAD FACTOR

STN - 74%
BHX - 68%
LPL - 65%
PIK - 54%
FAO - 52%