Manston
 

Thought I would start a new MANSTON thread under the new rules, as there are a few separate posts but no single location for news about Kent International Airport.
May I start by asking if anybody yet has any further news on Twitcher's earlier information that "There definitely IS something going to happen very soon."? If this is true then its very exciting news for the airport and for Kent.
What exactly is being done to the runway?
To ASCIL, whilst I am really optimistic for the future of the airport, I really cannot see it being "the next STN." True, it does have a huge runway, more than capable of handling 747 movements, but the rail link to which you refer doesn't exist (nearest station = Ramsgate, and there are currently very poor transport links to this.) In addition, the airport is essentially surrounded on three sides by sea (give or take a mile or two) and is further from London traffic than STN. Nevertheless, with other airports nearing capacity, Manston certainly has a strong future, IMHO.
I hope this thread can be used for all future Manston / KIA news, as it will be good to have a single home for such posts, as other airports do.

Doesn't seem like it, no contracts have been signed etc. However there are still talks with freight operators.

Unless Twitcher meant Richard Banson's lastest world record atempt which is finshing at manston in early 2006.

A bit of threshold work has just me completed.

Nick Davis is part of a new company that is seriously looking at running Fk 50s twice-daily to Manchester from April 06.

I've used the Manston - Manch route when it was operating with EUJet, be great to see it back. Is this an existing airline or a start up? What really are the chances of anything happening here? And is there any chance of getting some kind of charter operation out of Manston even if it is a once weekly Palma or Malaga in the summer??? The Malaga route operated by EUJet actually faired quite well in terms of loads during the all but short peak summer season before the airline went skint.

Re: MANSTON
 

It seems this is a new start up venture. Based at Manchester and flying several routes. He says it will grow slowly, maybe another one or two other Manston routes added this year.
He also says a charter operation would do well if a travel agent arranged the full package.


Oh, and Planestation went skint, not Eujet. Planestation funded Eujet. Slightly different.

Re: MANSTON
 

Does anybody know the name of this airline Nick Dvies is working for or his previous background?

Re: MANSTON
 

Do you have anymore info on this proposed airline?

Re: MANSTON
 

Does anybody know the name of this airline Nick Dvies is working for or his previous background

He hasn't said, but it will be a current ACMI operator aircraft and crews, but there is more info on the TMF board.

Re: MANSTON
 

Having spoken to business develoment at Manchester airport it appears that there is no depth to these comments regarding F50 out of kent to MAN, they have had no approaches to develop this route,Nobody on the thread has yet been able to aswer any questions concerning Mr Nick Davies' background, can anyone shed any light??

Re: MANSTON
 

I've taken the liberty of copying what Nick said about himself on another board -

(I) got transferred to (Wiggins) head office in mayfair and was the person that made the Melbourne deal happen, had the contract offer from ryanair on the 16th Sept 2002 - and the KLM excel deal, and the exel airways deal, and the aurigny deal and the eastern airways deal and the euro celtic deal. (These all relate to Manston).

all in writing - firm offers - all available for viewing - the only caveat being i needed a marketing / underwriting fund of circa £600,000 in total for all of the above airlines to operate.

so when OI said no - i said you're wasting my time and resigned - again all correspondence available for anyone that can arsed!

I have 17 years' experience in commercial aviation in business development and commercial operations, have been an accountable ops manager for a regional airline in Scotland and set up the current PSO route between Stornoway & Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides on behalf of the scottish executive. This is run by Highland Airways - we won the PSO from Loganair/British Airways.

I had 32 days to take a freight airline who did a few passenger charters
to a scheduled airline operating 19 seat Jetstream 31's.

We started on time, on budget and it is still going strong today.

blue skies

nick davis

Re: MANSTON
 

To be fair to Nick he never said it was finalised. He was hoping to get it up and running. It may take longer, did the man at MAN mention any other routes from there starting with a F50?

Re: MANSTON
 

Out of interest, does anyone have any contact details for Nick currently?

Re: MANSTON
 

My name is nick davis - So Desk Driver do enlighten me - im intrigued myself?

Official Quote:

There is a possibilty of an ACMI operation operating thro MAN including a MSE sector on a double daily using a F50 - being as the primary meeting was only on the 10th Jan you are all getting way to excited over something that may not happen.

MAN will not know anything about this yet as steps with another airport have to be completed first which is more important.

Calm down and wait for an announcement by me and me only - i own 2 other companys that require my attention and as you can probably see i do not frequent the gossip columns of this site that often.

I AM ONLY THE ORCHASTRATOR -

"Take Off 2006" - why the interest in me

Note for wannabees - no crews needed as acmi operation - but thanks for showing an interest.

Re: MANSTON
 

Didn't the DUB route do reasonably well so that Ryanair might be interested in operating a daily flight, provided some marketing funds can be found ? Or someone else like Aer Arann with a smaller aircraft ?

Don't mean any disrespect to previous posters and the people who look at Manston to revive employment in the region.
But I find it hard to believe that the airport is going to do very well this year. A few F50's per day would not bring the type of revenue to offset the investment in personnel. Even Infratil on their website quotes passenger services as secondary to cargo in their business plan.
Now cargo would mean larger aircraft i.e. larger landing and handling fees as well as employment. However I think the one company the airport was trying to get to return, MK Airlines, has now made some very substantial investments at EBOS and is not coming back, aside perhaps from the occasional charter.
Again quoting the Infratil statements, their focus is on the African / Asian produce market (fruits, fish, etc.). Well other airports are trying just that and having a hard time making ends meet. Also, there's not that many airlines in that niche market (DAS Air Cargo, African International, Saudi Arabian, etc.) and competition would be strong to get them to use Manston as a base.
One avenue of business that could be good would be aircraft maintenance, repair and scrapping in combination with general aviation, similar to what is done at Lasham.

Both MK(4 flights a week) and African International currently use Manston.

That's good but may not be the stable source of revenue with a chance of growth that the airport should be looking for since neither Mk Airlines nor AIA are planning to invest.

http://www.portofoostende.be/news/detail2.asp?idnr=247

"A few F50's per day would not bring the type of revenue to offset the investment in personnel."

I agree that a few F50s per day probably wouldn't be huge revenue earners for Infratril given the large fixed costs of keeping the terminal open etc. However, I think that given infratril are probably running the airport at a loss at the moment, it is very important to have regular passenger flights ASAP, whether profitable or not.

Potential larger airline customers such as Ryanair could then see the place working, and that there is indeed demand for services from Kent. Obviously, in terms of economies of scale, infratril would want more than 2 F50 flights a day, but it would nevertheless be a good start.

On another note, there was a rumour (no source so may not be at all reliable) on keypublishing forum recently that KLM Cityhopper were thinking of a regular Amsterdam flight, and a possible announcement about it in the spring. Anybody know anything about this?

ryanair at mansto
 

a friend has said that on Irish news it was stated that ryanair would be operating one flight a day to start, this summer, on the popular spanish routes it was in an interview with the man himself.any feedback ?

No more Ryanair routes for this summer
 

According to Ryanairs own press department they are not going to announce any further routes for summer 2006. I would think that slot bidding for routes would be well and truely finished for this summer by now? (Manston has not been named)




Press Release 21.12.05

Ryanair launches 18 routes from Dublin to Europe

INCREASES FLIGHTS ON 7 DUBLIN - EUROPE ROUTES
5 NEW AIRCRAFT BASED AT DUBLIN IN 2006

Ryanair, Europe’s largest low fares airline today (Wednesday, 21st December 2005) announced the last of its new route announcements for Summer 2006 by selecting Dublin Airport as effectively its 16th European base.........