Some fair points there although I gather that money has been put aside for the Train Station. Also I find the level of service pretty fair and comparable with most Uk airports apart from LHR which is crap. You mention Hahn but isn't Hahn dependent on FR income (or not!) also? Regards the 'east side 2nd floor, are you referring to the old spectator terrace? If so the reason it has been closed for 29 years has been because of the amount of asbestos present (or so I am told).

On a plus point it is good to see considerable increases in military stopover flights.

Not exactly. Access to the exterior has been closed, I wonder if the interior is susceptible to asbestos? Doubt it, no I mean the EAST part of the building, the interior has been closed since BA withdrew the VC10 I am told. (Thanks Dad)
A lot of empty dead space there with no income.

As for Hahn, they have been more succesful with the cargo front and were until recently owned by FRAPoart I believe, who also own Frankfurt Main. ie A real airport company.

Last Wizzair service to Katowice was today, meaning just the original two destinations (Warsaw and Gdansk) remain of the four they served from PIK at their peak.

When will the Ryanair winter schedule for PIK be fully released? There's quite a few destinations missing from what's currently loaded (HHN and PSA to name but two) and BVA showing as daily, with the morning flight not yet available.

Also noticed that April's passenger numbers are down by 19% compared to April 2008. Of all the larger UK airports, only LCY has a larger percentage decrease (and then by only 0.3 of a percentage point), although in fairness to both airports, the number of flights decreased by a similar percentage.

I heard Hahn has gone which im very disappointed about i just used it last week handy for Ramstein spotting trips,EDI -Hahn is down to 2 weekly they must have issues there.

PIK doesn't seem to be having a very happy time at the minute.

If you compare the first 4 months of this year to the same period last year, Ryanair's passenger numbers at PIK are down by over 16% and the average load factor for the base is down by over 4.5 percentage points.

Quite a few routes have taken a hammering. All comparisons are for Jan - Apr 09 vs Jan - Apr 08: PSA (average flown LF down to 56% from 69%), WRO (now 55% from 80%), NRN (now dropped: 52% from 61%), HHN (48% from 61%), BOH (42% from 60%). MRS also took a pasting last summer.

All of the above destinations are also operated from EDI and it is clear that this is having a severe effect upon the corresponding routes from PIK - Ryanair are cannibalising their own markets again.

I'm afraid I wouldn't be surprised if PIK lost a based aircraft this winter and if HHN was dropped, PSA became seasonal summer only and BVA (down to 55% from 63% so far this year) became a once daily service after having been twice daily for as long as I can remember.

It's hard to find many positives for PIK. RIX and TFS are the routes with the best loads, although given the long sector lengths, one can only hope that they are profitable.

Sorry to sound so miserable.

I doubt if the BVA will drop to one a day. The pax no's are down on the PIK-BVA legs, but the aircraft actualy fly from PIK-BVA then on to OPO in the morning and to TSF in the afternoons, the onward loads are strong.
In reality, I think we will see a steady move to EDI. Long term, my money is on only two or three aircraft at PIK, and the bulk of the flying from EDI.

Pik-bva
 

Hi,
From Sun 25th October BVA-OPO appears to be operated by an NYO-based aircraft flying NYO-BVA-OPO-BVA-NYO.
BVA-TSF continues to be operated by the PIK-BVA aircraft in the evenings. Unfortunately, now that the BVA-OPO has been switched to an NYO aircraft, I fear that the morning PIK-BVA rotation may be toast, at least for the winter.

I agree with your long term prognosis for PIK. Sadly, it looks as though any destination flown from PIK that FR also decide to start from EDI will come under a lot of pressure. Not long ago, I thought that PIK had the potential to reach the figure of 3 million passengers per year. Even once the economy recovers, this goal looks a long way off.

Its a shame, I honestly believe that PIK has the greatest potential of all the Scottish airports that has not been harnessed due to certain managerial decisions.

*Plenty of area for expansion
*Good road and rail connections (yes the station needs improving, my point above)
*A very attractive weather record
*Two good length runways

In comparison to Glasgow at least, its pretty much boxed in by the M8 and Black Cart Water, even if you did expand over the Black Cart Water, surface drainage is going to become a problem. On-top of that there's night time restrictions.

My dissertation was on the relative merits of expansion at BAA Glasgow and Prestwick, after meeting with both Managing Director, you can probably see who's side i'm on!

I hope BVA doesn't drop to one per day. Every so often when the price dictates, we take a day trip to Paris. The 6.40 flight out, after getting the bus, drops you in Paris around 9.45am, witht he bus picking you up at 8pm for the 10.50 flight.

Just over 10 hours for a few euros! Not a bad way to spend a Saturday. :ok:

Yes, but some people think that being 45 minutes from Glasgow that Prestwick is the other side of the earth! Prestwick is more convenient for me but Ryanair is putting me off from using the airport because of the number of add ons for anything they can possibly think of and also because they keep cutting back on their schedules. I think it's such a shame that there aren't more airlines and flights at Prestwick.

I guess we're kinda spoilt with BAA Glasgow (8 miles) being so close to the city centre. The majority of places, a 45 minute journey to the main airport is normal

Yes, just look at Stansted! It takes about the same time to get in to London. I have taken nearly an hour to get from Heathrow to London City Centre.

Despite the state of the station, the actual train service is pretty good. Last time I checked there was 3 trains per hour into the city (or one per 20mins). Plus, a 50% discount if in possession of an airline ticket. Normally airport - city transport is a major rip-off source!

All true on paper, therefore why is the airport in such a poor state?

So if Infratil do sell Prestwick (or Manston), when do you think this will happen and who do you think would be a likely buyer?

Just pulled out a few quotes Mark Rodwell, Prestwicks' Managing Director, provided for my dissertation a few years back that in recent events, provides interesting reading.

“Where our capacity would be restricted would be through the terminal facilities. At present we transit 2.5million passengers a year. This can be increased to 5 millions by adding a few extra check-in counters and another baggage reclaim, but that’s the only real restrictions we have at the moment to increase from 2.5 to 5 million passengers.”

What do you feel is the biggest disadvantage that Prestwick holds?
“Disadvantage would probably be that Prestwick is not well known in the greater part of Glasgow, so achieving that reputation is important to us, there’s a lot of work going on to put that in place.”

“At present, where we’ve seen success is with low-cost point-to-point operations, and that’s where low cost operators get their efficiencies. As soon as you start to introduce transit passengers and transit baggage, that’s where you start to run into time issues, particularly the inability to turn an aircraft around in 20 minutes. So from a low-cost airline perspective the attraction for airports like Prestwick is to maintain point-to-point. However, it does open up the possibility for Trans-Atlantic operators to use Prestwick as a hub, and then distribute passengers out via the low-cost carriers, by fault becoming a hub airport without being a major hub such as Heathrow.”

"Infratil’s strategy at the moment is to buy airports that have future potential which is most definitely the case at Prestwick. As other airports become congested we will look at taking the associated with the over-spill. It’s the same with our other airports in Hamburg and Kent – these airports are purchased with the vision of long-term investments with future returns. Our investors are patient in waiting for these returns to come in. As you attract airlines, you start to build a snow-ball event. The bigger the through-put of passengers, the more airlines you attract.”

Skipness

The Manchester hangar will not be empty for much longer as it has been taken on by
Air Liveries and will open in Julyhttp://static.pprune.org/images/smilies/embarass.gif

Ian B

Allan Mack
 

23 Feb 2008

20 May 2009

You've been harping on about this money for the rail station for nearly a year and a half now, is it actually coming?

Actually I think it would be a waste of money now, most of the flights are moving form Glasgow Prestwick International to Glasgow Edinburgh International. I think it is all going Pete Tong for GPIA unfortunately, a combination of bad economic climate, setting up the EDI base and bad management. I am so glad I never took that unit off them that I was forced out of because of price.

Gentlemen we have the final proof that they ARE indeed run my lunatics.

Untrue, the transit flights on North American etc do not tally to 2.5 million. He means they "handle" 2.5 million, but what's a word in the wrong place from an MD.

The check in is now redundant on most days of the week so nothing pressured there now.

That I know is utter rubbish. Prestwick Airport fought Glasgow for years for traffic and is many things, but unknown is NOT one of the issues. The Ryanair operation at PIK is well known across Scotland.

This is utter fantasy, all the US carriers have interline arrangements of their own. UA and US with Star and BMI. DL and NW with KL and AF through their hubs and AA with BA over LHR. CO operate direct to Scotland with three daily flights to Newark. Who on Earth is this guy alluding to?

So he's waiting until GLA is full?

Very useful quotes as it DOES provide an insight into the naivety at Infratil.

Not that I have any experience in the area, but its wrong to just sit and criticize so if it were up to me:

* I would get rid of the Pure Dead Brilliant branding, its not Scottish, it's Ned/Chav. Driving up to the terminal you can't help but snigger at it on the side of the hanger. The fact the font looks like graffiti just adds to the problem. Not a good image, if still wanting to keep it Scottish, then how about the airport name in Rennie MacIntosh font? Does anyone remember in 2006 they had a scibbled picture above the bar, of a guy in a kilt lying rat arsed on the ground with a bottle of whiskey in his hand and trading standards made them remove it. The entire marketing campaign portrays the airport as cheap and nasty.

* Renovate the entire terminal in the fashion that the area infront of the check-in desks have been done. Its sharp and clean looking, then you cross over to the disgusting carpets. Carpets in public areas, especially in Scotland, don't work.

* Do whatever it takes to encourage more retail outlets, initial reduced rents? Something has to start the ball rolling. At the moment there's not really anywhere to eat other than Starbucks cake's or crisps from WH Smith? Does Yates do food?

*Re-open the viewing gallery, yes it's purely asthetic but it all contributes to improve the airports image. Prestwick is relatively accessible and such a move may attract spotters who will spend money whilst on the premises. Lets face it, retail space is one of an airports biggest ancillary earners these days.

Once the above has been achieved then hopefully they'll be in a better position to attract more passenger services. I think the biggest potential is in holiday flights - Thomas Cook etc. Whilst this seems quite far-fetched at the moment, its holiday travellers after the biggest saving. Does anyone know how the Vegas flights next month are selling? I believe tour operators are in a better position to 'sell' Prestwick. Imagine booking a BA/BMI flight, done on-line and seeing 'Prestwick' may put people off. However, a customer sitting in a travel agent is in a position to have the pro's explained to them. Coupled with a saving over GLA flights, this may just work.


Any opinions? What else could be done?

"* I would get rid of the Pure Dead Brilliant branding, its not Scottish, it's Ned/Chav. Driving up to the terminal you can't help but snigger at it on the side of the hanger. The fact the font looks like graffiti just adds to the problem. Not a good image, if still wanting to keep it Scottish, then how about Rennie MacIntosh font? Does anyone remember in 2006 they had a scibbled picture above the bar, of a guy in a kilt lying rat arsed on the ground with a bottle of whiskey in his hand and trading standards made them remove it. The entire marketing campaign portrays the airport as cheap and nasty."
Hell YEAH!! I couldn't agree more. This also demonstrates the naivety of Infratil and Mark Rodwell.