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Stobarts are only interested in the road freight facilities. An extensive site only a few miles from the M6/M74. Airport development is an exercise with smoke and mirrors.
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Carlisle future
hi all...anyone out there tell us what the situation is at Carlisle?
i heard a new planning application has been lodged but with no provision for passengers? does that mean it will be a freight only airport and what plans are there for services? have they started extending the runway? and which airlines are being targeted? |
Its been done to death already, check through the archives.
Howver,all you need to know is that Carlisle has no future as an airport but a big one as a Haulage Distribution base for Stobart, especially as with effect from today, there are no Stobart family members on the board of any the Stobart Companies and the company is majority controlled by Venture Capitalists. |
Temporary use
BBC News - Carlisle picked to host Radio 1 Big Weekend music event Might make more noise than a few freight aircraft :} |
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The saga continues - must admit that in my view the consultants have got it spot on (and how that hurts!)
News & Star | Carlisle council delays decision on Stobart Group's city airport plan |
I can not honestly see how a Carlisle-Southend service would work. Given that the service would be mainly used by business travelers then a comparison needs to be taken with existing rail services. Virgin offer a first service of the day 0543 arr 0904 for £150 walk up single. For the air to compare it would have to have an airport arrival at 0545, off stand at 0615, on stand at 0730ish, transfer to station and depart at 0800 for an hours journey to London.
To be competitive on cost and time it would need a walk up fare of £140 single. A few chaps I know do the sensible thing, book the sleeper from Carlisle to London the night before, leave their cabin after breakfast and use the shower facilities to change before leaving Euston about 0800 for whatever they have to do. First Class fare about the same as Virgin. If it was Carlisle-Luton (tapping into Wizzair/EasyJet) to Stansted or even Gatwick it could work as they are hub airports. IMHO Stobarts just want the land and the HGV terminal. Given that, then air operations would wither on the vine in less than a few years. |
Carlisle future
Interesting developments!
Can someone with more local knowledge me...confirm/deny that there is a 10 year lease on the airport,which ends december? meaning after that time the site does not have to have aviation development? surely Stobs. could move in after then and turn the site in to a transport centre(surely their preferred option?) I heard this a few yeaRS ago but not sure if correct? carlisle has never handled more than 10000pax. in any year and probably a lot less than that. No profits there then? If newcastle cant hold on to a stansted service with 120000+ pax a year then what hope carlisle to southend? Im afraid the halcyon days of aviation have gone and the future for airfields of this size are bleak..just look across the hills to teesside/mme/dtv!! |
From the Carlisle City planning document:
Generally property matters, including leases, are not usually relevant to the determination of a planning application but the applicant refers to its lease of the Airport so some brief background explanation may assist. As is well known, the City Council is the freehold owner of the Airport and granted (on the 31st May 2001) a 150 year lease of the Airport to Haughey Airports Ltd, a lease which is now held by the Stobart Group. The Airport is now under the management of Stobart Air Ltd as part of the Stobart Group. The applicant has drawn attention to that part of the Lease regarding keeping the Airport open. The Lease requires the Airport not to be used other than for aviation, or B1 – B8 and C1 Uses, or for agriculture.but also specifies that a tenant (after the expiry of the tenth year of the Term) may close the Airport for airport operations if the tenant is able to demonstrate that it is not capable of economic operation as a commercial airport when managed by a reasonably competent operator. |
As I read it, after 10 years they can apply to stop using it for aviation purposes, but that doesn't mean they can then do what they like. Come the moment, Stobart will merely point out to the Local authority that their plans to develop the site as a major transport base will bring far greater long term local employment and a vastly greater economic contribution to the region than the airport ever would and their plans will sail through. Not only that, they'll be perfectly justified. |
Slightly OT of sorts but that Eddie Stobart programme on Channel 5 featured the archaic Southend Airport fire engines being replaced by shiny new ones from Carlisle who were getting the archaic one in its place.
Sums it up :E Carlisle probably only has a future as a cargo hub and I hope the City backs it. There's very little opportunity in Carlisle and when you have a brand company like Stobart in the area it surely makes sense to back them. |
If newcastle cant hold on to a stansted service with 120000+ pax a year then what hope carlisle to southend? |
It's 3.5 hours by train Carlisle London, a comparison to air from Carlisle:
Travel Carlisle to Airport: 0.5hrs Check-in: 0.5hrs Flight block time: 1.25hrs (ish) Collect bags, walk to station, wait for train: 0.5hrs Train in to London: 1.0hr Time to Spare ? ... Go by Air ! |
The problem the easyjet Newcastle-Stansted route encountered in his latter days were increases in Air Passenger Duty (it ended up at £24 for a return ticket). It was probably accounting for about a third of the average fare which, given easyjet's average profit across their entire network is only c£5 per seat, made the economics very difficult. Until APD goes, small airports will never prosper as there's little money to be made in UK domestic aviation at present. Let's hope the Government recognises soon that aviation is a stimulant to the economy not a cash cow to be milked dry.
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Equally though on the Stansted route Newcastle had better links to Gatwick and Heathrow which offer far more connections and are both better located for London.
I'd imagine most pax from Newcastle transit through to another destination from LHR and LGW especially with the BE/BA codeshares. Jet2 didn't want the route, easyjet couldn't make it pay. Carlisle is a slightly different proposition as it has zero links to anywhere to compete with |
GAXLN - Have to agree it was APD that killed off the STN -NCL route. Its APD that would, I suspect, hold back a similar venture from Carlisle.
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Given that the longest runway (07/25) is only 1837m and restricted to 12.5T it will need a lot of development to bring it up to spec for a B73x or A32x to actually use it with any useful payload!
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Couple of interesting recent stories - the plans for Tesco's look "innovative"...
News & Star | News | Carlisle City Council criticised over handling of city airport applications News & Star | News | Stobart group hits back at Carlisle airport critics |
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No wonder that Stobart's have asked for more time to prepare their case - is RE operating twice a day CAX-SEN viable?
News & Star | Passenger flights not viable from Carlisle Airport, says expert's report |
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