Irrespective of plans for the air operations at the airport, Stobart has to be out of the present premises by end of February as the lease expires.
That is the dead line and at that point, I recall it was made clear in the original expansion plans, if they aren't at the airport they may be out of Cumbria.

Don't forget as well that they are well on the way to completing the purchase of Southend airport.

Nik Nik; There are similar questions at the Southend part of this vast airport / aviation experience. Little or no experience does not add up, particularly as you say in this current climate.

Perhaps it would be useful to actually add a few facts to this discussion.

A condition of the CAX planning consent granted yesterday stipulates that Stobart must resurface the runway and provide a passenger terminal facility, among other things, so Niknak's assumptions are incorrect when he says that "there will be no redevelopment of the airport infrastructure."

As far as their current HQ lease is concerned, there has always had to be negotiation of some form of extension to its expiry date as not even the previous planning application could have achieved a completion date of February 2009.

As far as SEN is concerned the new owners' lack of aviation experience matters very little as the development plan is already in place and it is the finance to make it achievable which Stobarts bring to the party. The fact that they have appointed Alastair Welch to be MD of Stobart Air to oversee all their planned aviation activities shows that they recognise they need an experienced hand on the tiller.

I don't think anyone really knows yet just what they plan from an air operations point of view, but they wouldn't be talking about "niche freight" operations at SEN unless they had done some homework. More interesting
is their stated intention to ensure that a CAX-SEN passenger schedule is established once the SEN rail station is built. Could this involve Stobart liveried aircraft operated under an ACMI arrangement with an existing carrier - certainly an interesting prospect. I can envisage an realistic schedule for such an operation which would offer a CAX route to both London (SEN) and, say, Amsterdam or Paris.

Interesting times ahead for both airports.

The Section 106 agreement with Stobarts, covering the provision of a passenger terminal and resurfacing the runway and other matters, has been agreed with Carlisle City Council and they have now formally granted planning consent for the construction of Stobart's new HQ on the airfield.

This should, in turn, lead to Stobart Group completing their purchase of CAX once due diligence formalities have been completed.

Stobart Group have announced this morning that they expect to complete their purchase of CAX by 30 May 2009 at a cost of £14 million.

As the airport is effectively owned by Andrew Tinkler and William Stobart, the deal will have to be approved by shareholders and an EGM will take place on 30 May for that purpose.

The existing SEN management team will take responsibility for the development of CAX itself, although the main purpose of the acquisition is to build a new corporate HQ and warehousing facility on the site.

Well. there you are - that more or less confirms that Stobart have little or no intention of developing Carlisle as an airport, but using the land and nearby road infrastructure to develop the company.
So much for the blaze of publicity which took several gullible posters in.:rolleyes:

goatface

Not correct I'm afraid.

The Section 106 Agreement which accompanies the planning consent legally binds Stobart to carrying out the agreed improvements to the airport infrastructure. The very reason the Council insisted upon the Agreement was to avoid the sort of outcome that you are putting forward.

No gullibility on my part I can assure you.

Just to add a bit of "meat" The Stobart Group have announced profits up to £23M+ from £3.5M last year!
News & Star | News | Stobart Group increase profits by more than £20 million


Stobart Air who own CAX is a separate company owned by Andrew Tinkler (CEO Stobart Group) and Eddie Stobart, the group is going to take the option to purchase Stobart Air.

Interview also suggested 2 rotations/day to SEN & flights to AMS, possibly DUB and other european destination in the planning stage.

Airport to be renamed "Carlisle Lake District Airport"

BBC news (NE) reporting the group is paying £14M for CAX

CAX
 

Just hope they remember to groove the new main runway, otherwise the performance when WET WET WET will be somewhat limiting !!:confused:

Not 'Carlisle INTERNATIONAL Lake District Airport?':}

Would be good to see SEN flights, especially when the train station is complete. I would guess DUB would come before AMS. Also would guess Manx2 on the IOM route!:ok:

SEN looks like it can become a little gold mine if they get the quick link to London. They have no restrictions at present, only the capacity.

Great airport for a new start up airline to forge a number of domestic links! How about BLK-SEN and into London? Less stressful than MAN-LHR? I think so...:}

Carried away?
 

Given that there are approx 100,000 people in the local area and there are 4 or 5 airports not too far away with flights to London,Dublin and Amsterdam I cant see an airline running many flights.
If there were to be a 100 seat plane flying twice per day to SEN that would require 1 % of the population to travel every week to fill it.
Also
Not many airlines would put up with NDB approaches at both ends of the route.

b b

But surely there would be people coming from the other end?:confused:

London a much larger population that 100k!

Bad Bear

the nearest would be NCL about 70 - 90 mins travel on a good day
The advantage would be for the West Cumbria area where the nearest is at least 2hrs away, if the "nuclear coast" concept takes off (as it were) the advantages for travel for any major nuclear power station build would be huge.
From where I am:
NCL - 2 1/4 hrs, BLK 2 1/2 hrs, GLA 2 1/2 hrs, MAN 2 3/4 hrs, EDI & DTV are similar times.
CAX would be 1hr
As a comparison for rail jouneys, rail to Carlisle over 1 hr
Road to Penrith to connect with rail 45 mins

Regarding equipment as (from earlier in this thread) the runway weight limit is low I can't see resurfacing raising that to a level suitable for anything other than small commuter aircraft - which is why the original application wanted to build a new runway!

MUFC

That's part of the reasoning behind the name change - to attract tourists!
(just as Oxenholme railway station got renamed Oxenholme Lake District and Penrith to Penrith (North Lakes))

I think thats a good idea and I understood that, I was just wondering whether they would follow BLK with the 'international' title!:ok:

MUFC

Somehow I doubt it!

Bad Bear

I suspect that PR-NAV approaches will be the preferred option once the new grooved runway is operational.

They make life so much easier !!

People from Workington, Whitehaven and the like have to travel for hours to reach MAN, GLA and NCL, lets just hope some charter flights pop up.

Except that SEN has Radar. :8

I am intrigued as to where you all think the money is coming from to fund the developments, it would cost Stobarts Group profits of £23m and a fair wedge more to do the necessary improvements and Stobart would never be able to raise that sort of capital for such a project in this economic climate.

Even if they did, there is an insufficient catchment area to make the sort of flights suggested economically viable, it takes a huge investment to start up such routes and the airport operator has to make significant concessions to the airlines to attract them and keep them. Additionally, established competitors at nearby airports would simply lower their fares to destroy the competition at Carlisle.

I wager that Stobart will move on to the airport site and build a new HQ and warehousing / vehicle complex, but they will not redevelop the airport at all.
The Section 106 clause will be disregarded and eventually overturned or Stobart may recieve a relatively small fine, but the Council and Local Government will capitulate regarding the airport development when they are reminded of the economic contribution Stobart are making to the area.

Simple fact: the redevelopment of Carlisle Airport to a standard capable of operating either freighters or scheduled flights is economically unviable.

Odd really, never known Stobbarts not do something they have fought for for a few years. They claimed they had the cash for the original redevelopement (complete new runway included), so the council imposed downgrade to that - resurfaced existing runway and a new passenger terminal -

From
Stobart Rail - civil engineering

They are not wanting to introduce large freighters or passenger aircraft (and have stated that publicly) nor can anything of any size (public transport) actually land there, it's only speculation on this site, and rumours among the objectors in the vicinity that is suggesting that!