I was actually just kidding but I suppose if they could buy Prestwick for virtually nothing, they could just give it a lick of paint here and there and give it a shot, but I would be very surprised since they've just purchased Stansted.

It was raised as a joke in the meeting too.

Though PIK wasnt mentioned it was just a generic non-serious question regarding scottish business. Though as I say, the response that came back was a serious one which took us by surprise which was based on not getting STN, or becoming long term aspirations if MAG did

A couple more charters which will be back at Stansted this year:


Onur Air to Antalya onwards to Ercan (operates Sundays from March 31)

BH Air to Bourgas (operates Thursdays from August 8)

Now that Stansted is operating at roughly 70 per cent of its peak-time passenher throughput of 24m, has this any effect on the usage of the terminals? Are parts of the infrastructure unused or is 17m still enough passengers to keep the whole terminal and all satellites busy?

Pardon my ignorance, but I have not transited through STN for a while.

A few new routes at Stanchester Airport
 

From this week nine new routes appearing. Both easyJet and Ryanair, are adding services to North Africa, Eastern Europe and other destinations in Greece, Germany and France.
On Friday easyJet will begin services to Marrakech in Morocco; followed by Sofia in Bulgaria on Saturday and finally Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt on Sunday.
Then later in March and April Ryanair are adding services to Tallinn in Estonia; Kefalonia in Greece; Nuremburg in Germany; Strasbourg and Dole in France; and finally Ostrava in the Czech Republic will commence in June.

Glad to see new routes from Stansted but I think the easyJet services are being operated by reducing the number of frequencies on some existing routes so no overall pax change.

And hopefully a few more to come in the coming months and years.

Cargolux
 

Cargo Boost for STN

Are these the previous Manston operated flights?

No. CLX flights at Manston are 3 per week from Nairobi and 1 per week from Accra.

Why split cargo ops over two London ish area airports ? Surely it would be cost effective to have everything at one airport ?

a rumour has being started and its that EK or EY plan a STN service...

Where did you hear that rumour?

I do think that STN could sustain a small amount of long haul traffic. EK to DXB would be a good one and I can actually see something like UA to EWR working at STN as well.

It would be really good to see Emirates at Stansted, mainly as I'd love to see a direct link to Dubai. PIA tried it in the past but but I think the branding was the issue there. Plus, EK would do well for themselves to serve LHR, LGW and STN.

I have to say though, I'd still be suprised even if it did happen, but fingers crossed...

on airliners.net .... so it must be true ;)

Rumour: EY Or EK To STN? — Civil Aviation Forum | Airliners.net

its not going to happen .... UNLESS its the B777F that operates to LHR on Saturdays that maybe cant get a slot into LHR for the summer

I believe it's planned in addition to the Saturday Skycargo service at LHR.

an indication of things to come?
 

Sale is complete. Website has now got the MAG logo but still the old BAA design at the moment.

Sad news of course is the Ryanair cut backs although still yet to see any changes on the booking system as of yet. I hope MAG will be able to recover this last minute loss promptly.

A few bits and pieces below:

Ferrovial/Baa Hikes Stansted Fees By 6% From April 2013 In A?

New owner sets out Stansted’s growth plan - FT.com

Serous? There will only be a 4% cut back as they say they will cut 9% but planned to grow 5%. I bet there will be zero affect on traffic as Ryanair's bark is worse that there bite.

The new owners of Stansted today launched a battle of the skies as they vowed to take passengers from Heathrow and Gatwick after competing the £1.5bn purchase of the Essex airport.

They promised to take the airport, traditionally a stronghold of budget airlines, into the premier league with flights to 40 new long-haul destinations including the US, Caribbean and the Middle East.

Owners Manchester Airport Group (MAG) pledged to double annual passenger numbers 35 million, build new stands for the A380 superjumbos and spend £40m on new shops.

By 2018 they aim to boost annual passenger numbers by 5.5m to almost 23 million per year. There will be an extra 40 destinations, mainly long-haul flights to the US and the Caribbean and the Gulf. Emirates, Qatar, Etihad, Singapore Airlines, Air France, KLM and Virgin are all set to fly out of Stansted which has been traditionally dominated by budget airlines Ryanair and easyJet.

Can you link to where you are getting this BS from please? This is SO far off the planet I need a source. A380s and long haul LGW can only dream of in under *five* years? Someone's been smoking something. This is a fanboys's wet dream not a serious proposition to take to market in such a timescale. The only thing missing is Concorde. If it's the (pay to read) FT link, they should know better.

A simple Google search shows this comes from that highly reputable journal, the Evening Standard (!):
Manchester Airport Group seals Stansted airport takeover deal - Transport - News - London Evening Standard
:)