we had fog in stansted on wednesday night so chances are weather was below minima for that acft and or crew to land?

Looks like the snow has started to affect STN now as well as LGW
and LCY, FR and EZY have started diverting flights.

wonder how LHR and LTN are doing ?
Tomorrow will be fun for us all :}.

STN schedule:

LHE-DXB-STN
Wednesdays

Dep : LHE 13:15

Arr : DXB 15:15
Dep: DXB 16:30

Arr : STN 21:00

Return leg Dep : 22:45 Arr 14:00 (+1 day)

PK 773/774
Airbus A310 with 1 Stop

ISB-DXB-STN

Fridays

Dep: ISB 08:30
Arr: STN 16:15

Return leg Dep : 18:00 Arr 09:10

PK 773/774
Airbus A310 with 1 Stop

03/02/09 about 1910hrs
 

has anyone any info on why the police helicopter and about 6 police cars were in a filed next to the mid stay car park ?
the heliopter had its flood light on searching for something
and all police cars had their blue lights flashing.

Numerous STN ground handling posts have been moved to the Ground Handling forum,

http://www.pprune.org/flight-ground-...-handling.html

BAA is going to sell STN
 

from todays Evening Standard

BAA is to agree to sell Stansted airport rather than take legal action to prevent the move, it emerged today.

The move will bring to an end the operator's dominance of London's airports since it was created 40 years ago as a government agency.

The airports group, majority-owned by Spanish company Ferrovial, has fought to keep hold of Stansted despite being told by the Competition Commission it had to relinquish it.

Senior BAA executives have pledged to go through the courts to prevent the sale of the Essex airport, however the Spanish infrastructure group is understood now to be prepared to drop its objections.

The final decision on airport ownership will be made by the Commission next month, and is expected to order BAA to give up Gatwick, which it is already selling, Stansted and one of its two Scottish airports.

Industry insiders said they had expected a climbdown ever since the Government decided to support the construction of a third runway at Heathrow.

An airline executive said: "There was no point in [BAA] going on fighting the Competition Commission. It has won on the bigger point of expanding Heathrow,"

Thats a somewhat naive call given the Conservatives opposition to the 3rd runway at LHR.

Perhaps the "expansion" is simply a smokescreen to offload STN and generate some cash.

I'd love to see Cameron snuggle up to the Green lobby and tell the jobs and businesses this would generate to p*** off as he attempts to get the UK working again. A way will be found to "180 backtrack".

As the wheels come off one shouldn't tinker with the air freshener, one should hire a mechanic.....

As was said at the time of the Air Transport White paper, and resolutely denied by BAA and their pet monkey the Dept for Transport (Alistair Darling i/c), Stansted has always been, and still is a commercial turkey.

Its only attraction for airlines is very low charges, and so inevitably it has become dominated by LCC's, or rather dominated by 1 LCC, to wit, Ryanair. Retail revenues are only good if numbers are kept high. Hmmm, anyone forecasting a bit of a slump there?

Those low charges must either remain low to keep airlines using it, or if they are raised the main user will go away. It cannot be cross-subsidised legally from LHR, and under separate ownership that possibility totally disappears.

For these reasons its expansion project, especially at BAA's grossly inflated costs, has always been and remains totally unbankable. Indeed, the risk that it can never make a fair return on capital is so high that such a failure is a racing certainty.

Unusually for this Government it has not - yet - meekly offered to fill the gap with taxpayers' funds, although it probably will, eventually.

I'm not surprised the Spaniards want to get out.

"Stansted has always been, and still is a commercial turkey"

Dec 2008 Passenger numbers (source CAA);

LHR 67030
LGW 34497
STN 22550
MAN 21203
LTN 10236
BHX 9558
EDI 9008

The UK's 3rd busiest airport is a commerial turkey?!!

The piddling number of jobs lost will be nothing to the votes Labour will lose over Heathrow expansion. Millions of people will be affected by it, many south Londoners who have no access to the airport due to the total lack of public transport.

I bloody doubt it fella, surely there are some zeros missing.

Passenger numbers do not equal profit. There's been rumours aplenty over the last few years that STN wouldn't survive on its own as a going concern without a big increase in fees it charges. Hence the talk of 'cross-subsidy' between BAA's airports and the rare sight of Virgin and BA standing side by side in opposition to STN's new runway being paid for from the fees they pay to operate out of LHR.



S78

My point is that once "Call me Dave" has connived his way into Numer 10 he will need to grow up and deal with the big boy world.
Hence he would be the first Tory PM in history to say no to a capital project of national interest, to create REAL jobs in a massive econmic downturn, to ensure that the transport infrastructure is in place,*breath* to ride the eventual upturn to pay off the stupendous amount of debt he has been left by the scorched Earth policies of of Gordon Brown and Labour.

It's either that or he really isn't a fan of increased economic activity in which case the troubles only just beginning.....

Stansted is busy with people on cheap flights on airlines DEMANDING unrealistically cheap landing and parking fees. So shops are nice and busy, and since that's the big revenue driver they need to be. Not enough to pay for Runway 2 and the rest of the infrastructure. Look at the way Satellite 3 is nice for half it's length and then pure crap at the end. Thats the future of Stansted, a tin shed under the cosh of a fly by night airline.

The 3rd runway is most definitely NOT in the national interest: I would even suggest it is hardly in the local interest of the current inhabitants of Sipson or the weary travellers on the M4, M40, M25 and Tube.

Use the force S1E and think "outside the M25" ;)

So we stop progress because of narrow local interest?

No more jobs? No more connectivity?

I hate to spread the word to the regions here but where do you think all the money came from in the good times to build all the schools and hospitals? A Hell of a lot of it came from the flood of talent into London able to get here because of reasonably good connections at Heathrow. The routes were there but the experience was crap! Terminal 5 is changing that experience by the day and the sadly delayed Heathrow East will be a pleasure to use if the lessons of T5 are learnt.

Heathrow is a major part of the UK economy, as it brings money into London. You can take out ALL regional connectivity and that's still true. All those rich bankers bonuses, 40% went in tax to the Government to subsidise the vastly inflated public sector of non jobs and jobsworths. Now we hate bankers, I do too, but the money's stopped flowing. So here's a plan, lets artificially constrain access to the only world gateway we have!

There is life outside the M25 mate, sadly I'm paying for it.

** Note to enraged regional types. I'm not a Londoner I'm a Scot. However I am realistic as to how much money has been "spread" about the UK from London and the South East. Fairs fair, can we have a third runway so our airport works and Crossrail 20 years after it was supposed to be running?

No doubt the thought (as per usual) of those who reside by a certain M1 motorway, close to an airport with half the through-put of London's third airport and are still bitter and twisted that their airport never did and never will make the grade.

I never realised that the symbol of a profitable airport was one where a BA and a VS had to sit side by side. Hmmm... That really just leaves LGW & LHR I guess, however it may be worth noting that @ LHR BA = T1 & T5 and @ LGW BA = North Terminal VS = South. Oh maybe the UK is just a commercial aviation disaster. Or maybe I just don't get this obvious "Aviation Expert" of a comment? :ugh:

As the more rational have pointed out, simply flinging passenger numbers around proves nothing about commercial viability. Stansted has always had to pay its users to go there, in effect, which is why it has ended up with the user profile it has got.

There was a time in the 1980's when Stansted's gross income, from all sources, was less than Exeter's which had 10% of Stansted's passenger numbers. Thius caused huge amusement/embarrassment at BAA meetings, because they were run by BAA (Stansted) and Airports UK, a BAA subsidiary (Exeter).

The point now is that no sensible financier will invest in an airport that is totally dominated by volatile users such as Ryanair. That was true before the credit crunch, its even more true now.

And that's why it's a turkey.

Not the biggest news Stansted will have this month, but Aurigny Air Services has announced daily Stansted Jersey Services from 1st May.

Every little bit helps.

PIA move to Swissport at Stansted
 

Well done to Swissport who have just won the PIA handling contract from the beginning of April. I guess Servisair didn't see that one coming.