BAA said no one with connections with Ryanair were welcome and then announce TPG ............founder one David Bonderman as one of 4 preferred bidders.

Ah well its BAA where inconsistency is consistent.

The Sun says...
 

Boris Johnson island plans snubbed as George Osborne and David Cameron prefer Stansted | The Sun |News|Politics

It reckons the Treasury prefers Stansted as the solution to London's airport capacity problems.

(Yes I know. I picked it up in a cafe).

For those wondering, Mr. Bonderman is Chairman of the Board of Ryanair and also a founding partner of TPG (short listed STN bidder).

This does seem to rather fly in the face of the statement about associations with RYR and the bidding process.

A4

PS With the news today that the PM and Gideon Osbourne "prefer" the idea of STN as a solution what influence is that going to have on the bidding process? I bet Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) are already foaming at the mouth! :E

A4

Am I missing something here. Was Stansted not upgraded many years ago to become London's third airport and is half empty. So where is the problem except the airlines what more capacity at Heathrow and Gatwick?

The problem is that major airlines don’t want to use the place and many low cost airlines have moved out or reduced services. That won’t change no matter how many runways are built there unless Heathrow is forced to close which won't happen.

Quite. The only way it could be remotely competitive would be if a high-speed rail link were built (as I suppose would have to happen to Boris Island and all those other capricious ideas).

BAA turned Stansted into a loco Airport and kept major Airlines out. Stansted under BAA has high fee's for what it is and the fee's keep going up as Airlines move out. BAA wanted Stansted to decline in all areas in the hope that this would aid its fight to keep Stansted and the only reason BAA wanted to keep Stansted is so they could keep the big players at Heathrow. in my opinion I think Virgin would do well at Stansted and people need to understand that not all customers live in or like traveling through or around London. American Airlines done very well out of Stansted but we all know they only came back to Stansted to bully Eos and Maxjet, who were damaging Transatlantic demand out of Heathrow I just hope the new owners of Stansted lower the fee's and work hard to attract new Airlines whilst keeping an eye out for those Airlines that only want to come and kill the threat to other London Airports.

No, but I would think a lot of people who use Heathrow at present don't pass through London anyway as they live to the south or west of London, and these people have the money. I can't think why Virgin would possibly transfer to Stansted: and more to the point there is absolutely nothing preventing Virgin transferring there now if they so wished.

So what about us that live north of London and there is a hell of a lot of us that travel past STN or LTN to get to LHR, both very good Airports that do not offer what we want or need.

I appreciate that, but obviously not enough people for airlines to think that your desired routes from STN or LTN are commercially viable; or they can make more money by using their equipment from LHR.

I beg to differ, it worked for Ryanair and Easyjet on European routes and then the short haul Holiday market so the next step is long haul and if its not the flag carriers then it will be the low cost Airlines who will step in and fill the gap, I'm not saying it will happen tomorrow or next month but it will happen and all because the flag carriers are stuck in their ways with blindfolds on its called progression.

And for the record and going back to my previous comment, American Airlines, Continental Airlines Maxjet and Eos have proved that they can fill planes out of Stansted.

Rubbish. Major airlines have tried Stansted and all left. Was El-Al the last one to go when it moved to Luton?

Only because they could no longer milk Heathrow of funds. They did this to take business away from Luton. Once this was stopped the good times were over for Stansted even though Stansted is a much better airport than Luton.

So why have the left Stansted or gone bust then? An airline can fill an aircraft and still make a loss if they can't charge high enough fares.

Quote: "It reckons the Treasury prefers Stansted as the solution to London's airport capacity problems."

This is an airport that's losing pax and one that has plenty of capacity. So let's build another rwy there. Who's the imbecile who thought of that one?

If they can't persuade airlines and pax to shift from LHR to LGW, there isn't a cat-in-hell's chance of having them move over to STN.



Quote: "Am I mising something here. Was Stansted not upgraded many years ago to become London's third airport and is half empty. So where is the problem except the airlines what more capacity at Heathrow and Gatwick?

The problem is that major airlines don’t want to use the place and many low cost airlines have moved out or reduced services. That won’t change no matter how many runways are built there unless Heathrow is forced to close which won't happen."

Exactly, it's really is not a difficult concept to understand!


Quote: "Quite. The only way it could be remotely competitive would be if a high-speed rail link were built (as I suppose would have to happen to Boris Island and all those other capricious ideas). "

Even that would make no difference: there isn't sufficient connectivity at STN. In fact there isn't any, it's all point-to-point!


Quote: "in my opinion I think Virgin would do well at Stansted and people need to understand that not all customers live in or like traveling through or around London."

VS had to move its hub to LHR in the late 1980s just to survive. Had it not done so, it would have gone the same way as Laker, BCAL, BUA, etc.: it's that whole business of insufficient connectivity again.


Quote: "And for the record and going back to my previous comment, American Airlines, Continental Airlines Maxjet and Eos have proved that they can fill planes out of Stansted."

Fill planes maybe, but not make money: they're not at STN now!

Agree with everything you say. Unless there is some massive Government edict, which would cost billions, you can't make airlines move out of LHR.

If STN were ever to become the mega hub that is suggested, they have a job to reinvent the place. STN has a feel of the airport that I least would like to fly to for London now. Gatwick has reinvented itself, GIP have done a spectacular job, and I will often choose LGW now. BAA are not the company for the job IMHO.

Furthermore, in order for STN to become the hub for London, LHR would have to close, otherwise airlines will not move. Also given Ryanair's dominance there, what attraction would STN ever hold in terms of point to point traffic, airlines would be too heavily reliant on it for interlining passengers.

As an aside, in consideration of STN and the apparent power that FR holds there, in terms of bargaining power. Why should this be so? Where else as an airport for London can Ryanair go to facilitate the sheer size of its operation, and yes FR could scale back STN if they wanted too, but London is just too big a market for them and STN is just too big a proportion of their business. Little wonder FR want to buy it....

LGW- full and too expensive for their liking
LHR- full
SEN- runway too short and not big enough
LTN- would it be able to facilitate a significant portion of FR's ops...?? Some yes, but LTN hasnt been a great London airport for FR to date, outside of Dub and a few other routes.

The capacity at LTN is set to double.

Although they'd bring in a significant number of passengers; I really wouldn't want all those additional stands and slots to go to Ryanair. The airport really needs to reduce its reliability on the Big Two. Try and entice more overnighting from Wizz and a "non-base" (whatever the terminology is) for several other airlines.

Stansted Airport plans to land direct routes to China
 

Stansted Airport plans to land direct routes to China

Stansted Airport has revealed it is trying to secure a direct service to China as air links are being demanded by British business leaders.

A spokesman told BBC Essex routes to China was an issue the airport "needs to focus on for future growth."

Long-haul flights to emerging countries will be examined by the Airports Commission as it looks at all London airports' capacity over the next year.

Stansted serves 18 million passengers a year, but has capacity for 35 million.

Mark Souter, head of airline relations at Stansted, said: "I was recently at a routes development conference in the Middle East talking to prospective long-haul airlines - that really is our focus.

"There is a huge amount of growth with the Middle Eastern carriers in emerging markets like China, south-east Asia and Latin America.

"Given that we have a lot of capacity to play around with here, clearly that has to be an area we need to focus on for future growth and to satisfy our passengers.

"We don't have those [China] routes from Stansted at the moment and I'm keen to build relationships with those airlines."

The airport welcomed its first ever passenger flight from China in August.

A specially chartered China Southern Airlines A330 carried more than 200 Chinese VIPs, performers and artists from Beijing for a cultural event
as part of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games celebrations

The Treasury has an appalling record of picking winners. The less that politicians and bureaucrats have to do with airport strategy, the better all airports will be.

Why not abandon this latest enquiry and accept planning requests from anyone with the (private) money to build capacity? That would sort out the sensible proposals.

Leaving aside the social/environmental impact, is there a purely commercial business case for substantial capacity expansion?

As a matter of interest, how are FRA, AMS, CDG etc funded? Suspect State rather than private funding.

At LHR - yes.
At LTN - yes.
At LGW - yes.
At SEN - yes.
At STN - no.

That's probably why the Treasury favours STN!

If Stansted is such a bad apple then why did BAA fight so long and hard to keep it ??? after all if what everyone on here is saying is true Airline don't want to fly to or from Stansted the ones that did could'nt wait to get out of it and only people south of London have the money to fly anyway.

I think the only reason BAA wanted to keep Stansted was to protect Heathrow and they did'nt mind making a loss for this to happen.

Im not saying that STN will ever overtake LHR but long haul out of STN will hurt LHR's Airlines.

OK this is winding me up now and it’s time to feed the trolls ...

Stansted has a bright future under new ownership; no one is going to invest billions in purchasing the asset unless they think they can provide a worthwhile return on their investment.

Stansted has a significant amount of real estate and underutilised facilities. There will be pressure to make a quick win to dilute Ryanair’sdominance, the easiest and largest available program is Wizz. The LTN crowd should not be under any illusions, Wizz don’t love LTN any more than Ryanair love Stansted. It’s all about the bottom line and Wizz will go to the location with the cheapest fees.
EL AL is a very conservative airline and it finally left Stansted after a concerted and long term courtship from Luton which I would assume included a financial offer that was difficult to refuse.

There is a market for European business flights outside Heathrow with both the City and Cambridge in easy travelling distance. Lufthansa have demonstrated that there is insufficent capacity for them at Heathrow by opening a Gatwick service (suspended for the winter) although this might have been a ruse to keep Frankfurt slots warm.

The BAA is largely the reason why Stansted has not done well and I would expect to see a wholesale clearout of management, once the sale has gone through, with the new owners bringing in their own people. Having a aggressive competitor is going to make it much more difficult for Luton and Southend. That said it’s not all going to go Stansted’s way any more than it’s all going to go Luton or Southend’s way.

Right I can get back to my Sunday now

There is no commercial viability to expanding Southend - absolutely not.

To be honest, not to sound like trolling, there is absolutely no point in Southend Airport.

That is an ever so slightly ignorant point of view. Why not take some pressure off Gatwick and allow passengers to use Southend? From London, the south of London and also from Essex and the Thames Estuary, it is often an abundantly convenient airport. If you believe that it serves no purpose then I would urge you to look at the number of people using it, ask yourself why they are using it (would they do so just to safe a fiver if the pain-in-the-arse factor was very large?) and then rethink the conclusion to your hypothesis.

Please, think before you type.

One of the reasons people are using SEN is that they have had their choice constrained i.e. they've got to. When EZY moved aircraft to SEN they also took the FAO route from STN. As of next year ALC is moving from STN to SEN. I've no doubt that SEN does have a market but there is a little bit of "engineering" going on to ensure that market.

A4

Go south or east from Southend and it isn't long before you hit salt water so it's catchemnt area is in 2 directions only.

A part time train service that is even slower than Stansted and 20 miles from the nearest motorway is not going to help the cause either but saying that getting through Southend's terminal is much quicker than most other airports but that will change as passenger numbers increase.

Always thought Stansted was a fine airport but the airlines seem to have issues with the place or it is issues with Ryanair?

LTNman

You really don't get it do you? Just proves how much you know (or not) about Stansted. In a nutshell, the reason why it's losing flights and passengers is because BAA massively overcharge airlines, blatently just to use Stansted as a fundraiser for Heathrow, hence the reason they spent so long fighting to keep an airport losing passengers! This extreme mismanagement makes Stansted an uncompetitive airport serving London and therefore airlines choose to fly elsewhere.

So all your previous posts simply saying that nobody wants to use Stansted is very wrong. If you had the slightest bit of understanding you'd realise that Stansted has a very bright future under the right ownership and has nothing to do with people or the airlines prefering Luton or Gatwick, it's just that they have arguably better management at the moment and after the Stansted sale, that could easily change!

I thought it was the other way round.

It seemed to be the case prior to 2007/8, but since then it's evidently been Stansted only existing to fund Heathrow!

The reason I say that, is because pretty much every route could be served at either Luton or Stansted, with no knock on effects for the passenger. There are no "new" routes, but just movement of aircraft from one place to another. I wonder how much Stobart's almost minimal fees persuaded McCall and Co?

2 million passengers a year is fairly worthless. London has too many airports already really.

Stansted is indeed a fine airport, but it is in a sparsely populated rural area. Southend has a population of over half a million within a 15 mile radius reaching out to Basildon and Rochford. Push that closer to a million once you reach Thurrock and Chelmsford. So one of the reasons for Southend Airport is to serve the needs of its immediate catchment and prevent them having to trail across Essex or around London. Another reason is to provide employment for a region whose employment opportunities have declined in recent years. A third is to provide a convenient gateway to London for foreign visitors, especially from the Netherlands, Germany and eastern Europe. A fourth is to make money for Stobart Group who have bravely invested in a time of recession.

The rail connection from SEN is only a few minutes longer than from Stansted and the speedy passage through the terminal makes up for that. This may change as the airport grows, but I can't see it growing much above 2.5 million pax a year anyway. It is no threat to any other London airport and is perfectly viable.

Aside from Ryanair and easyJet, there's hardly anyone to overcharge!
Given the white elephant terminal was built on the back of LHR profits, if what you claim is true, then that's par for the course.

I thought the reason why Stansted charges went up was because the airport was no longer allowed to receive money from Heathrow. This would also have stopped money passing the other way so your statement can not be true.

Think you are correct there but whoever buys the airport will be passing on the cost of the purchase to the airlines and their passengers so fees might not come down as you hope.

No, they most likely will not immediately but in time they may well do. BAA did say however that there would be instant cost savings and management costs would fall when they admitted Stansted could be run for £5 million cheaper per year after the sale so there is the potential for landing fees to come down.

The new manemgemt and increased competition for Stansted is enough stimulate interest and potential growth from airlines very quickly though by itself. Even for the low-cost carriers, the lowest landing fees is not everything. Whatever happens, Ryanair is committed to Stansted and the fact is, they will work very hard with the new owners and as they say "Stansted's managment can't get much worse" so things will be looking up in the next few months/years whichever way you look at it. I very much doubt a new ownership will make things even worse than they currently are!

And you think Ryanair don't have anything to do with it???
You try competing on any route that Ryanair currently flies or would fly to if you tried to muscle in! Who do you think might win that battle?
It will be very interesting to see if EZY finish off BA shorthaul at Gatwick now they have more than 50 Airbuses based there! BA just dropped Manchester which was one of their primary routes for instance, a route which they have served for years.

Quote: "EL AL is a very conservative airline and it finally left Stansted after a concerted and long term courtship from Luton which I would assume included a financial offer that was difficult to refuse."

This may have more to do with demographics rather than conservatism.

There is a large Jewish community in and around Hendon, many with links to Israel. It is much easier to access LTN from this area than STN (or LHR for that matter). Hendon-Luton is a few stops on the Thameslink and it's a few miles on the M1 motorway.




Several posters appear to be slagging off STN, but the point is that STN has a particular role as an airport handling mainly "no frills" (dominated by FR) and holiday specific or charter shorthaul leisure operations, with a healthy dose of cargo business. Longhaul operations have been tried, but have not been sucessful.

That said, it does "what it says on the tin", and cannot be criticised for it. However it is not an LHR substitute and never can (or will) be.

It is simple as that.


PS, suspect that it is highly unlikely that STN will land any direct routes to China.

Frank - digressing slightly, it's easier to reach STN from the Jewish areas of NW London than you might expect. National Express run a non-stop coach which originates in central London and runs from Golders Green to STN terminal every 15/20 mins during the day and every 30 mins at night. Coach takes about 55 mins from Golders Green to STN, while driving in a car takes about 45 mins.

Having said that, the fact that many of London's Jewish community live close to the train line between St Albans and West Hampstead does skew a Tel Aviv route in Luton's favour.

Quote: "Frank - digressing slightly, it's easier to reach STN from the Jewish areas of NW London than you might expect. National Express run a non-stop coach which originates in central London and runs from Golders Green to STN terminal every 15/20 mins during the day and every 30 mins at night. Coach takes about 55 mins from Golders Green to STN, while driving in a car takes about 45 mins."

Thanks for the info, sounds better than the links to LHR!

If Stansted is so poorly connected, why does it have the highest percentage use of public transport of any UK airport?

And if it's that bad a place, why is it the UK's forth busiest airport? And please don't tell me it's because RyanAir offer cheap fares because their prices have gone up and up over the last two years often being more expensive on comparison to alternatives from Gatwick. They no longer offer 1p, £5 or £10 each way flights and haven't for some time.

And can we please remember... Not everyone using a London airport resides under the arch at Marble Arch in central London and/or travels to or from this point by train.

I'm sure the 'Trolls' will have an answer to this? ;)

Ryanair actually only have about 12 million passengers per year at Stansted now, down from 15 million in 2007 so Ryanair is not really that likely to be a reason for holding Stansted back. If Ryanair were growing at Stansted whilst the total traffic at the airport was falling, then Ryanair would be the one to blame, but Ryanair is just as much as a victim as all those other airlines which have been ripped off at Stansted, it's just that their operation there is too big to move elsewhere.

In a way, airlines are better off than they were 5 years ago (when Stansted had a good range of different airlines) as Ryanair have less less now than they did then. So I suppose yes, I think Ryanair has not got that much to do with the Stansted declines. Stansted has proved it can have the large dominance of Ryanair and still offer a wide range of services from other carriers.

Quote: "If Stansted is so poorly connected, why does it have the highest percentage use of public transport of any UK airport?

And if it's that bad a place, why is it the UK's forth busiest airport? And please don't tell me it's because RyanAir offer cheap fares because their prices have gone up and up over the last two years often being more expensive on comparison to alternatives from Gatwick. They no longer offer 1p, £5 or £10 each way flights and haven't for some time.

And can we please remember... Not everyone using a London airport resides under the arch at Marble Arch in central London and/or travels to or from this point by train.

I'm sure the 'Trolls' will have an answer to this?"

Let's put this as simply as possible: there is nothing wrong with STN.

The point is that STN is not, and never, will be LHR. It will never become the UK's hub airport. It's a simple as that. Hope this helps.

PS Am not, never have been, and never will be a troll. It's just no fun!