They wanted to sell at the top of the market, not quite where STN was, that's reasonable.
I replied to a similar point under Dundee which I have moved here for relevance. I have no beef in local turf wars, I really, really don't.
Moved from the Dundee thread
I think STN is a great airport, I have used it many times with Ryanair. However I think an understanding of the demographics, why NAX moved to LGW, why American did not remain after EOS collapsed, why Continental gave up, why SAS, Lufthansa and Air UK went away are helpful. Also to understand why the remaining core operation is easyJet and Ryanair, Air Berlin and Germanwings, there are quantifiable reasons for what works and what went away forever. Domestic services on say, Do328s to Scotland are filed firmly under yesteryear. As for anyone who thinks the Aurigny service to JER/GCI is genuinely comparable is mistaken, one cannot board a train to the channel islands so one turboprop each day has 100% of the point to point market. This is really taxpayer subsidy to allow businessmen on expenses to save minutes in Scotland that they'll need to lose at the other end getting into London from STN, if it's for leisure that's even worse as EDI is already very accesible from Dundee. The taxpayer has absolutely no business here.
It's not about me hating "Team Stansted", I am just staggered at how in business, a lack of institutional memory (or stupidity / naivety) allows a lot of money to be wasted repeating the same mistakes.
I fully support the based airlines doing what they do but the waters get muddied badly when people witter on about expanding STN with two runways into a "hub" when they singularly fail to see why it's sitting half empty with one runway. It's a market behaviour, a real world, business friendly quanitfiable metric, not all that complex. I wholly support STN for what it is and try not to laugh to hard at those trying to sell it as something it's never been. Where else do you see Ryanair and easyJet in such "palatial" surroundings as some Irish CEO once said?

Aurigny nowadays rather than Rockhopper.
I think you need to educate yourself first.
Number of connections offered by Ryanair = Zero
Number of connections offered by easyJet = Zero
They are point to point low cost operators who don't offer connections. That's the whole business model, by all means fly from Scotland to STN and connect but at your own risk and more than likely on easyJet....
= tribal silliness really, come on.

Funny how a lot of us think the same though. :ok:

Let's move on to some positivity. Some of you are beginning to make my eyes bleed to be honest. :zzz:

They had pretty much forgotten about it and just wanted to offload.

I think BAA is better left in the past. They were a nasty, greedy airport monopoly that spared no thought to anywhere or anyone other than Heathrow. They epically failed and finally paid the price. That's why they no longer exist! What they are now known as I think explains exactly where their priority is clear enough! Not to mention the suggested sales of SOU, ABZ and GLA.

But bizarrely everything Skipness refers to is under BAA management. Yet just a year into MAG ownership and Stansted becomes one of the UK's fastest growing airports and it's fair to say new carriers are coming in quicker than they have done for several years. Funny how that happens. Some co-incidence would you say Skipness?

MAG are going the exact same way as BAA, they are gathering a monopoly in the UK to!!!

Before STN MAG were all MAN like BAA were LHR and didn't do much for there other airports oh wait they sold one instead.

As I alluded to they tried everything to make it work, to save face, then just lost the will to continue pushing it. Terminal 5 was given the green light twenty years late and LHR became a delayed focus as the shameful neglect there was addressed belatedly. Bare in mind the LHR airlines had been angered by substantial capital investment being focussed on STN when they were paying serious money to LHR and seeing facilities fall into neglect. STN was the major focus after Terminal 4 and later the North Terminal at Gatwick opened.

MAG can do all sorts of things to get traffic in, BAA got Continental, Lufthansa, SAS, American Airlines (twice) but all were unsustainable. Right now MAG are getting the traffic back up, I genuinely hope they succeed where BAA failed. It's re-writing history to suggest they didn't try very hard though.

So a year on and Stansted under MAG ownership has achieved...

• Thomas Cook increasing based units from 1 x A320 to 2 x A321
• Air Maldova (poached from LGW)
• Atlantic Airways (Poached from LGW)
• Aegean Airlines (Return of at peak seaon)
• Ryanair increase/return of of 7 based units
• FlyBe in the disguise of Logan Air (as announced today)

We should also now see potential future growth from EasyJet. Not bad really for a year seeing it was stagnant under BAA's ownership. Will be interesting to look back in a years time. :ok:

One thing I will add is that having used Stansted recently the new security area looks a bit cheap and shabby like some poor MFI job. I do hope they improve on it.

So we have a list of gains but what has Stansted lost in the last year?

There are a few easyjet aircraft based at Southend I am sure MAG would like to get back.

Welcome to MAG terminal redevlopments....

As I have always said Stansted is a great airport and I am a fan of the place but I wonder why the business jet community has never really taken to the place and prefers Luton.?

The main reason STN fails to attract Biz-Jets in similar numbers to LTN is location,location,location!

Im hoping Stansted will get some long haul flights back, would be really great to see, but i agree Stansted has improved since BAA have gone, so lets forget about them and look to a brighter furture:ok:

It has a better location than Farnborough I would have thought when it comes to getting to central London.

Couldn't agree more. It looks very poor. Same can be said for the new and 'improved' UK Arrivals.

Security clearance is a lot quicker now though

Long delays and several cancellations today due to Italian ATC strike!

Schedules at Stansted for S14 look a lot less peaky than they have done for several years.

Typically from about 13:30/14:00 till 16:00 in the afternoon, the place usually pretty much went dead.

That no longer seems to happen where these times are significantly busier for S14. The busiest periods around early afternoon and early evening are also generally slightly less intense than previously, helping to make a much better spread of flights across the day.

Of course there's still going to be some busier and quieter periods, but nowhere near as extreme. Only a brief spell in the morning at around 09:00 or 10:00 and then in the evening for a short time about 21:00 or so, are generally quieter.

To put this into context, here is the Departures on a Monday between 13:00 and 15:00 in S13 compared to S14:

S13
EZY3103 13:05 Nice
FR2281 13:05 Warsaw-Chopin
QS2175 13:05 Gran Canaria
EZY259 13:15 Belfast-International
EZY3245 13:15 Ljubljana
FR2462 13:15 Bydgoszcz
EZY3189 13:20 Lyon
FR8474 13:20 Poitiers
FR032 13:30 Oslo-Torp
FR8182 13:35 Fuerteventura
FR225 13:40 Dublin
FR908 13:40 Cork
FR1396 13:45 Oslo-Rygge
FR2612 13:45 Santander
FR3004 13:55 Rome-Ciampino
FR4196 13:55 Milan-Bergamo
FR8132 14:00 Gran Canaria
GR625 14:20 Guernsey
FR8592 15:00 Bergerac

S14
EZY3103 13:05 Nice
FR4196 13:05 Milan-Bergamo
FR3004 13:10 Rome-Ciampino
EZY259 13:15 Belfast-International
EZY3071 13:15 Munich
FR2281 13:15 Warsaw-Modlin
FR2462 13:15 Bydgoszcz
FR1396 13:20 Oslo-Rygge
FR225 13:40 Dublin
FR908 13:40 Cork
FR2612 13:50 Santander
TOM5116 13:55 Gran Canaria
9U834 14:00 Chisinau
EZY3191 14:00 Lyon
FR032 14:05 Oslo-Torp
FR7965 14:05 Osijek
FR8132 14:10 Gran Canaria
FR8546 14:15 Berlin-Schonefeld
FR8182 14:20 Fuerteventura
GR625 14:20 Guernsey
FR105 14:30 Shannon
FR754 14:35 Frankfurt-Hahn
FR2404 14:35 Munich-Memmingen
FR8345 14:40 Porto
TCX7982 14:40 Bodrum
FR8592 14:50 Bergerac
FR9275 14:50 Eindhoven
FR5986 15:00 Madrid

FR,FR,FR,FR,FR,FR,FR,FR,FR,FR,FR,FR,FR,FR,FR,FR,FR,FR,:zzz:

Almost a one horse airport:E The airport could do with a bit more diversity to give it a really secure future.

Thought EZY agreed with MAG to increase their flights from STN, may of had a change of heart

But still with almost double the amount of passengers as LTN & 18 times SEN & Rising :E

Very true but another way to look at it is that Luton is running at almost full while Stanated is half empty:E

Joking aside what is Stansted's present capacity? What is Stansted's growth rate if you strip out FR?

And we all know if MOL has a hissy fit with management then he'll threaten to withdraw services as he demonstrated in the past.

BA will withdraw their freighter service next month. Will Air Atlas operate affected routes in their own name?

STN needs to do more to promote better links to the airport which are still a pain. The rail network needs to be more reliable along with the M11 which clogs up frequently. Parking charges don't help which put people off driving. Come on management talk with National Rail and improve the rail links from the Midlands North especially. A 2 car DMU rumbling through the countryside in 4.5 hours is no good.

Uh-huh. At least other airlines are slowly increasing here, but still far too much orange and harps for my liking.

Atlas Air will not be allowed to operate the routes in their own name. That's the whole reason Global Supply Systems was set up in the first place.

Another healthy increase for passenger numbers at Stansted for January `14 +7.2% making that the 5th consecutive month of growth,MAG are obviously doing something very right & with all the new contracts for Summer `14 growth & beyond still to come http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...ies/thumbs.gif..............Thanks to FRatSTN for previously posting the info regarding the "filling in" of schedules during the quiet afternoon zone at Stansted for Summer`14,this bears out the statement added when MAG/Ryanair announced their 10 year deal, that Ryanair would & would indeed need to add/move some schedules to take advantage of the quieter times of day at Stansted...so looking forward to further take up in future years as the contract rolls on:D...Regards The Southside..

Who was it who claimed that STN is the wrong airport in the wrong place?

Let's not do it again.

From beginning of April, Air Moldova will now operate on Tuesdays and Saturdays instead of Mondays and Fridays.

Flight times are pretty much the same though, only 10 minutes later than previously. 9U833 now arrives in Stansted at 13:20, with 9U834 leaving 50 minutes later at 14:10 on both Tuesdays and Saturdays.

But the most interesting bit is that ALL flights will be upgraded to the Airbus A320 and will no longer be operated by the Embraer 190. It would seem the route is doing quite well back at Stansted and despite Carpatair giving Chisinau a go from Luton.

The not so good news is that it seems Aegean Airlines has removed the Stansted flights for the summer, leaving just the 3x daily Heathrow flights. Presumably Ryanair starting a daily Athens flight has something to do with it!?

Aurigny increase Stansted flights
 

Just been looking at Aurigny website and found they are now doing separate rotations to Guernsey AND Jersey every day from 1st June. Therefore they now have 14 as opposed to just 8 weekly departures. New schedule is as follows:

Sun - Fri
GR622: Dep. Guernsey 09:30, Arr. London-Stansted 10:40
GR443: Dep. London-Stansted 11:10, Arr. Jersey 12:25
GR444: Dep. Jersey 12:55, Arr. London-Stansted 14:10
GR627: Dep. London-Stansted 14:40, Arr. Guernsey 15:50

Sat:
GR624: Dep. Guernsey 11:40, Arr. London-Stansted 12:50
GR445: Dep. London-Stansted 13:20, Arr. Jersey 14:35
GR446: Dep. Jersey 15:05, Arr. London-Stansted 16:20
GR629: Dep. London-Stansted 16:50, Arr. Guernsey 18:00

Just seen this on Stansted's web site
Sorry if its been talked about on here but I can't find it anywhere.

Manchester Airports Group (M.A.G) is today celebrating the first anniversary of its £1.5bn acquisition of Stansted Airport, which has opened up an exciting new chapter in the airport’s history.
In the first 12 months of new ownership, Stansted has already notched-up some big achievements, including:
launching a £260 million investment programme to improve the passenger experience;
agreeing long term growth deals with Ryanair, easyJet and Thomas Cook;
attracting new airlines: Air Moldova, Atlantic Airways, Loganair, Aegean, Transaero;
returning the airport to growth for first time since 2007;
securing CAA agreement to free Stansted from economic regulation;
gaining corporate business support for direct long-haul services.

The bit I'm talking about is long term growth deals
Transaero ? What route are they doing ....

Transaero
 

Transaero ? What route are they doing ....


they operate a TU204 freighter to and from Moscow on Saturday nights in summer.

Could a PAX/CARGO flight work rather than just a cargo flight?

STANSTED - 2
 

Any news on Qatar ?

What aircraft will TOM be basing out of STN this summer, purely 738's or a couple of 752's too?

STANSTED - 2
 

That's good news. Any idea who the handler is

Missed opportunity maybe for GSS. Could they have offered a wet lease B777 to Qatar Airways under a variation of their B747 AOC ?

Stansted Airport Plans Premium Lounge for Blue-Chip Clients

Interesting?

The lounge is a great addition, yes it could mean long haul is imminent but either way it is a useful tool to raise the profile and image of the airport amongst the business community and premium travellers and get more of them passing through. It fits well with the enhanced EZY & FR offer.

They need an article in Canary Wharf magazine as SEN have done with their message being almost exclusively ease of use and the first class lounge - bang on for the demographic. The actual destinations served barely get a look-in

According to an interview with the Etihad Regional CEO, Etihad Regional has shelved its plans to serve DUS from CBG and LCY due to a lack of suitable slots at the DUS end and will instead take over AB's DUS-STN route with up to four daily flights, using its Saab 2000s and thus freeing up the Q400 currently used by AB to STN.

Not sure if that is a smart move...

They would have to do pretty well to screw it up, this is the one route that has held its own over the years against true LCC competition and I think was one of Air UK's first international services. This one should be seen more as a DUS-East of England rather than just London area. Presumably it would still be sold through AB

Increased frequencies are good, though it's an overall drop in seats of around 34 per day. It would allow better connections to AB's long haul routes.

Having Etihad Regional at STN wouldn't be a bad thing. If you're going to have a small regional player on board you could do worse than it being one backed by one of the world's most financially powerful carriers.

STANSTED - 2
 

Any news on Qatar handler yet. Has it even gone out to tender !!