Finally some recognition of this issue!

Since the video won't last, I'll quote what Paul Simmons, the former UK market director said:

"Whenever an airport changes hands, we want to try and get a good deal and relationship with the new owners, so now we have long term 5 year deal which facilitates growth with Stansted's new owners MAG.

We have 27 routes out of Stansted at the moment and recently we started adding longer routes to places like Egypt and Morocco, so this gives us a framework to expand further."

What absolute meaningless waffle that was!

For starters they only have 25 destinations at STN and even that breaks down into 21 currently and 19 for the winter schedule.

Turns out also if you weren't aware that they axed their route to Morocco on 30 May.

Really does come to something when an airline doesn't even know what routes, and how many they fly!

It also doesn't take a genius to work out that longer routes mean less flights and passengers per aircraft, which of course isn't mentioned there's only 7 of those compared to 13 only 4 years ago. How that can be concluded as "a framework to expand further" I do not know.

Goes to show they cannot justify this and it's just not good enough really. Now they are doing the same thing to FCO, despite actually being one of their faster growing airports in recent years.

Clearly not a very forward looking company and just ruthlessly chop and change as and when they feel like to squeeze current yields to the maximum.

Needless to say much more really.

Im wondering if this if this an old news aricle, and today was the slow news day on when it was used.

You wouldn't usually put up a "former" manager to represent a company, so would appear he has moved on since doing the interview.

Nonetheless, the point remains. If that is the case then that demonstrates further decline since the 18% accounted for.

Also worth pointing out that after the MAG deal easyjet did a Luton deal. Maybe the Luton deal makes more sense to them and the MAG deal was used as a lever to get a better Luton deal.

Also do easyjet really want to take on Ryanair in their own back garden in a big way?

Is that quote from the same Paul Simmons that joined flybe in October 2013? People in glass houses....

I would imagine that any "expansion plan" would have been based on existing routes delivering the required pax and yield. Must admit I'm surprised this has made local TV news - just imagine if this happened every time Flybe had suggested expansion at a regional airport and it never happened. There would be no room for other news... :}:ok:

Still not bookable on their website. Won't happen?

That's exactly and precisely Ryanair got to be a market leader. "Forward looking" is just marketing BS come on.

I would be VERY surprised as this is not how business is conducted. MAG would put in place a charging framework to allow EZY to drive up yields at STN, however given the current focus on getting under one roof at LGW, I rather suspect they're concentrating on London elsewhere right now. Any route launch is a commercial decision for an airline usually, are the contractual terms public and are EZY bound legally to grow at STN? If not, forget it.

Korean Air Cargo
 

I've noticed on the Stansted Wikipedia page that it lists Korean Air Cargo as operating from the airport, it also says the same on the Korean Air Wikipedia page, I know that you can't always trust Wikipedia but have Korean Air Cargo reinstated flight at Stansted and if so are they replacing their LHR cargo flights.

I am sure Wikipedia is wrong as someone on here would have posted it, so if anyone can confirm one way or another it would be appreciated.

The flight ops director at Easyjet is ex Ryanair. There used to be 18 Easyjet aircraft in Stansted, there are now just seven operating a much thinned out route network. Every one of the routes abandoned by Easyjet is now operated by Ryanair. Colusion or coincidence ?

Inevitably, there is no further room to expand at an already over stretched Luton where customer experience is dreadful and ground handling is a farce. Gatwick operations are bursting at the seams where further expansion would appear to be a foot shooting exercise. Recent rumours at Stansted suggest an increase in aircraft establishment for next year. I wonder if the Easyjet board have gone cap in hand to RYR and MAG to ask for some their routes back, after all Monastir was a great idea........

This is true of based aircraft, depending on fleet availability, Gatwick does sit half empty for large parts of the day outwith the main pain points, even with one runway being utilised to the max.

Not according to their own website.

Rumour control says that annual Festival of Irrelevance known as the the "Which? Airport Report" is due out iminently, the PR consultants are all salivating and racking up their daily rates:

Has Stansted managed to steal Luton's crown as "Britains Least Favorite Airport"?
Will Southend hold on to it's title of "Best Liked but Least Used Airport"?

we wait with baited breath

Not defending Luton here but Stansted scored just one percentage point more than Luton last year. I can't see Luton scoring any more points this year and will probably drop to a lower score next year with the airport being a building site.

It is not difficult to already know what Luton's excuses will be but what defense will Stansted put up?

As for Southend? With a little used terminal I would expect them to come top but passengers are not heading for the coast to experience the delights of Southend, in fact numbers are dropping so the airport will probably get an even high score this year.

37 based aircrafts and 3 new routes (MXP, VRN & SOF) next summer
Welcome to Ryanair!

Looking at routes Ryanair operated over 2015 plus all the new routes beginning later this year and next year, I count 136 routes. Press release indicates summer 2016 will have 129 routes, suggesting 7 routes at Stansted may not be served in summer 2016.

Apart from Grenoble, the following routes do not appear to be scheduled yet for summer 2016

Tampere - possibly ends 24-Oct-2015
Clermont-Ferrand - possibly already ended
Rodez - possibly ends 03-Nov-2015
Strasbourg - possibly ends 24-Oct-2015
Haugesund - possibly ends 23-Oct-2015
Skelleftea - possibly ends 21-Oct-2015

Strasbourg may be linked to Karlsruhe. Tampere, Clermont-Ferrand, Rodez, Haugesund and Skelleftea are all likely candidates for no flights to Stansted in summer 2016

Well done MAG at Stansted
 

21.9m passengers flew from STN in the last 12 months, an increase of 16.3% - the highest rate of annual growth of any major UK airport.

Stansted had the busiest August since 2008, the 17th consecutive month of traffic growth.

The average load factor - the number of seats occupied on each flight - hit an all-time high of 93.5% in Aug as 2.2 million passed through.

A mixed bag from EZY's S16 at STN.

Disappointing to see some slight frequency reductions it seems on AGP and PMI and, as may have been expected, no continuation of KEF into the summer.

However, very slight increase overall thanks to the continuation of winter additions on AMS, BFS, EDI and GLA. Those 4 routes alone will now account for about 1/2 of EZY's traffic at STN.

Also seems to be some changes to the general timings with a better spread of flights through the day, helping somewhat to fill the quieter off-peak periods, particularly mid-afternoon.

More passengers = more queues at Border Control, less seating, longer queues at security etc.
Am I the only one who would like to see STN's pax figures fall, so as to make the airport once again the pleasant [relatively] place it was 10 years ago?

Hi Wowzz

I am with you. Stansted is the most depressing airport to pass through. I am helping your cause and helping reduce the pax numbers. I have started using East Midlands.

Terminal Transformation
 

The new retail outlets for the final phase were announced today:

Stansted names 18 new shops in final retail phase | Travel Retail Business

I see that Stansted and Luton are tied at the bottom of the list with a 40% customer score in the latest Which airport survey. I was going to post this on the Luton thread but as they were already bottom the shame can't get any worse.

I might be wrong but I seem to remember that last year Luton was bottom with 38% and Stansted scored 39% so at least they are both going in the right direction!

I don't take too much notice of passenger surveys/reviews as they're not at all representative of how many people go though the airport, or indeed are rated on what actually influences people's choice of airport... however worth noting that after almost entirely awful reviews for STN on Skytrax for a while now, I notice the most recent 3 are positive.

I can't say I'm really surprised, a noticeable improvement as of late. I think in part it's due to winding down after the busy summer period, but still much better nonetheless.

I've noticed the route through the new shopping area has now opened up (albeit most of the new shops are not open yet), giving more space. Noticeable increase in seating availability and overall a more relaxed feel. Looks much more complete and increasingly less like a building site. Passport control getting marginally better on the whole too.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but definitely an improving picture.

Just out of interest, does anyone know if the Newquay route will be back next year?

Adam

The Newquay route carried 3511 pax in August not sure how that works out LF wise

Isle of man was 6070
Newcastle was 4619

I work NQY out as 73% LF, assuming a Q400 operating daily.

STN-CPH
 

Looks as though easy are withdrawing from this route from November. Could this be as a result of the war down the road in LTN? Bit of a shame that there is now no connection between Stansted and CPH.

Any chance this could see a seasonal return next summer?

NQY-STN 73% for AUG on a first year route isn't a bad start ?
would of thought that its likely to return for 2016 ?




cs

If the STN-CPH cant work out of Stansted could it work out of SOUTHEND?

I'd say that both EZY and FR are over-saturating the market over at Luton. This is a route that LTN hadn't seen since the days of Debonair, if demand was so high why did no one take up the route after Debonair failed? There is such over capacity on the route that seats can often be found for £9.99 each way or less. It's not about supply and demand for an existing market, but creating a false market until someone gives up. Therefore any airline starting at STN or SEN would be crazy IMHO as it stands at present. The LON-CPH route is clearly over-served at present.

With reference to STN-CPH with EZY, weren't they supposed to drop it last year well ahead of announcing the LTN service? I believe they carried it on a reduced schedule of 2/3 rotations a week (correct me if I'm wrong), it used to operate at least twice a day if I remember right?

7/8 x daily at LTN isn't sustainable, fact. There will not be that level of service in 2 years time, probably sooner.

What will probably play out is FR move the service to STN, frequency will probably remain because they are also fighting Norwegian at LGW. Frequency at LTN by EZY will reduce to 2x daily, then 1x daily or dropped altogether. SEN would work I feel, but only if EZY attempt to stay in the market with the ease of SEN as their USP.

There are of course other externalities that could affect things, such as FR having such a spat with the unions in Denmark it is impossible for them to continue.

I can't even see the reason for this dog fight at Luton. Ryanair are entrenched at Stansted and have never expressed a desire to expand their Luton operation so why take on easyjet at their home base when they could quite easily do battle from Stansted?

How do you know that's true? - they may not have said anything publically but who knows what goes on behind closed doors - if you notice Luton has never had a tendency (unlike some) to declare its business before things are finalised - quite the opposite, it always waits until (or normally after) routes are are announced by the carriers. Also isn't the current CEO of Luton ex-Stansted - do we not think he will try to leverage any previous relationship he may have had with Ryanair (by comparison people seem to think it is only natural that the new Southend Boss will try to leverage his previous relationship with Wizz)?

I can see a few possible reasons:

EZY kept a token STN-CPH service for a time because:
1. substantial marketing support funds on the route would have been terminated or repayable to CPH if they had ceased the route completely before a certain date
or
2. they wanted to stop new route support funds becoming available (to RYR) if they allowed CPH-STN become a "new route" again (i.e. in competition with LTN).

Why did Ryanair choose Luton? - again there could be reasons:

1. Both carriers somehow qualified for new route support for CPH-LTN (but Ryanair could not for CPH-STN)
2. It was pure devilment by RYR to spoil EZY's party
3. the route planners in both these highly successful airlines have no clue what they are trying to achieve

Maybe, just maybe, EZY are trying to send a signal to RYR to move it over to STN out of their hair - however having unexpectedly got their hands on it all will Luton let RYR go without a fight (what would you do?).

You can't ever say aviation is a dull business.

On the subject of Scandinavia is the SAS STN - Gothenburg floundering?

The route doesn't start until the end of the month. 26th

Sorry should have been clearer - SAS website is not the best but I could only find 1 daily flight up to new year and nothing after that.

In able to book 1st of Feb - 4th Feb for 68 pound return, so SAS still very much around

ok well done - and is it still twice daily?

Wow.. I seem to remember SAS starting out of STN at least once before hope it works this time ?

Nigel

Hi, if I look at that particular week it shows it with flights operatating Sun, Mon, Wed, Thur and Fri

Updated
 

Eurowings has revised planned new service from Vienna, due to commence from 09NOV15. Planned new Vienna – London Stansted will be operating up to 9 weekly starting 04DEC15, instead of planned 6 weekly.

Further, all service will now be operated by Eurowings A320Sharklet (32A) aircraft, instead of previously planned Austrian A320.

EW5830 VIE0625 – 0735STN 32A 135
EW5832 VIE1815 – 1925STN 32A x6

EW5831 STN0825 – 1130VIE 32A 135
EW5833 STN2005 – 2310VIE 32A x6

Well done MAG/STN
 

Passenger numbers at Stansted Airport are still soaring, topping 22 million in a year for the first time in almost seven years.

And the total number of travellers on each flight last month were at record levels for any September in the Airports history.

The 22m milestone comes just eight months after the 20m-a-year barrier was breached as the total number of passengers passing through the terminal increased by 15.8 per cent in the last 12 months.

The number of passengers using Stansted in September was up nine per cent on the same month last year as the airport served over two million passengers for the fifth consecutive month, the first time this has been achieved since 2008.



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All they have got to do now it improve the woeful customer experience like its Bedfordshire neighbour. Could the experience ever be as good as Gatwick which seems to tick most peoples boxes?