24.6m passengers is only 3% more than STN's peak from 2007.
Would it really take another 7 years to hit 24.6m passengers ?

Quick sum:

£117m max profit made (2007) + £5m saving on overhead = £124m pro forma profit

£124m / 23.8m passengers = £5.21 profit per pax (2007)

£87.3m profit 2012 / 17.1m pax = £5.11 profit per pax (2012)

£201m profit projected (2019) / 24.6m pax in 2019 = £8.17 profit per pax

I can't see Mr O'Leary enjoying that kind of calculation.

Added to that, the new owners will have £1 billion to raise, and pay interest on - far more capital than BAA had invested.

Will Ryanair move to London (Cambridge)?:E

The new owner may decide not to make quite that much profit by cutting landing fees further to stimulate growth in passenger flights and numbers, on the other hand, they may want to to make further developments and improve the airport and by then, maybe Stansted won't be so reliant on Ryanair and the fact is, Ryanair don't have anywhere else to go in London and will probably be pleased enough, certainly more than they are now, to see new and seperate ownership from Heathrow.

Whoever the new owner is it won't be long before MOL has a falling out with them

Fancied a weekend in Tallinn (have seen it on the EZY list from STN for a while now and not been yet). Went searching for dates in November...guess what, only option is from LGW now!

So as of this Winter, where will EZY actually fly to from STN? It's starting to look like such a short list you wonder why they still bother.

I checked my logbook, and it's been a destination since 2004!

You're right though, and it is a concern to those easy staff based there.

DH

Getting rid of BAA out of Gatwick has shown what can be done.

BAA only ever wants to spend money in LHR and Stansted not having to contribute to the bloated BAA overhead will do very nicely on its own.

As for the €1 billion needed to be raised well Stansted has its own debts courtesy of BAA and they able to pay those.

Stansted has actually received a lot of BAA investment, one way and another. The whole terminal complex is only 20 years old, and there have been many investments in it since then. Plus lots of additional roads, new hangars and aprons all add up. That is why BAA want £1bn, and that's the amount the new owners will need to service from operating STN.
It's one of Ryanair's complaints that the regulatory asset base (on which charges are levied to make a return) is both too high, and rising.

Having last week been charged £72 for 27 hours of parking at Stansted, I am just wondering what the costs of a parking space for a day are in the accounts, and what my profit contribution might be.

I notice the car park is significantly emptier than it was five years ago.

Oh dear racedo. LHR pre 2008 was a disaster. Old terminals, cluttered layout, essentially bits falling down. Why would BAA let it go that far? Well they saw STN as the shining great white hope and sunk billions into making it work.

They built it on the back of LHR charges and profits, in effect BA paid for Ryanair's new base. It took a long time to turn that strategy around! LHR got the EuroPier in the 90s an that was pretty much it.

I might be naive here, but as long as the buildings are maintained in their current state, I can't see any obvious need for major investment at STN for quite a few years.
If the new owner wanted to significantly invest money in improving the airport in a value-for-money way rather than just normal maintenance, where would they spend the money ?
Since 2007, STN has lost between 6 and 7 million passengers per year, indicating that it's currently running well below capacity, so no need to call in the builders for the time being.

The only thing I can think of is the road between the terminal and the M11 which could maybe do with an extra lane, but not sure how costs for this would be attributed between Stansted and Govt and the local council may prefer passengers to be nudged towards using trains / coaches instead

David,

I think you are quite right, not a great deal of investment is likely to be needed. However, there will be ongoing maintenance and renewal (weren't the air bridges second-hand?) and I've a feeling STN's been getting tattier over the last 3/4 years while the uncertainty over its future was being resolved.

The biggest issue is the purchaser putting up £1,000,000,000 of someone else's money. That has to be paid for (interest + repayments) before dividends can be paid to the owner or profits re-invested in the facilities.

It used to be the profits from Heathrow that kept Stansted afloat.

Why

Sheer stupidity and short termitis long beloved of UK / US managers serving their masters in the stock exchange.

Ongoing maintenance happens every year so assume there is not going to be a huge backlog as quite simply losing anything mechanical will have its own implications on safety on a day to day basis and DoT would be involved very quickly.

Getting a Billion to buy will be surprisingly easy (crazy as it sounds) as despite there being a recession there is and will always be cash available for good investments with good long term returns.

They will soon be charging £2 a car drop off charge.

What Stansted needs is an owner who can reduce landing fees, just enough in order to make Stansted a strong competitor to the other London airports (which is still probably a lot since BAA have been hugely over-charging there). You can't really go majorly wrong with a few small infrastructural improvements and a few new bits and peices will help the airport sustain it's value-for-money factor and customer satisfaction levels.

The most important and urgent infrastructural development by far is improved rail links with trains leaving every 10 minutes rather than 15 and/or even more importantly, to get to Liverpool Street in 30 or 35 minutes to make them competitive to the Gatwick Express and rail services from Luton Airport Parkway to the capital. Stansted has got the advantage of being connected to Liverpool Street, walking distance from the Gherkin, Tower 42 etc. and even Tower Bridge can be walked to. It's probably the most central out of Paddington (from Heathrow), Victoria (from Gatwick) and St. Pancras (from Luton) with better underground and particularly DLR connections throughout London with Bank only down the road, rather than just being super close to just the touristy bits round Westminster and Embankment.

You are forgetting that Gatwick and Luton are both on the Thamelink line so in Luton’s case most trains cross London and don’t terminate there.

http://www.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk..._route_map.pdf

Yes but that has very little difference to the passenger who want to travel to London.

Expect that Luton serves 30 London stations without changing trains while Stansted serves 2. Have a look at the PDF file 2 posts back.