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.