Could it be anything to do with the Piper Warrior crash that happened around 17:00 yesterday? Crashed just off the coast of Blackpool.

No fog at MAN/BPL/LPL resulted in around 10 diverts into LBA including 2 Jet2s' one from BPL their ALC and the BUD from MAN. I believe a BMI from LHR and an AF from CDG plus various BA ac also and an Air Arran from MAN. All three airports were down to 100m with RVRs of around 250-300m. So no mystery really just weather.:}

Been a cracking weekend on the Costa del Leeds ;)

BA Diversions into Leeds?
 

Does anyone know the reasons why several BA flights have diverted to Leeds today? Cheers

Nasty fog at MAN. Looks like its going to hit in the morning again :(

So now that My Travel are mergering with Thomas Cook do you think we may get an the in house airline TCX to operate the Charter programme in summer 2008?

Instead off using the likes of Astraeus over the last 2 seasons or bmi british midland this summer 07 season.

I assume that MYT and bmi will have signed a 2 or 3 year contract on the base, seems like AEU got a 2 year contract.

Channel Islands routes
 

Heard yesterday Tue the 20th there could be flights operating to the Channel Islands again operated by an operator from down in the Islands is this a possibilty or is this just another one of those.

The route was dropped a number of years ago due to Doncaster and Thompson taking the pax althought eh Leeds fares were high.

From what I can make out if the fares are of LCC and not up market this service sould work>

Hopefully some day soon we will see Chnl Isl. Flights back at LBA. Its pathetic that the only Service is a WOW charter throughout the summer that is packed full and only available via a tour operator.

bmi's high end pricing saw off the passengers plus the reliability factor was also poor. bmi regional services seem to canx frequently in particular the CDG & BRU. I remember when the flight was operated on Fokker100 equip and usually full!

It suprises me that BlueIslands have not picked up the route as i am sure they would make a great sucess of it using the JS32! Even a Guernsy tie up would be attractive me thinks. There has been rumour for some time now of the Jersey becoming a scheduled regular flight from Leeds once again so lets hope this year it will come about!

If not, anyone fancy getting finance for a JS32 and setting up our own !! :}

Iam not sure wat the contract agreement is with bmi.. they are not operating as broader sched for MYT as AEU did the last two years. I think the whole bmi charter was very last minute and I cant see it becoming a long term thing... but i will try find out!

Would be very nice to see MYT and TCX base equipment at Leeds now.. they have the bookings from travel brands on both sides and could easily fill a 757 or 321 from their own hanger! Furthermore competition from TUI is now minimal!

Surely they could save money and stop chartering the likes of HairyGropa, Iberworld, FCUKtura and LTE. :p

Blue Islands were conducting a servey into what routes they should look into next just before Christmas. Unless they are taking their time, then it might be along time until we see a LBA route!

They said that a Northern route may not be viable. MAN will serve JER twice daily and Gernsey daily from this spring, so maybe a route from LBA would have too much competition from MAN - as JER pax can make a business trip within a day to MAN.

GLOBUSAUR.

I doubt very much if Blue Islands would look at sector lengths as long as Leeds with the Jetstrean after all the aircraft is a commuter bussiness airliner and not your bucket and spade or low cost carrier on that distance.

There is some thing in the pipe line if Blue Islands get a Guernsey-Southampton route licence they will be getting an aircraft or maybe more in the 50 seater market.


With the BAcon Dash 8 300 comming on the market and possible the odd ATR42 these are possible the aircraft that might operate on sector of Leeds length.

I agree that Leeds needs a connection to the Islands but needing the right aircraft and the money to spend on the route to make it work lets hope in the not to distant future the flowers will blume and more might be revealed.:ok:

They already fly Isle of Man from GCI-JER-IOM, must be a similar length to LBA? If so, no reason why they couldn't fly LBA.

mmeteeside.

Yes we know Blueislands operate the Channel Islands to IOM service but if you read the report the IOM is a finance centre and it is business travelers on it going for one or two days with a tooth brusn and a clean shirt.

Leeds would be differant more to you longer stay passenger meaning baggage which the Jetsreans has a pannier but will only take very small amout of baggage.

O.K. got the plot now.:ok:

Plus, you can fly LON/MAN to NYC for the same price as a return fare between IOM and JER/Guernsey!

BE would wipe the floor with these fares!

GBALU53

Leeds is the next largest financial centre after London in the UK

Wellington Bomber and mmeteeside

What we are talking about is the Channel Islands and the IOM are what they call in the finacial world as being off shore.

The have there own Government yet they take guide lines in some areas from the U.K. like drive on the same side of the road speak the very good Mrs Windsors English and there could be other.

Surely there is no competition though.

BE from MAN - 70 seater
Blue Islands from LBA - 19 seater

The price would also be in completely different leagues.

bmi regional have announced that they are to commence a new 6 times weekly French route from Leeds/Bradford to Lille. Flights will commence on Monday April 23rd 2007 and will be operated by the airlines Embrear 145 regional jet Aircraft. Flights are bookable on the airlines website with prices starting from £49 One-way including all Taxes and Charges.

An official announcement has made by bmi on its website. Use the following link to read it. www.flybmi.com

I wont post the full press release here as i don't know if it's against the rules.

Leeds/Bradford – Lille Lesquin
BD499 12345-- 10:15 12:30
BD499 ------7 17:55 20:10
Lille Lesquin – Leeds/Bradford
BD500 12345-- 13:40 13:55
BD500 ------7 20:40 20:55

That's an odd one! Sounds like an E135 route, with perhaps an E145 on the Sunday rotation.

Surprised FR don't fly to Lille. They fly to every other airport unheard of to the public knowledge!

I think Lille is only known in this country for their football (soccer) team, especially after last Tuesday...

Godd to see BMI venturing into untapped markets. Good luck to them!

Lille
 

JET2_at_blk
FR don't fly there because Lille is only about an hour from their big base at Charleroi.

Ow, I see now. cheers.

LBIA.

If you take it upon yourself to place links on here to promote a large company I suggest you ask them to pay PPRuNe for the pleasure. We DO NOT allow free ads. PPRuNe relies on revenue from advertising to give you and thousands of others the use of PPRuNe for free.

You can now have a short rest to ponder that.

PPP

Can I make a plea on behalf of LBIA (the user, not the airport itself). I found that piece of information (Shaheen Air) extremely useful, icluding the link. I appreciate your commercial sensitivity but the link itself was of considerable use to me for non-commercial but still important purposes.

You can, of course, seek it elsewhere yourself but it stays off PPRuNe.

PPP

bmi have 3 relatively low volume but very high yielding business routes to EDI, GLA and BRU which provide gainful employment in the morning, late afternoon and evenings for the Embraers. Using the downtime in between to operate leisure routes worked a few years ago but clearly doesn’t now given the developments in the low-cost market. Copenhagen and Lille will obviously not suffer from low-cost competition as much, but whether the routes prove attractive enough to the business market will remain to be seen. There has been zero “mass market” advertising of the Copenhagen route thus far which is either bmi adopting their usual telekinesis medium of promoting routes or they are working on corporate deals behind the scenes. Based on my personal connections with a large multi-national company for whom the LBA-LCY route should have been a shoe-in for a corporate deal, I suspect the telekinesis approach is being tried once again. If so, you are right to be pessimistic.
As we come back to time and time again, an airport like Leeds with a based regional arm of a star alliance carrier should be the perfect combo for FRA, MUC….blah blah blah. Slots, the influence of LH and no doubt other factors probably mean what you see at LBA is the inevitable result of where internal and external factors push them to. You cannot believe this is their first choice game plan

As for CDG, if PM had even the slightest whiff that the authorities at CDG were denying him slots such that a deal could be struck with AF, I’m sure we’d be hearing about it. The reason Jet2 aren’t doing more to CDG is either because (a) they don’t want to (b) they would like to, but they can’t fit it in with the summer schedule or (c) they do want to, they could fit it in, but they messed up the opportunity to get the bmi slots when they were handed back to the CDG slot-co-ordinators.

From this morning's Yorkshire Post. Little in the way of new news really other than to confirm the final bids have been submitted and a hint that some of the previous bullishness about the price might have been a bit too bullish.
682

THE groups competing to buy Leeds Bradford Airport submitted their final bids last night ahead of its privatisation which is expected to be completed next month.

Up to five groups have made the shortlist but those close to the bidding process say it could be as few as three.

Those believed to have made the shortlist include private equity group Bridgepoint Capital and a consortium involving construction giant Balfour Beatty which bought Exeter Airport for £60m earlier this year.

While speculation has suggested the airport could fetch as much as £150m it is thought that it is more likely to be about £120m.

The airport, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year and had almost 2.8 million passengers last year, is owned by Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Calderdale and Kirklees councils, with Leeds and Bradford each owning 40 per cent.

Richard Tollis, the aviation partner at accountancy firm Ernst & Young, who is leading the team handling the sale of Leeds Bradford for its local authority owners, said that a decision on a preferred bidder would be made at a meeting of representatives of the councils on April 4. Bidders will also have to outline their plans to develop the airport's services.Groups which have declared an interest include Regional and City Airports, part of Balfour Beatty's specialist airport investment and development group.

Another bidder is private equity group Bridgepoint Capital whose bid is being led by Sir Graham Hall, former chief executive of Yorkshire Electricity and the former non-executive chair- man of regional development agencies Yorkshire Forward and The Northern Way. Bridgepoint is being advised by merchant bank N M Rothschild, led by its Leeds managing director David Forbes, and law firm Addleshaw Goddard.

Looks like the YP got scooped by The Times; much more specific info in this article and the price is back up by another 20 mil. GE Capital and "a local developer" are new names in the hat also. Does seem to be a distinct lack of experienced airport people though.
682

LONDON (AFX) - Construction firm Balfour Beatty PLC has teamed up with a French infrastructure fund to submit its final bid today for Leeds Bradford airport, The Times reported without naming sources.

The company has formed a joint venture with Galaxy, the European private equity fund specialising in infrastructure projects set up by the French state-owned bank Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, to bid for the airport, which is now expected to sell for about 140 mln stg or 20 mln stg more than the original asking price, the Times reported.

The newspaper said that the five local authorities that own the northern regional airport have selected a handful of final bidders thought also to include GE Capital, the private equity firm Bridgepoint and a local developer. They have until today to submit final bids.

Balfour, which also tried and failed to buy London's City airport last year, bought Exeter City airport in October for 60 mln stg.

When do Jet2 start self-handling and how are plans going for this?

Self handling in LBA starts on 18th March. Not sure of further details.

Shuperstar, how are the new recruits shaping up?

Another established airport operator confirmed as having made a bid, which is encouraging.
682

Abertis bids for Leeds-Bradford airport
MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish infrastructure firm Abertis has made a bid for regional airport Leeds-Bradford, put up for sale by five local councils last November, sources close to the deal said on Wednesday.

The sources said the airport would cost between 175 and 200 million euros (120-137 million pounds), confirming a report in Wednesday's El Pais newspaper.

Abertis already runs three British airports, London Luton, Belfast International and Cardiff International, through its controlling stake in airport operator TBI.

British builder Balfour Beatty confirmed in January it was on a shortlist of bidders in an auction for the airport worth at least 120 million pounds.

Last week The Times said Balfour Beatty had teamed up with French state-owned financial institution Caisse des Depots et Consignations, to bid around 140 million pounds.

The move comes at a time of strong investor interest in UK airports. Newcastle, Bristol, Exeter and London City airport have all recently changed hands, while BAA, operator of Heathrow and Gatwick, was bought by Spanish group Ferrovial .

El Pais said the bids would be evaluated in April and May for the airport which increased passengers numbers to 2.6 million last year.

Dubai
 

Hello Everyone I am new here on PPRUNE. I have been lurking, reading posts for a while. I saw on here that Sharheen Air are to do a Leeds/Bradford direct service.

I wondered if It would be flying via Dubai. So I Looked up the Dubai airport website and LBA is one of the Destinations on there.


Big T

The majority of UK airports are listed at destinations when they are not direct destinations.

The five short-listed bidders for the airport are confirmed as follows:

ABN AMRO-infratstructure, with Faros Investment Partners, a specialist airport management company. This bidder has strategic support from the First Bus Group

Barclays Private Equity infrastructure with Churchill Airports, a specialist airport management company

Bridgepoint infrastructure fund

Regional City Airports led by Balfour Beatty, with infrastructure fund Galaxy and airport operators Koln Bonn and AerRianta

TBI

A preferred and reserve bidder will be chosen from the above list on Wednesday 4th April. The result will be communicated on the evening of 4th April as follows;

9:00pm - preferred and reserve bidder notified
9:30pm - airport staff told of the bidders
10:00pm - press release issued

682

Im intrigued as tow what the strategic support will be - could involve a minority shareholding or acting as a consultant?

And how come the announcement will be made late at night?

"And how come the announcement will be made late at night?"

Presumably to give an exclusive to Radio Leeds and the Yorkshire Evening Post ;)

Late night announcement?
 

Probably because the result will be dependent on a council executive meeting which is likely to be an evening affair....simple as.

In my experience, the Councils tend to work during the day...

No matter, it might be a typo. At least the waiting will be over. My money's on Balfour Beatty.