Well I did say rumor, and a probably a fairly poor one with Baby and Ryanair having a large 73 presence at EMA......

Speedbrakes
 

I don't think there is much doubt about Jet2 intention at East Mids, they are investing heavily in brand awareness and on good time keeping at EMA just has they did at Leeds with the first 737 on AMS and having a service back up from day one.

It is a much larger catchment area than Leeds and the loads and yields have been excellent so far. I have heard 2 757's and 1 733 from the start of April next year, what can WW do if anything, they are far smaller than Jet2 with only dozen aircraft & 5 or 6 at EMA Jet2 have night mail aircraft there anyway.

I don't see long term WW in the bmi group, Jet2 looked at them when LH had its car boot sale as did others, but no one was interested,the problem was the high lease cost of their old fleet and high pilot labour & pension costs with many earning over a £100k, perhaps with lease running out and a pay freeze that might change in the future, shame really because they started early and could/should have been a big player, but Sir bled it dry

Ryanair wont give a fig what Jet2 do its not the same market and Jet2holidays are taking a bigger and bigger share of Jet2 flights helped by the pound against the Euro and people learning that a do it your self holiday is often much more expensive than an all inclusive one and a lot more risky if things go wrong or you get flight cancellations as Easyjet are having to do with lack crews or Ryanair do when it suits, Jet2 have a much bigger incentive to get you were your going to because its costs them much more to cance.l

Come back to BHX!! There's plenty of space (apron and terminal ;)) and nothing to fear from FR who are continually contracting their base there. I'm sure BHX management will welcome a bigger Baby with open arms.....after all there's precious little else on the horizon for BHX at the mo!!

That's true, I'd say an average load of 190-200 on all my flights at least.

Bookings are already good for next summer apprently, even the new ones that compete with Baby......

Jet2 have no Royal Mail aircraft at EMA, they fly in and out, none are based.
As to next year, the MD has said 1 more 757, no mention of 737s at this time.

Thomson should be basing a B752 and B738 at EMA for the winter season, both winglet B73H are off to Canada on lease with a couple of others, so it will be a non-winglet B738 and non-winglet B752

Current Vacant biulding that could be used as a........
 

The ICC members have been told by EMA route development team that there is a current vacant building at the airport that could be developed into a second terminal to be used for long haul services exclusively. They are currently looking for a direct service to India, a Middle Eastern Hub service and a N. American link.

I cant for the life of me ID the vacant building that could work.

Any advise???

Second Terminal
 

Extracts from the ICC meeting minutes state:-

"EMA has the potential to develop a vacant building into a second dedicated terminal and could fund this for a potential customer." and

"EMA confirmed consideration of using a second terminal as a business terminal"

There is no connection with the airport's "long-term aims" of attracting further long haul routes, only perhaps through an assumption that this possible development might encourage an airline to commence a route to a European hub.

The only building which could possibly form the basis of a second terminal would be the old Post Office hub. This would require substantial development, but it is close to the check-in hall and the elevated walkway runs next to it on the airside?

Penny is Leaving.............
 

Penny Coates has got a new job within the MAG group a promotion. I See the job for MD is going to be advertised internally. Lets hope we get someone with abit of airport experience. But advertising the job internally looks to me they are trying to save money. Lets hope there are No suitable candidates and we get someone like John Spooner. Just hope they dont get anyone else from Walmart:ok:.

Amazing the airport does not even mention the above yet on the website.

Lets just hope who does come in they stand up for the airport and get things going forward again. Not all the profits going one way up the A50.

Second Terminal..
 

UPS Building?

Thou i think the above was always ear marked for a new arrivals hall.

direct flights to India, yeah and the UKIA Taliban Airways will rise from it's grave.. See EMA is 18% down on 2009 traffic the biggest drop across the UK Airports...:\

I cant see more passengers coming during this winter with Ryanair reducing the fleet from 6 last winter to 4 this winter. Yes, ok Jet2 are here now, but are only operating a few flights a week extra which won't make up the figures as well as there being no easyJet

last winter fr used 4 a/c with somedays a 5th one being used for half a day.

Note that EZY were only operating to end DEC 09, so yes, the current figures part reflect thier absence, the figures for JAN11 will be a true YoY reflection of EMA without EZY.

Agree with the need for a european hub connection. The new MD should be making this a priority.

The WW flights to AMS and CDG are fine point to point, but EMA should be out courting AFKL subsidiaries Britair, Regional or CityJet, or KLM CityHopper to establish (or re-establich in KL's case) a 3x or 4x daily service in to its hubs. A viable alternative would be LH sub, CityLine in to FRA or MUC.

I think long haul point-to-point is the wet dream of a few. But it is an absolute fact that EMA is failing the local small & medium business community, as well as missing traffic from local international corporates like Rolls Royce, Toyota, NEXT, & the MOD by not attracting a global airline to feed full interline services in to its hubs.

Their is no reason EMA cannot continue to push LoCo leisure traffic, but it is a shameful omission that a feed in to a European hub is absent.

We live in an period where airlines will be unlikely to start speculative routes, but they are and will respond to clear business proposals put fwd by airport companies and RDAs.

So come on EMA, and East midlands Dev Agency. Pull you fingers out and get knocking on some doors!

Isn't Schiphol a 'European Hub'? Twice daily flights from EMA to AMS

Accepting that it may not be ideal for such a large catchment area given that 2 carriers compete on LBA-AMS both flying morning, noon & night!

BRU may not be FRA, AMS or CDG, but Brussels Airlines codeshare on bmi's service and connections are possible across Europe and Africa and to a few other cities like NYC. EMA does currently have a 'hub' link

Flybar:

AMS is of course a European hub - and one of the best from a pax transfer point of view.

However, WW are just a loco carrier that offers point to point travel only. So, if for example you want to fly from EMA to, say Moscow, you would have to buy your ticket from WW, and pay all the money-grabbing supplements for seat reservation, baggage, credit card payment and whatever else they can think of to charge for; then buy another ticket from KLM for the AMS/MOW leg. On arrival in AMS you would have to pick up your bag, go through arrivals (immigration controls), then recheck-in, or at least do a baggage drop in departures before going back through border controls, and to the gate for the AMS Moscow leg. A right palava.

If you book KLM from BHX, LBA, MAN or wherever you check in at the UK departure airport, along with your bags, get two boarding cards, and apart from security processes at Amsterdam it's seamless transit to Moscow. You don't touch your bag until it arrives, God willing, on the carousel at the Moscow terminal.

Moreover, if you compare the costs of a through ticket on one carrier (say KLM) from a UK airport via Amsterdam to pretty well anywhere, with adding the costs of two separate tickets (UK-AMS then AMS-destination) the latter option will almost always be more expensive.

This is why EMA simply fails East Midlands business by not being able to offer a proper ailrine service, with interline connections via anywhere other than Brussels through British Midland and the Star Alliance hub there - and Brussels is by no means the best interlining hub in Europe.

egnxema is quite correct in that instead of having pipe-dreams about long haul the management needs to start sorting out "proper" airline services to serve the business community, most of whom currently travel either via BHX or MAN.

A very interesting post by ATNotts.

At EMA it would seem you are crying out for the flights and interlining opportunities for business travel that BHX is IMO well served by (LH, LX, SN, AF, KL CO (for now!) and EK) whereas leisure users of BHX are increasingly being forced to travel to EMA (amongst others, LTN, LPL, BRS) to take non stop 'leisure/optional travel' flights to destinations across Europe that are not Spain or the Canaries (of course you can interline to FCO, MAD, VIE, TXL and so on and so on from BHX but at a vastly higher price and with a huge time penalty compared to a direct loco flight) What a strange situation :rolleyes:

The problem it would seem is: is there enough demand in the region to have both airports hosting a range of short and long haul destinations by both full service and loco carriers? The answer it would appear is not really - full service congregate (and do well) at BHX whilst loco seems to thrive a lot better at EMA than BHX. I am not saying that EMA could not support a full service interline carrier - I think KLM would be great, they have gone great guns at LPL and dont see any reason why they cant do so at EMA, but for now it seems that we have somewhat needless full service airport/loco airport divide in the Midlands leaving travelers of all persuasions frustrated!

This is a fair point gayfriendly. I was in BHX Friday and I felt that the place is majorly underserved in the afternoon/evening at times very few aircraft around, surprising given that Birmingham is the UKs second city. People on my flight that I was chatting to seem to recognise EMA as an alternative LOCO airport, and I fear that the airlines will feel this too. Moreover, BHX will be as aggressive in trying to woo full service airlines and I doubt any of the BHX legacy carriers would be too interested in EMA in these times.

Interestingly, what is the approx annual traffic at BHX?

EI-BUD

BHX is currently at 8.7m pax, it was as high as 9.6m a few years ago.

The current facilities could handle twice this amount, so yes well under utilised.

We should be in the 17m-20m pax range by now on par with STN & MAN.

As you say Birmingham is the second UK city and its airport has historically under acheived, hopefully things will pick up soon and with the forthcoming runway extension I do thing long haul opertors will see BHX as a London alternative.

I think EMA needs a link to AMS again. My regular route is to Umea or Vilhelmina in Sweden which means going via Arlanda. I used the old KLM service from EMA and took a connection and also the Sterling one which was even better for me being direct to ARN, sadly neither in existance anymore.

These days I can either take the KLM from BHX when I'm off to Vilhelmina or go down to LHR for a SAS flight which gives me a through fare to Umea.

I'm sure this type of trip is just an example of the many made each week from the East Midlands, I'm equally as sure that with a hub connection many of the same people would be using EMA.

The current arrangement with Bmi is pretty mush useless and/or expensive as a hub service, for example I have just checked for my next flight in Sept and it's three times as much using Star Alliance from EMA than taking the SAS from LHR and so far I have never used it - as much as I'd like to support local flights they do have to be competetive.

July Pax
 

Source CAA:

July 494072 -1.8% Rolling year 4239786 -15%

I thought July might have been up but there have been a lot
of changes in the 12 months.

- 3 easyjet based
-1 IT aircraft?????

+1 Ryanair
+1 Jet2
+2 Baby?

I suppose the devil will be in the detail with the schedule/charter split.

Pete

2009/10 - Recession
Jan 10 - EasyJet Leave
Jan/Feb 10 - Snow, airport was closed for hours and days at a time
Mar/Apr 10 - Volcanic Ash closing airport for 2 weeks
May 10 - Jet2 Arrive
Jul 10 - 2x extra B733's from WW


Considering all of this... 1.8% isnt that much... Passenger figures are down about 0.8m compared to last year, however, considering the volcanic ash, about 0.5m weren't able to fly. Looking at the Aug figures, I would be suprised if the airport didnt match 2008/2009 figures or even grow

East Midlands Airport has fall in passengers and profit

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...8764201_-3.jpg The volcanic ash cloud also disrupted flights at the airport
Passenger numbers and profits have fallen at East Midlands Airport because of the recession.
Figures show that nearly one million fewer passengers used the airport in the past year compared to the previous 12 months.
Passenger figures dropped from 5.4 million between March 2008 and March 2009 to only 4.5 million a year later.
But airport bosses said there were now signs of a recovery as the economy slowly picked up.
'Tough year'
Airport revenue also dropped from £58.3m to £49.7m in the same time period, while profits fell from £14m to £9.7m, figures from the airport's parent company Manchester Airport Group showed.
Airport spokesman Barry Thompson said: "It's been a tough year - it's been a recession for every company in the region and the whole country.
"We have ridden the recession pretty well. I don't think anybody could have avoided it as it has been the worst in 60 years.
"We have been going through tough times at the airport as well."
The airport was also hit by flight cancellations caused by the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud in April and May. The ash cloud disruption cost the airport more than £1m.

Ah how wonderful management spin is - the reality being that EMA performance is very close to the worst of all UK airports.

The origination of this current stagnation was when the airport prostituted itself to Michael Bishop / British Midland, after Go set up shop. Until that point, there was a steady but slow growth in traffic out of EMA. When Go moved in, SMDB got scared and in a cynical knee-jerk reaction converted British Midlands's EMA regional routes into bmibaby, with the airport supporting him through stupidly offering large discounts.

All of those old full-service regional routes - AMS, CDG etc. - were doing OK before that, but they needed a combination of business and leisure passengers to fill the aeroplane to make economic sense. Now of course, as the airport let bmi move into the "low-fare" sector through the vehicle of bmibaby, the low-fare sector skims off much of the leisure traffic, and it therefore becomes much hmore difficult for main stream operators to move into the routes and make them work.

Business relies on connections - with the current offer from WW, no business travellers will want to fly from EMA to [say] Moscow via AMS, partly because of the extra costs, through checkin and baggage hassles, but mainly because of the risk of an off-line connection in AMS which means that if WW runs late out of EMA and a connection is missed, KL has no liability to sort out the mess for the passenger in AMS.

The leisure market is fickle - just consider what frequency EMA had to PRG just a year or two back and look at it now. Boozers and shaggers can only go to such places so many times, and when discretionary spend is restricted they cut back at least as much as, if not more than, business travellers do. RYR are downsizing in Eastern Europe, because the market isn't there anymore. Business traffic is subject to downturns, but it bounces back sooner or later. Rather misguidedly, EMA set up their stall for the bottom end of the market for short term gains, and they are now reaping the rewards - or lack thereof.

I'm really pleased to hear that Penny Coates is moving on - she has done absolutely no favours to the airport, and subscribed it to the ongoing low cost mentality (pile it high, sell it cheap was a predictable approach from someone who did not know the airline industry and came from Walmart, I suppose). I'm just surprised that she's supposedly been promoted rather than fired - but that says a lot for the people running MAG too.

A

People like that never get fired..! They only prosper and have another executive role fall in their lap..

Airports are a service industry, they serve the airlines and the customers of airlines. It is almost impossible to persuade an airline not to do what it wants to do or to do what it doesn't. They therefore make the best of the opportunities that exist to make enough money to grow the business and hopefully turn a profit. They also try as hard as possible to persuade operators that unfulfilled business opportunities exist. Not easy when there's plenty of competition, such as the UK, even harder in a recession and a cutthroat market.

The idea that faced with an airline that decides to change from a full service operation to a low cost operator an airport has any control over its destiny is fanciful. Similarly the idea that any management team, however good can harvest routes and operators from elsewhere without simply giving away money is rather shown up by history.

Good or bad, EMA has managed to provide a pretty good service and show a profit. Many other UK airports in that category?

EMA Pax
 

As at 31.07.10 the rolling 12m is 4,243,952

They were at 4,246,599 in 12m to 30.11.03

So back to where they were 7 years ago.

Peaking at 5,731,882 as at 31.10.08

By the looks of things we are going to be down on the KBR SSH flight due to kiss flights as well as a few viking by the end of the summer including HER, possibly back for S11, but who knows

Hahahaha, they would be better investing in what they have first, I have flown into some third world airports that have better maintained taxiways than those past the old JCB shed...... And if you want petrol, buy a 4 wheel drive first, because the potholes on the entrance to the fuel pumps at the on site petrol station would make the Paris Dakkar rally seem tame........ New terminal Pzzzzzzzzzzzzt

Time for Ryanair to make them an offer they can't refuse!! lets land/fly/park for free or loose our trade!!

As to third world, please!! i have flow from many third world airports that are far better than EMA, its OK for shopping but the rest is a joke the ground plan stand layout is a joke and a nightmare for ATC just one aircraft pushing back can log jam the place up, then you have the ATC guy with verbal diarrhea!! " after the second baby passes from left to right on Alpha you are cleared to the holding point 27" followed by "that's the first baby passing you now" followed by " that's the second baby passing you now" FFS!!

You can see why he's not at LHR

Meanwhile your told standby after calling for clearance and forgotten about, i heard one ATC guy last week say to a baby aircraft " XXX sorry i forgot about you calling for push, I'm just back from a fortnight's leave"

Just glad I'll be back to a proper airport in a few weeks when summers over

THe airport set up is somewhat third world. Get more than two aircraft arriving and pax are queuing outside in the rain to get into the customs hall, no air bridges, and a main apron who's layout was designed by a 2 year old.

However, you have to look at where EMA came from. It has never had the money spent on it it should have done. And Manchester Airport Group who own it are unlikely to ever spend the money, just like the 3 local authorities didn't when they owned it. It needs a new terminal desperately. You have to wonder how much longer Ryan are going to be happy having their pax check in in a glorified tent.

I would say that ATC are some of the best in the country. Always willing to help, always friendly. They are constrained by some of the worst designed airspace in the country. Whoever signed up to that doesn't know how modern jets operate. It creates more noise, uses more fuel, takes more time, and is more uncomfortable for passengers than just about any other arrival I know of. And don't get me started on the Daventry departures.

Since when have FR cared about check in or the quality of the airport facilities for their pax?! ;)

I am an occasional user of EMA when its quiet I have found it fine but when there are more than two or three flights processing at the same time the dep lounge gets very crowded indeed and the dep gates 1-5 have no seating at all and in my experience are horrible to board from as queues for different flights end up snaking into each other, it is very disorganised.

Sadly the expanded facilities that the airport needs will be welcomed by pax but not the by the airlines that operate the bulk of services from EMA, I can't see FR being too happy paying the higher landing fees and so on that will be needed to help shoulder the cost of any terminal expansion, more likely they will run a mile.....

fr
 

Inkjet - ryanair done a deal with EMA &BOH a few weeks back, for those who work at the airport or fly often, you may have noticed pax are now allowed to take ONE duty free bag with them aswell as the 10kg bag. Been told the landing fees and parking are at a very good rate.

EMA had a reasonable if steady (rather than spectacular) full-service offer until Go came along, SMDB got scared / threw his toys out of his pram as a result of someone else nudging into his local fiefdom, and thus converted the British Midland EMA operation into bmibaby. Complicit in this change was EMA doing a "deal" on charges with the "new" operation at EMA that was broadly similar to that given to Go and way way better than British Midland had prior to that. Airports can always influence the type of airline operation they accomodate - were that not the case, Ryanair would have very limited scope to exploit the market the way it does at many airports. Admittedly the low-fares did indeed put significant growth into EMA for a few years. But EMA sold its soul to the low-fare sector, taking the short-term easy way to growth rather than working hard to help airlines develop and deliver a balanced range of products and services. The current incumbents have made things worse by developing the facilities (or not as the case may be) that make the airport even less appealing to any other than low-fare airlines than it was in the past. And fickle as the low-fare market can be in some cases, those decisions have now come back to bite them, as whitnessed by the figures being almost the worst of all UK airports.

EastMids,

I could not agree more.

EMA wants to attract more trans-atlantic traffic, with the current facilities that is just wishful thinking. And I dont see a way of them improving things anytime soon.

The appearance of low cost operators completely changed the market. with competition from locos from Luton and Stansted and full fare operators at Birmingham how long before EMA lost all its schedules? How much profit do you suppose BMI were making at EMA when Go arrived? If EMA had not attracted Go, how long before BMI called it a day at EMA?

As soon as Go did move in BMI probably had only two choices, compete head to head on cost or fold. Having chosen the former what were the airport to do, refuse to do a deal and lose 75% of their business? As a service industry they have to give the customer what he wants or risk losing the customer. Maybe EMA should have said no to Go, but how long would BMI have survived as a full fare operator at EMA in the new market? If Go hadn't moved in how many passengers would be using EMA today?

It is unrealistic to suggest that a small airport competing against bigger airports in a cutthroat market can somehow persuade their customers to do what the airport wants rather than what the customer wants.

I actually wonder if EMA wouldn't be more profitable if they played hard-ball with the LoCo carriers charges, so that they made decent revenue out of a reduced number of the passenger services, and instead concentrate on what the airport reallly does excel at - namely cargo.

The passenger terminal could be partially used for cargo related offices, ramp would be freed up for cargo activity, and the then un-necessary amount of surface car parking could be developed offer further support and infrastructure for the cargo industry.

Liege seems to do OK on that kind of a basis.

Is that thinking outside the box, or what?

I agree that the pax figures are very poor, and I really would have expected some improvement over last July's result. However, if I ran a business that made £10m profit on £50m revenue, I'd be happy. Just a shame it's not being ploughed back into EMA.
Mike

EMA needs to chase spend not numbers! BHX does far more business with ski operators and they spend far more per visit than Poles

Last time i rotated through EMA it was busy enough, but shops and bars were empty

With money Penny now taking her red mop north to Manchester someone will have to pick up the mess left behind, it needs major investment land-side, its location should mean 10 million pax a year, they need a multi storey car park out front and a dual carriage way to the motorway plus some good quality hotels on site none of that will happen off the back of Ryanair paxs or fee's perhaps some of the new German routes will start to bring business traffic in, but does EMA want it?