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?