MANSTON -3
 

Some good news today for Manston....the news is also good for the staff at Gatwick
Date: 20 November 2007, London:
Andrew Duncan and Andrew Stoneman, partners and Joint Administrators from Menzies Corporate Restructuring (MCR), announce today the sale of the business and assets of DAS Air to Continental Aviation Services (Nig) Limited (CAS). The liabilities of the Company remain with DAS Air Limited (In Administration).
The Company, a long established UK based air freight services business operating routes between Europe and West Africa and between East Africa and the Middle East had ceased operations following the appointment of administrators on 17 September 2007.
The sale of the business should allow operations to recommence in the short term and preserves the jobs of 34 staff, who work at the Company’s sites in Crawley and Manston.
Andrew Duncan comments, “We’re pleased that the sale of the business represents the preservation of a long established African all cargo airline. It’s also good to note that of all the offers we received for the business from interested parties, CAS had the best funding package to acquire the business but also to fund investment and its future working capital requirements. I believe that this gives the business a very real chance to thrive and succeed, going forward.”
Vitalis Ibe of CAS commented, “We are very excited with the opportunity to acquire this business and Charles Goodrich has been appointed as the CEO. We are looking forward to building a brand new vibrant cargo airline and maintenance facility”.

Holiday Flights
 

A very minor note that when previously visiting the Newmarket Holidays website, I have observed that they offered 13 holidays from Manston. This has now increased to 14. I have been unable to determine whether this will result in an extra flight, I suspect not. However, it should result in a few more pax passing through KIA.

From the Infratil website: Freight increased slightly over the prior year due to the seasonal loss of some produce traffic at Kent, but the trends at both Glasgow Prestwick and Kent were encouraging.

IAE continues to have credible growth programmes for its airports, the necessary financial backing and very good, experienced, people to grow the business. Substantial work is progressing on developing new freight and passenger airline opportunities at all three airports.

catflaps

Interesting comparing KIA to Lands End. Not really a valid comparison but since you raised it.

In the period you mention, statistics in the 12 months to Aug 2007, I observe that KIA managed 13,000 pax. That is an increase of 62% over the previous period. Lands End managed 28,000 pax, an increase of 27%.

As regards freight, for the twelve months 2006, KIA managed 20,841 tonnes and Lands End 85 tonnes.

I think a more interesting comparison would be KIA with Prestwick, especially since they have the same owner. Granted that KIA have a hill to climb in regard to pax, but they are consistently beating Prestwick on freight volumes.

Some way to go yet to overtake Lands End.

But way out in front of Lydd

It would be interesting, in my mind, to find out how the likes of Ostend compare with Manston or even Lands End. Are there any other Northern European airports that might be worthy of comparison with Manston?

Is Land's End where they do flights in Sea Kings to some Islands of Cornwall daily? and I see there are some new routes in the newmarket Hoildays.

James

Penzance has the heli's - Lands End is Skybus

Ostend passenger numbers will be far higher than Manstons as they have a larger charter programme with Thomas Cook and the Belgium TUI group company

Thats it airhumberside thanks for the update

James

Eurostar could get Brussels rival from Manston


Direct flights could start to Brussels from Kent after Eurostar slashed axed services from Ashford International station to the Belgian capital.

Steven Fitzgerald, chief executive of Infratil Airports, which runs Kent International Airport at Manston, told Kent on Sunday he is in talks with airlines about the idea.

The opening of the £100 million Ebbsfleet International station this week saw Eurostar cut the number of trains from Ashford to Paris and cancel all services to Brussels.

The loss of services at Ashford has come as a blow for the local economy – and led to calls for rival operators to be allowed to use the station.

Mr Fitzgerald said he believed there was demand for direct flights to Brussels from Manston.

“We’re working very hard on getting people to launch scheduled flights to a number of places,” he said.

“We’re being approached and continue to approach a lot of operators on a lot of flights and certainly, the fact Eurostar’s not going to be giving the same level of service from Ashford as it has in the past, is something we’re pointing out to people we talk to.

“Brussels is somewhere that people have got established links to, it’s a good destination anyway and it’s now higher up the list of destinations that we talk to people about.”

al
 

Mr al

Thank you for your e-mail we have at this time launched our Summer 2008 programme for Majorca and are running a programme to Gran Canaria in August only and we are currently in negotiations regards a programme for the Algarve.
If only everyone was as enthusiastic as yourself then we would be able to add further resorts to our Kent programme but regrettably local support is not the same as we experienced in Prestwick in our early years.

regards Kent Escapes

Marketing and Customer Relations

Apologies to Kent Escapes if I'm being a bit too harsh but it really could do with carrying out some serious marketing regarding its services from Manston. I did a bit of poll around the office and in a pub (all within about 20 miles of Manston) and NOBODY was aware that you can fly to Spain from the old place. Try it yourself bet you get the same results. Isn't it also about time they updated their website as well?

al
 

Sorry i cant print ,my reply to Kent Escapes,but i did mention there 2007 web pages, and the month only holiday in August, not good enough for pensioners,

marketing was also a let down with eujet, there were people in dover that had no idea of the routes from kia.
it seems that a lot of people would love to see the airport operational again with pax flights, but it doesnt look like the companies involved are interested.

marketing
 

there are people living in Birchington 5 mins from Manston that didn't know you could fly from Manston, in comparison E.U jet came in with a blaze of publicity. Referring to the article in the Kent on Sunday thay have said that there are already services to Faro & Alicante, they are obviously not aware that the Alicante flight has been dropped. May be that was because most people wanted flight only and not the overpriced packages.

al
 

I paid 1800 pounds for two weeks in Faro, from Manston, ,all inclusive. I have just paid 1600 pounds for two weeks in Cuba all inclusive with 1st choice.But it was still worth the extra money to fly from Manston because all the upheaval at Gatwick.:ugh:

Oasis 744 landing at Manston this PM
 

First post for me but spend lots of time reading everyone elses...

Approx 12.30 this afternoon was driving past Manston and lucky enough to watch a shiny Oasis 744 making its approach, not 100% sure but saw a large jet climbing away few minutes after which I assumed was the same a/c.

What do Oasis use Manston for?

Would be great if they could do a weekly Manston-HKG flight, surely all the students in Canterbury from Hong Kong would use :)......I can dream!

However, having flown Oasis economy in June I would certainly only want to do it the front half of the plane!!

Crew training flights at Manston regularly includes the Oasis 747, amongst some other carriers.

Another Empost flight came in last night. Can our insiders tell us if this was another horse flight or not? Does the airport have the contract now? Or is other cargo being flown?

aside; Is there any work going on on the 707, having past by a few times in the last few months it seemed to be rooted to the spot. Hopefully I am wrong.

s there any work going on on the 707, having past by a few times in the last few months it seemed to be rooted to the spot. Hopefully I am wrong.

They were doing some tests about three weeks ago and belted it up the runway a few times

Anybody know if the Skyvan G-PIGY which was parked up at TG yesterday is a permanent fixture?

G-PIGY is now also owned by Invicta Aviation, So I guess it will visit TG quite often now.

al
 

Once again I thank you for your continued support and hope we can be of service in 2008.

With regards

cargo
 

from uk-airport-news-info website...


Freight up 168 percent at Kent Airport
25.11.07

Kent International Airport (Manson) handled 4173 tonnes of freight in October - a new record for the airport since Infratil's acquisition in 2005. This represents an increase of 164% on the prior year and 232% on the September total.

The growth was driven primarily by the introduction of daily MK Airlines services, along with consistent traffic from other regular customers and the arrival of a new customer at the airport: Rock-it Cargo.

Rock-it specialise in the shipping of band and stage equipment for global concert tours. A spokesman for the airport said that this is an area of the business with good future potential given the flexible facilities, lack of congestion and the airport's highly committed team.

Rock-it used the airport for two 747 charters during October and more movements are planned for later in the year.

The above is a direct quote from the Infratil website - presumably a press release.

Direct flights could start to Brussels from Kent after Eurostar slashed axed services from Ashford International station to the Belgian capital.

If it happens let's hope it's going to be a big step up from the Piper Navajo and a big step down from the £200 + return that Flywatch are offering out of Southend next year.

Manston Brussels
 

Of all the routes in the World this seems the most ludicrous to me. OK so Ashford is restricting services via Eurostar, but you can still jump on a train from Ebbsfleet or a ferry from Dover or Eurotunnel from Folkestone. Are there really so many people let down by Eurostar in the Ashford area to warrant even considering this as a serious plan (Lydd just maybe but even then!!!!)? You will still be able to take the Eurostar from Ashford to Lille and change to the TGV services to Belgium/France and Germany, so just what the advantage of traveling from Ashford to Manston to catch a flight to Brussels would be (there wouldn't be more than a couple of flights a day) I am not sure. In fact by the time you have driven to Manston and arrived an hour early for a flight you may just as well have taken the Eurostar to Lille and changed trains? If this is Infratils level of marketing strategy then God help them!

I don't know if this criticism will be acceptable; my mild comments on Kent Escapes were zapped yesterday. I have heard that heavy canvassing for a Brussels service is being carried out in Sandwich. It will be very much a business service, so it might run on the back of Pfizer, but in general I share your views.

Regardless of destination, would not any passenger service from Manston be a bit of a bonus at the moment? And who knows, it could be the catalyst to spur on others.

any service
 

No I disagree. The last thing the airport can have is another service that fails a few months later. The reluctance of operators now is partly based on the history of previous ventures, to have another half baked scheme start and fail would be more damaging than no service at all.

But would it? Unlike the previous owner I get the impression that Infratil is not the sort of Company that would consider such an operation unless it had a fair degree of success. As I said, if it's seen to be working well regardless of destination it might be a spur for others.

Trees for Thanet
 

A local environmental group is set to embark on a new tree-planting project thanks to sponsorship from Kent International Airport and Oasis Hong Kong Airlines.

Details are on KIA web site.

Excellent PR for Airport , worth a look.

Nice piece re the trees. Oasis do seem to have a fondness for Manston.

Correction to my earlier post, I said: Infratil is not the sort of Company that would consider such an operation unless it had a fair degree of success.

I meant: unless it was guaranteed a fair degree of success.

There, makes a bit more sense.

Brussels who cares?
 

Well I do hope your right, the airport cannot afford any more failures. It was more the fact that the route would have been very very low down my list of options that surprised me. I would have looked at Dublin, Edinburgh and Malaga initially, but never Paris or Brussels! Yes any routes would be a plus, we just don't want short term pluses. As I have said in previous posts even Krakow is more logical to me than Brussels.

I do think Infratil care about who operates (financially care). If they oversee one failure after another their revenue stream has no future. They need a sustainable partner. The damage by failures stifles the interest by more serious operators which ultimately will harm them financially.

Why not? Many other services rely on business support

Anybody know the reason why the place seems to be overdosing on MK 747s? One's been over in freight for quite a few days now and the other's parked up alongside the passenger terminal. Normally they don't hang around for long and does seem to indicate that they are using Manston more and more as a base rather than their hub at Ostend where they are constantly bleating that they don't see any MK movements for days on end.

One of them went tech: that's all. The produce flights are daily "until March", then it becomes uncertain. The airport expects them all to revert to Ostend next summer. What's of more interest is the MK/BGA development.

Some new big fork-lifts were delivered this week, and the rumour is that the extension to E apron will start in January. Hidden big spending continues all around the airport on equipment and installations. Something's in the wind.

BA Cargo?

I think Eastern Airways with there J41 would be great on that route. But I think T3 prices are a bit much.


Yeah theres news that MK will do flights for BA Cargo to somwhere in America from MSE and PIK:ok:

James