On looking at a decent paper, instead of the freepress, it seem's that what the airport is after is a station on the current line, rather than diverting it. That would leave, depending on where the station is a short 2 mile bus journey.

They could sell this with a park and ride service into Doncaster also.

There are problems though.... For the Park and Ride there are no commuter services using that part of the route. They would have to have a dedicated train 'messing' with the fast East Coast traffic.

Also would the Operators agree to disrupt their fast travel times by stopping those services at a Doncaster 'Parkway'.

I don't think it's an easy sell...

Doncaster interchange itself isn't that much further away. Seems daft to lobby for a new station on the ECML that's just a bit closer. Are they proposing that trains stop there as well as Doncaster Interchange? The report containing this proposal is due to be published next month.

In other news, the growth at DSA this year has been nothing short of phenomonal, almost all down to the new Flybe routes. Can't help but wonder what the load factors are, but the overall rise in passenger numbers is very encouraging.

The unsung hero is Wizz not BE and they achieve it all with a supply and demand approach, hardly any advertising, regular service at good prices. BE's introduction of routes this has been great for the airport, but the airport needs to encourage more niche carriers (Vueling, Norwegian) to truly exploit its potential....and more car parking, never mind train links, the existing car parks are full far too frequently.

G-FORZ

Another pointless "What this airport needs" post. All airlines have a marketing team that are active at looking at new opportunities. If there was any potential at any small airport I am pretty certain it would have been considered.

You have hit it on the head with Wizz. They have a niche which they cover very well. There is no requirement to waste money on marketing as there load factors are acceptable and the cost of extra marketing would not increase bums on seats to justify it.

I bet if you analysed Wizz's pax I would not be supprised if you found it is mainly migrant workers and their families traveling to and from their home countries. The advantage of Doncaster is it's location relative to where they work and live in the U.K.

Like many small airports you can throw as much money as you like in development and marketing, but there is too much over capacity, and the bigger players are too well established.

Wonder what the reason is behind Flybe axing the Doncaster/Sheffield - Dusseldorf route in February then?

The problem arises when all of the obvious routes are heavily saturated at larger airports, and therefore the fierce competition is bringing lower fares (the likes of Palma, Tenerife, Faro, Malaga, Alicante...). Therefore at secondary airports like Doncaster if it difficult to compete. City routes can work, but only if they have a decent feed at the end of them, or another economic reason for making it work.

Ideally what we need is the rich owners of the airport (with very small catchment population) to outright pay for airline[s] to come on board and operate unprofitable routes with very very low load factors with negative yield and tell the press that everything is great! "Soon we will be a MAN - if you will just give us a rail station."

Yorkshire civil aviation continues its 40 year slow stranglehold death while the NW thrives due to the strategic unfairness.

Yorkshire and the greater NE of England needs one Alpha airport connected and in the correct geographic location and fully able to work. Not on a foggy or cross gale force hill top and not in potato fields. We have the exact location for that airport.

As the airport has said before "use it or lose it" - hence flybe and their chop and change [hole in a bucket] schedule. We are in this saloon now despite the PR waffle.

Happy Christmas.

or just doing a better job?

Hahaha! The bitter Leeds lot seem to have returned!

Teevee

Just one of him.......thank God..but you`re right

New FlyBE route to Palma De Mallorca
 

A new summer route to Palma with Flybe has been announced today.

The route will operate 2x weekly (Mon & Fri) from July to October.

That brings FlyBE's summer route list to a choice of 10 destinations from Doncaster.

Doncaster Sheffield Airport

A quiet thread lately.

I do wish DSA would sort their departures offer out. travellex have now left, and there is no longer anywhere to obtain foreign currency on airport.

It's cheaper and easier to use an ATM at your point of arrival, I used travel exchange outlets at airports for years especially Travellex as I could gain BA Executive Club points but with commission and ridiculous exchange rates I find that I tend to get a better deal at an ATM once I'm away.

They are a bit of a thing of the past - they were more useful in the days you couldn't use your bank card abroad and when travelers cheques were a thing...

I did notice the forlorn Travelex booth at DSA a few weeks back. As other poster have said, there is no good reason to use these rip-off merchants who offer terrible rates and/or high commissions. With accounts like Nationwide who offer free cash withdrawals from ATM's abroad and many credit cards with 0% ForEx fees for purchases using market spot rates (which are much better than Travelex), Travelex are simply an expensive irrelevance. Perhaps if you are headed off the beaten track its wise to have cash at hand on your arrival (paying for entry Visas, etc) but thats hardly DSA's market!

Overall I think DSA is a brilliant regional airport, its relatively well connected to motorways heading North/South and East/West, parking is plentiful and the terminal is compact, but well laid out. OK the shopping is a bit better at LBA and better again at MAN, but the Wetherspoons is keenly priced and the coffee decent (unlike LBA). Because DSA is easy to get to, easy to park, easy to navigate you don't need as much time, so the amenities are less important, at least IMO.

My normal plan of attack is to grab 20 euros or so, simply so that I can get down the road and pay toll's etc....

To be fair - it was their cash machine that I missed more than the booth.

Travelex offer really good online rates, so I used to order money to be picked up at the airport, whether or not I was travelling from there and avoided courier fees/waiting for delivery. Oh well!

Doncaster Airport Experience
 

I thought I'd write about my experience here- as it was the worst/most disorganised of any airport I have ever travelled through.

Flight from Doncaster to Berlin 1005hrs departure mid-week.

I had booked us travelling out with FlyBe in row 1A&B. With 20kgs baggage each. And also fast track & business lounge access at Doncaster airport.

So we arrived at the airport in Doncaster at about 0755 on the departure day. Very quiet, almost too quiet! Where was everyone ??

We went to the check in area, which was pretty small it's only maybe 10 check in desks in total for all airlines, and quickly located the FlyBe area (3 desks).

0805 came and went (the supposed check in opening time), and at sometime between 0810 and 0815 the check in was opened. We were then told all the conveyor belts in the airport were broken, yes, you read that right ! And we would have to take our luggage to the oversized baggage counter to be scanned and prepared for the aircraft. As amongst the first to check in for this flight, and seemingly no other flights had taken off that day (or that year, judging by the airport and Its organisation!), we were one of 3 or 4 parties to arrive and oversized baggage area with our suitcases. Here there was one guy, and he didn’t even know that this was going on. He panicked and called for ‘backup’. The processed the first passengers bag, which included making them sign that it had gone through the oversize baggage area. Then the next passenger was told by him that a random selection of bags in this area had to be opened, so made the passenger open his bag and inspect it manually ! I couldn’t quite believe what was going on..

Then I was next and objected to signing for something that I didn’t ask for and was of the fault of the airport, but I was getting nowhere and signed so I could proceed through security.

The overall process to check in and get rid of the bags took far far too long. It was ridiculous.
Anyway we entered the fast track lane of the airport to be barked at “no you need to go round there”.. “but, we have FastTrack” I replied. The attendant embarrassed then apologised and processed us through the FastTrack security. However the scanner which looked like it should be used for FastTrack passengers was out of use, so the guards just directed us to the front of the regular passengers one, holding others trays back to let us in at the front. This was embarrassing.

We went straight to the lounge, which TBH was better than expected. Hot breakfast options cooked to order and comprehensive bar and snacks options.

Boarding was not done by seat row, so it was every man for themselves.

I just could not get over the check in fiasco for this airport! It was farcical.

Also, when we was dropped off at the airport by a friend, they proceeded to the drop off zone. When you get to the barrier and only then it tells you that this is a charge zone and you have to pay to drop people off. There is NO mention of this on signs beforehand. There is also very aggressive signs saying you are not allowed to reverse or stop anywhere threatening hefty fines. So if you arrive at this barrier and object to the charge, your option is reverse from the area and face a fine! I can see why they chose the name Robin Hood for this airport… surely this is unethical?

You come across like someone who doesn't use airports very often!

And for your information there are 24 not 10 check in desks in the terminal.

You sound like a typical " Daily Mail " reader , no one is really interested to be honest , post it on Net Mums .....