Chester (Hawarden) Airport
 

''As of September 2013 Aviation Park Group has almost completed a small passenger terminal at the airport. Once completed APG will start negotiations with commercial airlines to run routes to other airports in the UK and Europe.''

Anybody got any information on this development?

No concrete information but I am following this with interest and am aware of it as I go to Chester a lot. The current links are MAN and LPL. Neither has direct train services to Chester. MAN one change, LPL bus + slow suburban train. Taxi £40-60. BHX is another option and has direct trains but is a longer journey.

I do wonder though given the proximity of those three established airports if there is sufficient demand for services to Hawarden to be viable. Chester is a very attractive tourist destination, in fact was recently voted the fifth most beautiful city in Europe, and rightly so.

Capetonian,

Is their any update on runway suitability for the A330 yet.

Seen a few aviation articles last year, saying Airbus were looking at basing the next Beluga on the A332 but were working out if one could fit on the runway at Chester ?

http://imageshack.us/a/img42/1089/beluga.png

Nigel

In terms of rail links from Chester to MAN, arriva Wales currently run services early AM and late PM as an extension of the Llandudno-Manc Piccadilly service, but are trying to get more paths to the airport as the train sits in a siding for 1 hour at Piccadilly. At the moment however, it is too busy to get the paths to the airport.

Don't know about runway details but I have a friend who works for a company on site (CASA or EASA I think) and will ask him. He probably won't have much of a clue as he's an IT fellow and probably doesn't know the difference between a wing and an undercarriage!

Thanks for the tip about direct trains, I'd forgotten there are indeed a couple of directs from MAN airport to Chester but only two or three a day. I usually change at Oxford Road which is not a big deal.

LPL used to be served by a bus (501 I think) that went to Liverpool Parkway South then you had to change at Lime Street or James Street. Never very convenient.

I am old enough to remember seeing a British Eagle timetable from late 60's and they operated from Heathrow to Chester, I seem to think that Cambrian Airways may have operated scheduled services way back then. I think they used Viscounts?

Wiki says 2000 Metre / 6700ft.

Much as location is a good one its difficult to see who would be interested in operating services from here with both Man and LPL not that far away.

Going back to thread before Christmas the issue is excess number of airports struggling to survive rather than need for additional ones.

Runway characteristics for Chester -
 

Runway desig- TORA TODA ASDA LDA
04 1962m 2112m 1962m 1663m
22 2043m 2236m 2043m 1743m

http://www.ead.eurocontrol.int/eadba...2013-09-19.pdf

Someone will need to revive British Eagle (have there been any sched services at Chester since?)

Have Citywing ever considered turning Chester into something more than just a diversion airport for days when the weather on Anglesey is abysmal ?

Am trying to think of where there might possibly be sufficient demand for scheduled passenger flights from Chester - only places I can think of are Edinburgh, Dublin or Amsterdam. Anyone else have some better ideas ?

Chester could become Ryanair's new base & be marketed as Manchester-Chester or the 'Tri-City Airport'. Haha.

KLM tried AMS to/from LPL and it didn't work, not up to date with services out of LPL & BHX but I'd suggest they have services to/from Scotland covered, that just leaves Hawarden with services across the water to Ireland, but BHX, LPL & MAN already have those covered also so Hawarden may become just another airport that isn't really required.

It would always be a niceh airport, but a few things are going in its favour:
- Unlike many airports, it is viable without any commercial aviation, thanks to Airbus factory. Costs needing to be covered would be low
- An Airbus operator such as easyJet may be able to negotiate extremely low fees subsidised by Airbus.
- The Welsh Assembly may subsidise a service, or at least help with the marketing and promotion of the airport
- There is a train line which passes right past the airport- it would not be difficult to add a station if required in the longer term.
- The airport is closer to major routes than Liverpool airport (M56, A55, M53). If you are coming from North Wales, then Liverpool is not the most convenient.

I am not confident that flights will start from Hawarden/Chester, but I think there are a few things working in its favour.

Since Chester is unlikely to ever usurp LPL or MAN for business traffic, it will need to generate its own, and my guess is that it won't generate much business (high revenue) traffic, specially if the flights are not at least on a daily rotation. On that basis, it's going to have to look at leisure traffic primarily and as it's very much on the tourist map there seems to be potential for services to/from other tourist rich destinations such as Paris, Edinburgh and Amsterdam.

I am in the process of obtaining some numbers.

Thanks Racedo and Tibbs.

Nigel

Hi Chris789

Never work mate. Read the Oxford Kidlington post. They could not get bums on seats. Darwin at Cambridge is another case. Me thinks if low cost wanted to be there they would be there by now.

Would be nice though in a few years time to post on here. "so I was wrong!"

I very, very much doubt that this will (excuse the pun) get off the ground.

That runway is far too limiting for anything other than biz-jets and regional jets (although even then the regional jets, etc., need to look very closely at their performance when full, wet, warm, and so on).

Belugas, and any A330 based replacements, only fly out of there with newly manufactured but unfinished and empty wings, so the load that they'll be carrying will be way, way less than a full set of seats-with-bums-on, so they'll most likely be a long way from their performance limiting loads.

Nice airfield though and lovely city.

The UK airport market is already over segmented, in short we have so many the necessary investment is lacking in the ones that we *really* need.

Doncaster, Teesside and Cardiff are struggling badly, Sheffield is gone.

Welsh Assembly
 

Wasn't there a plan by the WA to do a PSO on Hawarden to serve North Wales like they do with Anglesey? I know Chester is in England but it is the closest airport. I thought it was scuppered because Bae wouldn't play ball?

Train from Cardiff to Chester runs twice per hour and takes between 3h00 and 3h20
I would struggle to see a good reason for that route needing air service with a large taxpayer funded subsidy when the rail service is likely already receiving a big dollop of Govt cash

Cardiff-Liverpool and Cardiff-Manchester both require longer by train and would likely generate more economic activity in comparison to Cardiff-Chester. There is also an argument that Cardiff-Manchester by air would give Cardiff additional access to some sort of an air hub.
No airline currently offers CWL-LPL or CWL-MAN.
Can only conclude that a Cardiff-Hawarden air route would be purely about Govt pork / political chest-beating with almost no economic benefit to the UK overall

Just stumbled across this article, looks like Chester will be focusing in on airlines selling up to 50 seats on a London route.

Bid to establish air-link between North Wales and London | Wales Air Forum

With trains from London Euston to Chester doing the journey in 2 hours, I don't see much time gain in an air service from anywhere other than LGW, avoiding the time consuming London transit.

My thinking is that it might be more suited for low volume leisure traffic to/from Europe. How important is North Wales in terms of business traffic to LCY? That's a genuine question.

Reading this together with the Dundee thread, wonder if there would be a synergy to be had by 'teaming' with London through the newly-resurgent London-Southend Airport, rather than the (expensive) 'usual suspects'. Could be a better, and mutually beneficial, arrangement all round?

"Welsh Secretary David Jones is urging potential carriers to take a serious look at operating a service to London City in particular."

Two-faced politicians at it again: his other face will be sprouting off about the evils of air travel and all the 'environmental harm' it does and how we should be using the trains instead.

Sheffield (SZD) - LCY was a flop; CEG - LCY would be a flop too.

CEG would have a very limited, 'elite' leisure market and it would be very surprising to see that supporting any scheduled services; the business market, other than the existing Airbus services, would be very small. Ad hoc charters and biz-jets would be quite adequate for the markets there, much as is already provided but the improved passenger (new terminal) facilities should help increase this a bit. It would be nice to see another airport developing its services but this needs to be done realistically. SZD airport management went chasing after 'pie in the sky' (excuse the puns again!) ideas like routes to London and took their eyes off the real ball (AMS and BRU) and a good airport has now disappeared.

This terminal will be used by BAe/EADS contractors on the bmiR shuttles to Bristol/Hamburg/Toulouse/Farnborough and perhaps a Wales PSO connection to Cardiff.

Right now none of those are offered to the public however capacity on the first three and last could be available.

Could see Edinburgh at a push but a service to London ( that covers costs) not a chance.

City was pulled from LPL/MAN under VLM when the West Coast upgrade completed as uneconomic and both those cities have substantial numbers going into the City and across London every day.

As for holiday charters that market is in terminal decline at the UKs main base for these just 35 miles away.

The flexible fares operators already have split presences in the region and the chance of a hub carrier is next to none existent.

As said even KLM couldn't make Speke work and they operate into almost every other field with a shed (Terminal) across the land.

Unfortunately I agree with the 'never going to happen' camp.

The airport is a pain to operate from. Limited hours, especially weekends. Over zealous ramp management. Commercial aviation and Airbus owned facilities wouldn't mix well. It's health and safety gone mad.

Back when Highland Airways did the Anglesey run they looked at tying in a lunchtime Hawarden run but were told by the airport in no uncertain terms they weren't interested in commercial traffic. Though that's obviously changed perhaps.

I've seen the terminal, forget A319/737 Chris. And I doubt it would work like you envisage. More like Airbus would see it as an opportunity to cover their overheads completely.

If anything were to go ahead it would need to be another heavily subsidised assembly member transportation service. Mind you they need to do something with CWL so you never know!

Does anybody have the 7 day schedules out of Chester, Airbus shuttles, Beluga etc.

Also how many movements are handled per day with GA etc ?

Just seen the Beluga coming in low across the city and landing at Hawarden, quite a sight.

Hi navpi,
I work at Airbus Broughton and can tell you the Beluga timings vary from day to day and can sometimes change last minute so it's a case of if your in the right area near Chester/North East Wales you will see it. As for the BMI shuttles, these operate Mon-Fri but the times have recently changed and some of the flights now operate directly to Toulouse rather than stopping at Bristol.
I expect the A350 to make another appearance before the end of the year and maybe an A320neo!!
Hope is is useful!!

But Harwadden CEG is actually in Wales (Flintshire).


Wouldn't be LGW: its management no longer wants small aircraft and will price them out, as shown by the demise of BE at LGW.

I'd love to see commercial scheduled passenger flights at Chester - I really would. In the last 2 years I've bought tickets out of Oxford, Cambridge, Manston and Shoreham to show some support and have a ticket booked later this month on Links Air. I henuinely believe the UK is too London centric for the country's own good

However I just can't quite see Chester - IoM working; the only big financial I can think of are the back office and IT for Barclays and Bank of America - mainly behind the scenes and not customer facing. I don't see how wealthy suburban exiles from Liverpool and Manchester living onshore in the UK would need offshore services on the IoM
With Liverpool and Manchester airports close by and offering frequency, can a Chester - IoM route really compete ?

I spend quite a bit of time in Chester and talk to a lot of people there. I don't get the feeling there's much of a market for services from there, least of all to IOM. It would be good though if it did happen.