UK airports closing
 

In the last 5 years, Coventry and Plymouth airports closed (at least to passenger ops). Today it seems Manston will close on or shortly after the beginning of May. Prestwick seems to be in substantial trouble. It seems that Durham Tees Valley will lose passenger ops by late 2015. Dundee almost lost passenger ops earlier this year and is surviving purely on Govt subsidy of a single route.

5 airports closing to passenger ops seems quite a lot. Yes, the UK has too many passenger airports, but these airport closures seem to be happening over a relatively small number of years - it seems there is something besides just oversupply of passenger terminals and something more fundamental happening to trigger these events. Are we just seeing more delayed legacy from the 2002-2007 debt fuelled boom, or has Govt regulation made it more difficult for small airports to survive ? Or is the rise of LCCs the primary cause ? Or is each airport closing for specific and geographically unique reasons ?

Discuss...

Note - the aim is to look at the overall cause of multiple airport closures in relatively quick succession. Hearing people moaning about management at 1 single airport is not the aim, nor is the aim of my post a wish to hear a repetition of 'the UK has too many airports'.

The economic situation compounded with high oil prices has seen the European airline industry go through its toughest ever turbulence. The downturn started in mid 2007 and the industry began to climb out of the hole mid 2013. Many airline casualties along the way too. Marginal airports mean marginal routes.

airports closing
 

davidjohnson6.

It's not just the larger passenger facilities closing.
Wellesborne airfield just outside Stratford upon Avon has also just been sold to developers.I think a large number of houses are to be built on the site,although I would appreciate it if someone could confirm that.
This means if memory serves,a Vulcan bomber might need re-housing,again confirmation is needed on this.
As this has only happened in the last week or so details are a bit sketchy but I am pretty sure at least 1 flying school might need a new home.
Sadly if more money can be made by selling the land to developers then many more smaller fields will go the same way.
As for the larger fields I thought Coventry was still hoping bring back passenger flights!!??,although with BHX doing well at the moment I think any future plans may well be scuppered.

Fear not, help is at hand, Gideon has just announced.
"REGIONAL airports have been handed a Budget boost from the Treasury after the Chancellor revealed plans to reform Air Passenger Duty, and give operators help to woo airlines."

I welcome closure of marginal airports IF it means airports within 40 miles have a better chance of survival.

The airport in every county model doesn't work and with billions spent in road and rail infrastructure it was never going to.

Locals want flights to everywhere.
Which simply means flights to Sunshine destinations for summer holidays and the 1-2 weekends away. It has to be at the same price as the big airport 50 miles away and have a big "duty free" shopping area.
Oh and it can't be noisy either.

It will be painful for people whom had a local airport but never supported it but other than billions in subsidy which is not justifiable long term then alternate use which is either housing or industry is the only way forward.

UK airports closing
 

Who currently ops into manston , and how easy is it to relocate in the timescale given ( assuming they didn't already know)?

Only manston passenger ops year round is KLM twice daily to AMS.

There's also cargo ops.


cs

UK airports closing
 

Thanks Cornish. Any idea of the cargo carriers

Am I missing something? Bands C & D of APD has been abolished, which affects circa 5% of passenger flights from UK airports. How does abolishing APD for ultra long haul destinations help regional airports, apart from the 1-2 (can I count VS as a hub/spoke carrier?) airlines that operate domestic hub operations from regional airports.

If anything taxation on domestic aviation is going to rise well above inflation in the next parliament and beyond, as the government will try and promote the 'green' train and HS2.

On my last trip to the USA, it cost me £250 to go outbound, but inbound cost just $25 in taxes.

If Manston does go it will be interesting to see if there is any benefit for the other Kent airport, Ashford, I doubt that there will apart from some training movements. How long are the Middle Eastern paymasters going to keep Ashford afloat?

UK airports closing
 

Where will these carriers go.....STN.....DSA ?

UK airports closing
 

So it's not definitely closing, it's a 45 day consultation period. Every year though they threaten it to be a housing estate

DJ6 - as ever, an intelligent question which I will attempt to answer in the same vein.

In my view, what is happening is an extension to the LCC boom of the noughties.

1. During the last 20 years, the passenger's understanding of value has been fundamentally altered. With the likes of Ryanair, easyJet and their competitors, the perception of flying in the minds of the public has been that you can fly to the Med for £50-60 if you book soon enough. That has been extended to flying to European capital cities, and to the main domestic routes. 20 years ago I was flying to Scotland on business regularly, and a day trip was always over £200, my perception is that such a trip would be significantly cheaper (in £ terms) today.

2. This change in perceived values has been accompanied by the introduction of large aircraft (150-200 seats) on routes from the UK provinces to Europe, and within the UK.

3. There seems no room for small airlines, small aircraft and high fares in today's market. Even FlyBe struggle for profitability with a large fleet of efficient turboprops.

4. These marginal airfields are often too close to other, established airports (Coventry), or limited in scope (Plymouth) or with a marginal catchment area (Manston) to be able to attract the LCCs and their preference for regular, high capacity jet operations.

5. This sequence of events has been exacerbated by two external factors: the worst recession in a generation, and the imposition of APD.

I fear more airports are at risk (Prestwick, Lydd, and maybe Blackpool, Cardiff and Doncaster). These last three are close to other competing airports who have successfully harnessed LCCs (MAN/LPL, BRS and EMA respectively).

/Tin hat on; ready for incoming./

can't help thinking that the billions being spent on Hs2 would be far better spent on roads and airports - UK could be best connected in aviation terms in the world with that volume of cash subsidising the airports industry. And nobody needs to have their back garden dug up for a train line that has about three stops along the route

Where did you get the info that DTV will lose passenger ops by late 2015? Haven't seen anything on local news (or on here for that matter) to that effect...
Cheers

BHXBOD

I can put your mind at rest, at least, for the time being.

Wellesbourne has not been sold to developers YET. There is a
plan for 1600 houses to be considered by the Council who are
divided on the issue. Needless to say, the local residents are
not happy and I would anticipate quite a fight. Other locations
under threat are Gaydon and Long Marston.

I do fear, however, with this governments push for housing that
the battle may be eventually lost.

jensdad - admittedly based on inference rather than formal announcement, using a mix of the length of KLM's contract at DTV, DTV airport telling Thomson and other charters to go away, and KLM's recent public statement to support DTV for 12 months.

There's a lot more on the DTV thread, but I should warn that it gets awfully depressing reading some of what's discussed there !

Surely the other major factor in all of this is that we have all been encouraged to believe that public ownership of airports (and everything else) is Bad while selling off such public assets to any private company - whether a US private equity group or a dodgy Arab gun-runner - is Good. Local authorities, who used to own many of the UK's airports, have been bled to death and are no longer in any position to run airports (with a few and declining exceptions). Meanwhile our esteemed entrepreneurs have been found - surprise surprise - to have no interest in running airports, only in an increase in asset value. It's just a microcosm of the wider economy, where free-floating finance capital is encouraged while public infrastructure and real productive activity is decimated.

NS

point missed perhaps
 

I don't think any of you have mentioned the high cost of security needed for any sort of commercial ops especially SLF

Penzance and Tresco also closed

To answer the question about MSE and cargo ops, I think it's Cargolux, Ethiad and Saudia but not 100%.

Phileas is correct about the two to close, PZE is infact well gone, gone with no hope of return as the site is now another supermarket.


cs

Good point NorthSouth. Admittedly, LCY, as an example, was not under public ownership, but the previous owner was not 'modern' insofar as he used his own money to buy and maintain a major piece of infrastructure (very well too, I should say) for the duration. The new owners jammed (in every sense of the word) through 30% additional passengers during their first year of ownership, restricted aircraft to 70+ passengers, and increased airport fees. They had loans to pay off and a return to make on investment by anonymous shareholders, after all, that being the bottom line. Now they want to build a second runway. Why? To further increase passenger traffic and the 'value' of their investment so that the airport can be flogged at a handsome profit (my prediction). More passengers at bigger airports means bigger airplanes able to offer cheaper fares (on a seat basis). Regional airports without the financial wherewithal to join this merry circus will too often fall by the wayside. The pity of it is, the UK is running out of capacity at the same time. And no-one has mentioned yet that regional airports actually provide a more environmentally friendly alternative to massive hubs. /steps down from his pulpit/

The simple fact of the matter is that had there not been a Second World War followed by a Cold War then UK wouldn't have the number of airports that it has!

Filton's runway also closed at the end of 2012 although the aviation industries around the site remain.

It was never a fully blown airport, despite BAE trying to turn it into a city airport in the mid 1990s but were rebuffed after a planning enquiry, but as well as its MRO traffic it saw biz jets and air taxi as well as regular shuttles for some of the industry employees to other plants. Filton also took some BRS diversions in the past.

Any lingering hope that it could still become Bristol's airport has now gone for ever.

How sad to see these aviation infrastructures disappearing. I see parallels with the railway system post Beeching. If only we had had the foresight to leave the tracks in place!

In 20/30 years time we might be needing more airports and lamenting what happened.

I think there's a lot of truth in LGS 6753s reply to which I would add.

It would be interesting to study trends in premium (ie business) traffic from regionals. For example, whereas LBA has done well on bucket and spade,vfr and other such leisure markets, I suspect business traffic is down or maybe level over say 20 years. One reason for this is that rail has improved its offer so business traffic to destinations such as Paris and Brussels have switched, and Bristol, Edinburgh etc are no more. By improved offer I mean frequency, hours of operation, wi-fi enabled, not just speed.

Small airports -- excepting islands-- relied for a baseload on third level scheduled services which have now largely gone, and charters which have now largely gone to big brother down the road which offers more choice and a better value proposition.

The economy is centralising around a few growth areas -- places like Middlesbrough are sadly not what they were economically.

There's a pull factor too-- the condition of the housing market. Where might you build houses these days without getting massive grief?

The bloke from Birmingham Airport was pilloried for saying England needed about ten airports but actually he was probably about right.

M-JCS, two things, no one has suggested a second runway at LCY and secondly the UK is a free market not a planned Soviet economy. There are buckets of capacity in the UK but not where the pressing need is.
London as a global city is not helped by more capacity in Birmingham, in a global competition with FRA/CDG/AMS, the market won't tolerate that. There is no direct link between capcity "over there" and a pressing need "over here". Pulpits are for the pub, there's got to be a rationale and a business case for having something.

I'm sorry, but over my cold, dead body will I accept the government using taxpayers money to subsidise a successful industry. If some of our smaller regional airports need handouts to survive, than sadly they're probably not commercially viable.

As far as I can see, the UK is already a very well connected country in aviation terms.

Didn't Filton also handle mail flights ?


cs

filton mail flights
 

filton handled the mail flights from brs when the runway was closed for resurfaceingt.
royal mail built a big sorting building at the end of the runway, but could not get permission to run them on a regular basis. all mail went by road like it does now.

Too much tarmac chasing too few pax. Consolidation of UK airports has been talked about for years and is inevitable.
What is sad is seeing GA facilities like Wellsbourne going for building land.

LGS6753 had the key points. Although I'm going to be picky about the phrase 'in a generation' I think the current depression is the greatest in 100 years. Although the govts have down a lot of behind the scenes footwork (and moneywork) to prevent it showing up in the books as a Great Depression - it certainly is. End of picky!

The regional fields have been further deeply affected by the BA/LHR situation. We have discussed in here before how BA bought up the regional feeders and moved the flights to LGW to get the LHR slots. This was all legal but the lack of capacity at LHR prevented the regionals being strong. Consequently, KLM, LH and others took them to their continental hubs and the LCCs did the rest. Now the M.E. carriers are doing the same for long haul. There is no way back from this.

So because the market place was not allowed to operate normally (provide more capacity at LHR) it caused the regional fields to open up. In time, the regional carriers were picked off by the big people, overtaken by the LCCs or withered on the vine. Now the regional fields are bbeing withered. There is no way back from this.

One of my regular domestics was IOM, using LHR then LTN across 25 years. Now EZY has taken the route from BE and run it from LGW. In 1981 I paid £175 and short notice £250 for a long weekend, now (booking ahead) it's £45. I go no more than once a year now but no one can argue with that price. Yes, there will be fewer flights but that is how markets work and I agree that subsidising is pointless.

I agree that more small fields and operators will go. The customer, however, will still have a choice wider and cheaper than they had 25 years ago. To some, that might be considered good, to some the loss of the local field is understandably frustrating and I'm irritated that my local LTN service to the IOM is now from LGW but, even with the cost and time of getting there, it's still cheaper. I, like one or two other people, are trying to spend as little money as possible!

In passing, I find it amusing that NIMBYs who don't like airports, like the idea of them being turned into housing even less. :p

But they want Waitrose to move in and can't understand why they won't until house numbers are there................chicken and egg syndrome.

I think Ryanair and other LCC's like Wizz are having a change in their business model and are moving away from the ****ty regional airports like Prestwick and shifting towards the more mainstream airports like Glasgow. Passengers no longer want to land one and a half hours away from where they intend going. Maybe this is what is leading to the demise of the "regional" airports. The increase in passenger number and yields will far outweighh the increase in landing and handling charges imposed by the nore "major" airports.

Aer Lingus Regional has proven itself a massive success. Forced to enter examinership during the second half of 2010, the airline is now just about to receive the last of its initial order of 8 brand new ATR 72-600 aircraft. The airline has proven itself a tough contender for even Ryanair, having beaten FR off DUB-ABZ and increasing frequencies to airports right across the UK, many routes on which they compete with FR.

Pivotal to this success has been the successful implementation of a business strategy which works. Perhaps it is the undertaking of an unsustainable strategy or the poor implementation of strategy which prevents the likes of Flybe or other small airlines from being successful in the current industry climate.

A little reality check is needed
 

The latest ruse with APD or route support grants isn't going to make any difference in the long run. It's been said elsewhere on this forum and it's blindingly obvious: there are simply too many airports in the country, outside the South-East, at any rate. Where did we get this idea that to be more than a hour's surface journey from an airport with flights to everywhere (or anywhere) is unacceptable? Many people travel this sort of distance and more to and from work every day. I know people working at MAN who commute daily from Merseyside, Lancashire, Staffordshire, North Wales and West Yorkshire. If they can travel to work here they can travel to fly from here. For those without the long commute, to make the journey two or three times a year, what's the big issue?

By consolidating flights at the larger regional airports we'll get more massing of traffic and the best chance of more direct services from main well surface connected regionals, e.g. MAN, BHX, NCL, The village green airports can fill the niche market gaps, GA, and aviation-support industries.

Market economics at work
 

This is not just a UK problem: here is the official view from ACI that represents the worlds airport operators: https://twitter.com/askhelios/status/446595828040622080

The airline market is dynamic and changing fast, the impact of LCC, the Gulf carriers and both of rising taxes and rising fuel costs mean that airlines need to fly larger aircraft with lower seat mile costs. Smaller airports generally don't have the year round demand to support the larger aircraft, as has been said already.

This has been Flybe's market challenge, they have been unable to match the seat costs of competitors. So most potential pax travel to the nearest alternate airport with the airline offering lowest fares. In the UK that's rarely more than a two hour drive. This impacts not only Flybe but every other airline.

I expect that the next ten years will see more UK airports close but the pax traffic will continue to grow and consolidate elsewhere.

Conversely I also expect KLM in particular and Turkish, to seek out more regional airports in UK and elsewhere to serve, as a means of differentiating from and competing with the Gulf carriers. Market dynamics at work.

Interesting times as always!

FF

While I would accept LGS6753's analysis with PAXBoy's revisions, the real problem for smaller airfields is a culture within the industry that stifles real innovation. "Low fares" is not an innovation, no more than electronic ticketting - they're just tweaks to a deeply flawed system.

Real innovation comes from taking risks, and the aviation industry, from ground-level to 45000 feet is endemically risk-averse, so much so that the regulatory authorties insist on approving business plans before granting operating licenses.

Barriers to entry are so high, unnecessarily increased by layers of duplicitous and ineffectual beaurocracy, and brain-dead customers swaddled in so many protective guarantees, that it's next to impossible for any small company to bring real commercial creativity to the market.

Unfortunately, smaller airfields appear to have bought into the notion that they can only survive by offering exactly the same (miserable?) experience as multi-million passenger hubs. Vertical integration and open communication between the airport, small AOC holders and service providers in the catchment area is could easily help define a new identity and offer a real choice in the market.

That needs a lot of people to change a lot of bad habits, which won't be easy.

Sheffield also closed, though perhaps it should never have opened.

So did Ipswich, another one that was closed for it's real estate value in hope that the Co-Op could build a supermarket upon it.