SWBKCB - A pretty factual summarization I'd say.
My point is to question, even before any construction takes place, then does the plan actually make financial sense?, given the ongoing lack of progress ref bullet point #2 re the development of civil aviation.
I certainly can see no (aviation related) logic in the premature scaling back of pax services i.e. IT's etc. when there was no pipeline to replace these services, & no "short term plan" other than a reduction of the ground handling services / costs.
At this point then I see nothing positive out that this action other than a small contribution by cost reductions to ongoing losses at best.
What it does not appear to address is the necessary improvements in DTV's "commercial product" to present a convincing argument that increases in short range regional flights are anything more than fantasy.
In summarizing I see that a plan which promotes the development of DTV in any civil aviation (i.e. pax related) as nothing more than a big con. The only reason that it can be portrayed as anything other than nonsense is that the KL service contract has remained in place.
Unfortunately as & when this is up for renewal then as I see it then DTV’s position as an active civil airport will (conveniently for some) be past the point of no return.
Finally I am surprised that some posters (DTVAirport take note!) do not study the fate of Sheffield airport in more depth. There are lessons to be learnt, however then it has always been unclear to me as to what side of the fence these posters interests actually lie :E

KNOCK KNOCK, in the real world, people expect a major return on any investment that's going to take years. Aviation is a legendary loss maker with poor yields and most new airlines failing before one year of operations.
MME is at the thin edge of all of that with poor prospects in a deprived area.
Explain how you make any substantive return on worthwhile investment in that market worth the wait. Of course you canb't they're not stupid, but they do have some devout and willing believers. This plan Mr Baldrick, is it a cunning plan? Shareholders ain't *that* patient you know, senior management in any business have to show results, your argument around "patience" is not a commercially driven option here.

I'm getting bored of this now, I'm in a no-win situation, all I can do is play the waiting game safe in the knowledge I will one day be proved right.

I'm not a "true believer" as many put it, I just have the benefit of understanding the situation from both an internal and external perspective and can see the obvious. Say what you like, the airport is not going anywhere any time soon.

I think we can all agree with your last sentence, in whichever way you interpret it.

Looks like we are drifting back to DTVA 5. Any slight bit of positive info is knocked down by the knockers.

Unfortunately any positive news is usually followed by lots of negative news. The genuine supporters of DTVA and there are a few tend to respond with stock answers.This does not help their cause.The usual responses,I know things but cannot tell you.This is going to happen soon but cannot tell you when.Wait and see progress is being made.It all takes time to implement, action which will turn round the airport and make it viable.Until people can genuinely see an improvement in the airports future,the general opinion is that it has no future which is sad.

There's a funny thought!

They would have to stuff Boris in the House of Lords for that to happen.

They ain't going to kick some old duffer "upstairs" and risk a by-election to get Boris back in the Commons, because that would activate the UKIP bandwagon.

Also, a by-election in summer, very low turnout, very unpredictable result. It's too risky, it won't happen.

So how does "Lord Boris of the Thames Estuary in the Counties of Essex and Kent" sound............




No, it's the opposite! The lack of sufficient links to LHR is contributing to the decline of many "regional" airports, especially on the thinner routes as these have been squeezed out of LHR over the years. This is caused solely by insufficient rwy capacity at LHR. High APD levels do not help, and APD should be scrapped, but this process started before APD.

Well over twenty UK airports were linked to LHR in the early 1990s, now its just seven.

MME is, regretably, a classic case in point: its serious decline started when the BD link to LHR was axed.

DTVAirportWell you could actually elaborate on what "the obvious is" as in your mind it would appear to differ from virtually everyone else on this forum.
As a point of assistance then it's not actually the airport that was ever going anywhere, it's actually the aircraft! & if you took off your rose tinted spectacles & took the time to look then you would actually see that they have all now virtually gone along with the services that they used to provide. :ugh::ugh:

Outright as far as I am aware - they bought out VAS

Yes, Peel bought back Vantage's shareholding in DTV and Doncaster in 2012, and Liverpool in April 2014.

Don't be fooled in to thinking that just because near-enough everyone on this forum thinks the same thing means that the likes of DTVAirport are out-numbered, I just know that most of the 'believers' don't take forums such as these and similar social media pages etc seriously and just laugh them off as ridiculous. Can't say I blame them either, the only reason I'm here is because despite my occasional criticising of Peel, I do feel that someone should fight the airports corner.

All this talk of 'believers' and 'non-believers' is a bit playground.

I'm just looking at the published plans and trying to make sense of them - the two things that look odd to me are the decision to dump TOM and BGH, and then the plan to build houses with in yards of an active airport. The other main thrust of the strategy - which seems to be diversification into related aviation activity - has some merit, but as with all these things, the writers can't resist pushing it and dangling a few shiny beads to impress the natives.

A bit more explanation rather than the 'I know but can't tell' approach might help to build a more positive atmosphere and dispel some of the suspicion about the owners motives.

The houses issue is being blown out of all proportion in this thread. I was at Farnborough this last weekend and guess what, a large development of executive flats and houses is being built adjacent to the airfield entrance. Is anyone foretelling of mass uprisings of new residents at FAB insisting the airfield be closed or operations restricted? I don't think so.

People buying a new build house near an airport do so in the full knowledge they are buying a house next to an airport. Any argument they have in future against the operation of that airport is therefore weakened. If it realises a land value for Peel that can be reinvested to improve the airport what's the problem...

AndyH52 - Well said!

I'm struggling to understand why people can't grasp why myself and others can't elaborate on things that Peel have in the pipeline for DTVA? It's commercially sensitive, simple as.

Nevertheless, I'm going to try my best to expand; I can immediately think of seven items I've been made aware of over recent weeks, all positive things. Of these seven:

*Four are happening imminently
*Of these four, two maybe three, will be announced in press releases, the rest will simply just go ahead.
*One no-one on here will give a :mad: about
*Of the remaining three items, one is medium-term and by no means guaranteed, one is long-term, and one is very long-term and thus may never happen

I doubt this will satisfy most but there you go anyway.

SWBKCB - I agree. I came across these forums the other day that may be able to help clarify: (apologies if I'm inadvertently breaking any advertising rules here)

dtvafacts dot freeforums dot org

AndyH52
I beg to disagree, it never was just about houses, though all your comments do is actually draw focus to this issue by eluding to alternate and completely irrelevant developments elsewhere.
This thread's focus has always been about commercial aviation and related subjects at DTVA / MME. As it appears to me, and I'm quite entitled to my opinion as are all others, then these activities are under threat as a result of the ongoing & "possibly" devious activities of a certain property company who may have a more sinister long term and as yet undisclosed "Plan B" .
However to put a balance on this, then I may be completey wrong & in which case I apologise. However as many have said before & which I also endorse then to me the the plans for the future of the aviation related activites as disclosed, make little sense, though unfortunately the potential asset value of the land offers a much greater source of revenue to an ultimate owner whose principal activity is the development of land.:suspect:
Some would say "wake up and smell the coffee !"

DTVAirport - we've been hearing for years that major new plans for DTV will be announced shortly.

Building houses on land part of a quiet airport is little more than a form of asset stripping.
Aircraft scrapping is interesting but substantially about renting out some of the existing land for use as a factory / recycling plant - landing fees are likely to be minimal in comparison.
Caravan storage is just a way of renting out some brownfield land.

We're left with very very little that has come anywhere near to fruition that has been announced in the last few years, while passenger and cargo throughput has fallen off a cliff. I can think of 4 commercial passenger airports in England that have either been redeveloped or will be shortly for alternate non-aviation use since 2000. There would need to be a very compelling set of actions from DTV's management with sizeable amounts of Peel's cash being invested in a long-term project to explain why DTV does not become number 5.

Beefer Peel brought LPL back into the their ownership as said in 2014, however it is not part of Peel Airports as it used to be, it is now a company on its own.

I don`t think LPL is making money and infact it is losing and the pax figures are dropping at quite an alarming rate as are all Peels airports

Ian

I believe that Peel are also the owners of Manchester City Airport (Barton).

Beafer - I wouldn't read anything too devious into the company structure. Each of the three airports is a separate company in its own right. After the deal with Vantage, all three were owned by a holding company called Vantage Airports Ltd, which was in turn owned 65% by Vantage and 35% by Peel. Back in 2012 Peel bought Vantage Airports Ltd's shares in DTV and Doncaster, giving them 100% ownership of those two airports. Earlier this year, Peel bought out Vantage's 65% stake in Vantage Airports Ltd, giving Peel 100% ownership of Liverpool.

So now each airport is a separate company, wholly owned by Peel.

Regarding Liverpool's financial health, I believe it is profitable at the operating level, but that its large debts lead to overall losses. There was a breach of the debt covenants earlier this year, which ultimately led to Peel taking overall control. Presumably Peel's deep pockets have resolved the debt crisis.

Vantage and Peel shares
 

Thanks for the answers, it does make one wonder why Vantage become involved at all?
Maybe they were a smoke screen to blur the figures with 35% this and 50% that?
Did Vantage profit from their dalliance in the Peel Airports and the share sales?

Vantage will have lost out badly, especially from their forced withdrawal from Liverpool (which would have accounted for the vast bulk of their initial investment). Their problem was that their backers, Citi Infrastructure Investors, had a change in strategy and decided to withdraw from a lot of their investments, including Vantage. When Liverpool breached its debt covenants earlier in the year, the banks would have required the shareholders to put in more cash to pay down at least some of the debt (technically the banks could have called in the entire debt for immediate repayment). With Citi having lost interest, Vantage had no access to funds and so were at the mercy of Peel. Peel will have 'negotiated' with Vantage to buy their shares back, I imagine for a fraction of their original value. Exit a bunch of embarrassed Canadians, who had originally bought the airports on an inflated valuation.

See http://www.richmond-news.com/news/yv...ment-1.1003387

http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1344...-in-uk-airport

DTV has been storing caravans for some time now - there are plenty on site now.
As storage has been taking place for so long, could someone explain why there is no barrier or fence between caravans and the rest of the car park ? Seems odd to me that people would store high value items in a relatively insecure manner - or that the company insuring Peel's liability against theft would accept this.

Separately all seemed rather sad seeing the terminal effectively closed down at 4:15 pm on a Saturday afternoon

The Citi/Vantage split was not related to any specific concerns with the airport investments but rather reflected a much broader change of strategy. The airports were a tiny part of Citi's troubled infrastructure division.

See Citigroup Seeks to Exit Alternative Investments Unit - WSJ

The airport j-v with Peel was just a victim of this wider change of strategy, rather than the cause of it.

The only other thing I would say on 003 1/2's interesting contribution is that Liverpool did have a positive Ebitda when it was sold to the j-v, so it was reasonable to attribute a decent value to it. The same couldn't be said of DTV and Doncaster, however, which presumably dragged down the overall value of the group of airports.

Should have been bustling with the weekly Jersey!

DTV. the future..again!
 

Interesting times...see earlier posts...Bristol ,pik ,Manston etc. could be some major movement in ownershps ..where do we stand..,are we safe??? DTVmovements..any more inside gen...or is this what you have really been hinting at?

highwideandugly - not sure I follow? If you're hinting at a change of ownership I wouldn't be privy to that kind of information, but that being said, as the deal with the Canadians proved, Peel wouldn't be able to keep something on that scale under wraps and I've heard nothing, pretty sure Peel have no plans to leave, if they did, I don't think they would be working on some of the projects that they're currently involved in.

Change the record...
 

Beafer...any chance of a new line of attack from you please? The last thread was shut down - does this thread have to follow the same route?

I'm not interested in ownership, Peel's balance sheets or Auntie Doris. I'm interested in the future of the airport and its routes - actually the title of this forum.....

P330 In this instance then I am in complete agreement with you.
It is achieving nothing in quoting from a "rag" in respect of whose contributors are by their own admission totally out of their depth. There are actually quite a lot of financial experts about, though one suspects have better things to do with their free time.
One final note, then there are clearly many bitter individuals outside of DTVA who have come off second best in their dealings with "Peel", who see sensationalism in "nit picking" as a tool to attract others to their cause.
From my point then there is little to suggest from the DTVA perspective that their sentiments are not well founded, though as said then this is not a viable "tack" for this thread to go down.
It takes "two to Tango" & given that "Peel" are one, then perhaps looking a bit closer to home may be the way to seek comfort (or otherwise) than winging on about the activities of a mega organisation.... at least on this thread !

Thanks Skyman
 

Thanks Skyman....here here!

Its been interesting watching this thread from the side lines these last couple of weeks. I'm confident there are plans in the pipeline that will secure the current airport traffic and build on it, as DTV Airport has suggested.

The problem for the public, or a forum like this is, it is now a case of "the boy who cried wolf". No-one is going to believe any positive news about the future (based on internet postings and management PR) until the actions start to happen and the benefits are realised. No benefit in criticising those that are more certain about the future than others; let's simply wait and see what happens. There are two realities right now:

1. There are credible plans in place to sustain the airport.
2. Peel have little or no track record on delivery on such plans for MME.

Either Peel's success rate will continue or they will finally deliver on a project that sustains (or even grows) an airport for the future. One thing I am certain of is that local management believe in the plans, are working hard on them and aim to deliver them. Whether they are competent to do that and whether this puiblic image counters a contradictory, more clandestine motive elsewhere in the Peel group is another debate.

Teesside Auirport
 

Isn't what Beafer says of interest? If there's no money in the pot how do you develop? Or have you got some ideas?

But they did, because whether you like it or not (and I don't) absorbing annual losses is classed as investment. You should know that given it's been discussed to death on here and yet again you're raising the same issues over and over despite conclusive answers being given in the past. It's also on the DTVA Facts forum that Robert Ryan mentioned a few days ago.

Well this is where the housing - on land unsuitable for aviation use - comes in to play, this will raise the finance necessary.

Why don't they just have done with airport, get it closed and get this ridiculous thread off this forum

Struggling with this !:=

Me too skyman, but unfortunately that seems to be the norm, in any industry.

Crystal balls...
 

So there's a massive decline so what?! Doesn't mean we won't one day bounce back! I can't share what I know because I'm told it's commercially sensitive but in the same breath it's nice to let people know that there may well be light at the end of the tunnel.

4th October. 2012. Sorry DTV. Was looking back at threads for something and found this posted by you.

So nothing really has changed has it..maybe plenty of winks and nudges and caravans..but nothing of any aviation substance.

As always more questions than answers but....why are Sycamore so quiet,why are Cobham still here and finally when are the first house bricks to be laid?

Highwide, the bouncing back bit still applies, and I'm sure if I looked back I could quite easily name two or three things from that time period that were confidential but ultimately happened, but I'm just back home from a pretty :mad: eleven hour shift so frankly, I can't be a:mad:d

Beafer, you're so full of :mad:

And to clarify, I don't work at DTVA, just in case my name confuses anyone in to thinking otherwise. My username is the name of an old fansite I used to run many years ago prior to the DTV Movements website being founded.

Any actual route news or is it getting worse