SARF...Why try to defend the indefensible concerning "machinations" within the Stobart boardroom..
Tho obviously completely above board,as yourself I cannot interpret absolutely the "results report" it is put together that way but just common sense should say it is in part "flattering to deceive".
Name a progressive company that continually sells assets to return money in the form of dividend to shareholders?.
Do you honestly think that is best & good practice for a "developing" enterprise?.
It does appear SEN IMHO continues to be a hostage to fortune.

I believe the lease has over 100 years to run so that wouldn't negatively affect the sale value of the airport.

I really think the previous poster was highlighting the "romance" of SARF`s post in his defence of the "owners" of SEN TBH using a selling figure of £1B..
I think we could put that down to poetic licence as that is all it is.
But it does highlight there are serious questions raised but all defenders here use the usual throwaway style of remark.

Of course it was, and I apologise if I came over as a bit scornful……..

I think it’s evident what Stobart Group are trying to do at SEN. Personally, I think it’s a high risk strategy, but the argument that attracting just a fraction of regional point-to-point traffic from the bigger London airports would be lucrative is a compelling one.

My issue, really, is with Stobart Group themselves and the way the company is run. It’s been suggested before that they’re basically a private company in plc clothing, and the way they organise and present their finances does little to persuade me otherwise.

Andy_S

A good summary of the situation I think.

+1 to that. How they can run an airline without reporting anything other than a fairly meaningless load factor % and On Time Performance is beyond me.

In defence of Stobart they are a listed company and do comply with the onerous reporting requirements that are imposed on them.

Uniquely for an airport operator they have eggs in many baskets including rail, biomass and property investment. No one division has to shine as long as the overall objective is met.

For SEN watchers it is frustrating to see continuing poor performance at the airport, lack of new airlines, and a general lack of progress on targets. But from a group point of view they do have time to turn the ship around. I can't see dividend payments covered until 2022 but they will be covered in the medium term which gives the group time to consolidate pax numbers and crucially, pax profit.

My views on inviting in EZY and running Stobart flights from the airport are well known. However Stobat Group is far from finished. Do they need to sell the airport by 2022? Yes. Do they need to panic now. No!

Remember it took a good number of years before LCY became accepted and established. Perhaps sometimes we expect too much too soon. So long as Stobart shareholders are prepared to take the long view they should get a good return, in my opinion.

I don't give a crap what stobart do..
Currently stobart group is worth a shade under 1 billion pounds
Hence my 1 bill airport sale making the shareholders approx 2.60 odd a share plus what's left over ..
It matter not one jot wether the company is a go getting achiever.
What matters is what it's worth and what it Pays out
If it sells itself for 4 quid a share and ceases to exist the share holders will not be crying into their beer ..
Call it a takeover if you want

The price of everything and the value of nothing - the short term thinking which has served British industry so well :ok:

Is 'Jet Blast' this way?

Not exactly correct.

The market capitalisation of Stobart is 0.94 billion. What it's "worth" is a bit more subjective. The actual asset value is somewhat less than half of this, and a lot of that is cash.

Ok. You buy it for 500 mill then. See how far you get ..
As for the poster above .. if you own something worth 2.60 and some one offers you 4.00. Then you crack on with your value/worth scenario. You may be at the back of the Q

Regarding the latest results and specifically the aviation division of the group.

I would like to step back to the basic fundamentals, specifically the strategy of the aviation division.

I'm not sure the strategy is clear or worse do SEN management not revisit and review their own strategy? This is for me the most important factor from which all other business priorities must flow.

I don't see how their strategy is either realistic or achievable and it requires revisiting and recalibration or failures will result.

SEN management need to revisit the strategy and validate it is realistic and avhieveable. This factor alone is significantly important in the investors eyes.

We know the theme for the strategy is Grow in aviation. That is a given. What is needed now is rigorous reassessment on the 'how'. Contingency plans to address those segments of the strategy where risk of being unsuccessful in achieving is so important. For example - Cityjet talks collapsed and Flybe stepped in. That's a good example of effective outcome but the rest of the strategies 'how' needs revaluation.

The first four DUB-SEN flights are sold out.

Their airfare options were very competitively priced. I price checked them a month ago against Ryanair, Cityjet, BA Cityflyer and Aer Lingus. The Flybe airfare was the most competitive. Next nearest was Ryanair at around £40 more expensive by the time you add allocated seat charge. If you add in hold baggage Flybe still come out cheapest.

I hope they can continue to hold those competitively priced tickets.

Depends on how deep their pockets are.

Definition of success? A half full aircraft that makes a tidy profit with a decent ticket price.

Definition of failure? A completely full aircraft that makes a loss, as the airline tries to attract business and where the airline can’t raise its prices and make a profit.

Forget the first couple of months with its promotional fares. The real test will be in a few months time.

I would imagine economies of scale would come into play at some point.

I am confident that Dublin will do well, but I dont have the same confidence with Manchester. Personally, I prefer Edinburgh to Glasgow cities, but I am sure Stobart have done their homework.

Does anybody know the full 2018 schedule with FlyBe yet?

There are 15 destinations in the peak-season Summer 2018 timetable:

ANR 4 x weekly
BUD 3 x weekly
CFR 4 x weekly
CGN 5 x weekly
DBV 2 x weekly
DUB 19 x weekly
GLA 12 x weekly
GRQ 6 x weekly
LYS 5 x weekly
MXP 5 x weekly
MAN 18 x weekly
PRG Daily
RNS 8 x weekly
ZAD 1 x weekly
VIE 4 x weekly

There are also a large number of other destinations bookable as one-stop flights most of which are routed via MAN. I've noted a number of bookings to EDI having been made over the past couple of weeks for example.

Allocating the three EMB195s and the two ATR72s to that schedule seems to show 2 or 3 spare slots per week for the former and half a dozen for the latter. Perhaps there may be an additional route or frequencies to come.

The table effectively highlights BEE/Stobart`s only realistic opportunity/method for driving up pax numbers with DUB/GLA & MAN departures on a basic par with the rest of the schedule.
Whilst lifting pax numbers perhaps more important will be the depth of the pockets funding this strategy.

Does Flybe offer any connecting flights via Southend? It seems they do not for bookings from Groningen, even though that would be useful. For example, the flight from Groningen arrives at SEN at 17:25, with departures from SEN to Dublin, Manchester, and Glasgow at 18:30, 18:35, and 18:30.

For the return flights the connections are not as good (about 4 hours transfer time in SEN), but still I think certainly people from Groningen would use such options (even if it is only for example one-way GRQ-SEN-DUB and then back DUB-AMS or so).