I find it hard to believe that Prestwick is more sustainable than Inverness, Newcastle, Leeds/Bradford or Exeter, if only because none of those four have an airport the size of Abbotsinch just up the road to absorb their traffic. Not sure you could describe Tyne & Wear or West Yorkshire as having 'no real population' either!

Its not as if Durham Tees Valley has a lot going for it. Remove the FRA business and there's nowt. I doubt T3 will be running back there to operate flights

They will be there until next May at least! :ok:

While HWU's list is some what "random" (BOH, HUY not diversified?), there's long been an arguement that the UK has too many airports. Depends what shape the UK aviation industry end up in, and at the moment who knows?

It hasn't but Teesside has, there's more than Cobham.

This whole thread just seems to be a bit of ignorant trolling by bored spotters.

Nail on the head. As long as they keep this going it'll remain a money pit.

seems odd that everyone is convinced the CAF business was poached when it appeared to happen as a pandemic gripped the mainland UK. Let’s not forget the initial missions were booked into PIK and allegedly switched last minute due to an issue out with the airports control. Hotels I believe? Only a handful remain open locally still to this day.

As some others have suggested there is welcome business come the other way in the form of the C40’s and Qatar Emiri C17 albeit we need more of it. Proof there is life in the old dog yet.

Whilst the Canadian stuff is a sore loss during this mess there is an argument to suggest it may only be temporary and sporadic. Let’s hope it returns.

Hopeful also that when passenger traffic does return the airport may be in a position to offer a better cost saving deal to potential airlines who have been hit hard during the shut down.

interesting months ahead for the industry as a whole.

Can the costs of an international airport be sustained by this type of traffic?

My point is though, there has been accommodation for Kuwait, Qatari and I believe 1 CAF came back to do back to back overnights. Accommodation was also available for the Volga crew, so I don`t think we can use lack of hotel rooms as a
viable reason for them being in Belfast. After all, they should be in exactly the same position as Prestwick re accommodation. Anyway, hopefully a good outcome is still possible with the buyer, although i`m sure they will be looking to get it at a
far lower price now.

certainly in my opinion, if managed correctly, yes. If the USAF return on the volumes seen pre COVID19 then no reason why it can’t.

it’s a fair point. However with these circumstances never been seen before there may be more to it than Prestwick simply being robbed of the business. I am keeping an open mind and considering each possible reason.

TRN1K - the problem with your suggestion that once things start to recover, PIK could attract new passenger airlines by pricing is that GLA and EDI will both also be desperate for new traffic which they will also try to attract by pricing, and they have the upper hand in terms of location. It really confuses me as to why PIK hangs on to its 1960s terminal for a handful of FR flights which will not be paying more than a pittance and if anyone would like to explain the economics of this I would be interested.

Theres one reason why they might choose to do this... the economics are maybe better than everyone around here thinks. PIK is a business like any other, and if the way to profitability was as simple as closing the terminal, then they'd have done so years ago. The fact it is still open suggests its not that simple.

So what is the cause of the losses year on year?

Is it because they don't want to pee off Ryanair, who happen to have a busy maintenance facility there? Much easier/cheaper to have a hangar at a station with regular ops so they can swap aircraft in and out at no cost of positioning etc.

So the British taxpayer is subsidising Ryabairs maintenance costs??? :eek:

Well they subsidised the hangar build.......

But even if it is the case that PIK is desperate to keep FR pax flights so they keep the maintenance business, it would surely be cheaper to handle the FR flights using a portacabin rather than keeping the existing terminal open.

Really? That would be a very costly exercise in itself. Having to move all of the security equipment, check in, carousels, immigration, making it big enough for a lounge whilst all being DfT compliant at the same time...

They’re owned by politicians who want to keep jobs, facilities and return PIK to the “glory days”. Now, imagine the headlines of closing the terminal building. No UK passenger operator is going to open an operation at PIK. It was damned hard to get Buzz, flyglobespan and bmi baby/Air Wales before the bubble days of Ryanair, and those businesses all failed. The definition of insanity is continuing to the same thing expecting a different result. Even before COVID19 PIK were irrelevant in the UK passenger market, they have been since FR opened up EDI and GLA. Even if FR pulled out of GLA, there’s little benefit to PIK in the current market.

But PIK’s big old white elephant terminal survives because of politics, just like when George Younger was the local MP, it’s wrapped in politics.

Or to put the business perspective, it would be a necessary investment to reduce losses and right size the business to a firmer footing. The passenger facilities required by FR don’t include a lounge.

The last time that I saw government figures it was the passenger side that was losing money. If I remember correctly it was over £20 per passenger.
How many jobs does the Ryanair maintenance hanger provide? Is it enough to keep sustaining the losses on their passenger movements? If not they need to send them packing.

It was around 400 in 2019 - not sure what it is now but given that they were in the process of putting up an additional hanger it must be still around that number?

If 400 Ryanair personnel earn £25k on average, that's £10 million per annum into the local economy and rental fees to the airport for the hangers. If Ryanair need maintenance and passenger operations to make staying at PIK worthwhile you can see how the politicians might see a loss on the passenger side as a price worth paying.

Plenty space st Manchester !

Do you have a source for this? I've never seen PIK give a breakdown of costs per segment. They handily break down revenue, and show that half of revenue is from passenger related services, but they don't give a similar breakdown for costs.

The sad reality is Prestwick is never going to go back to the glory days. Ryanair will stay as long as it’s cheap enough for them. Not to mention the current global situation, airlines are not really going to be looking to set up an additional base in Scotland anytime soon.

Would be interesting to see how much the terminal costs to run and would it be cheaper to demolish and build a smaller more modern facility.

There was discusion from #170 above onwards, based on live broadcasting from the Rural Affairs Committee at Holyrood in 2018. It was said that the losses were due to passenger operations.

Isn't the terminal a listed building thus cannot be demolished? All the lighting has been changed to energy saving lighting now, so that should save a bit of money. Do they need as many car parking spaces nowadays?

I'd doubt LED light bulbs and some parking will save it...

Well that should save them a £100 a year. Just another £4,466,900 to go :-P

Notice there has been no mention of the 5 x CAF movements in Prestwick since Friday. :zzz:

Easy to slate the place when it loses a few movements but we also must remember to be positive when it appears all is not lost.

A bit off kilter...but out of interest..with all the lockdowns etc. Does anyone know where all these night stopping crews night stop?

In the terminal, pull the benches together

£3m operating profit in year to March 2020

https://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2020/08/prestwick-airport-confident-of-sale-in-return-to-profit/

Good to see the turnaround and shows what can be done. The challenge will be ( like all airports ) to ride the storm that they are currently going through with the impact of COVID 19. Whilst the military fuel and tech stops are returning the movements are a fraction of what they were pre COVID and although freight has taken an upturn overall by all accounts, the oil and gas equipment flights from Houston have been hit due to that sector's downturn. However well done to the much maligned PIK Management who have returned a profit despite the PAX challenges. I wonder what is going through the minds of the 'preferred bidders'?

I also say well done PIK. Always criticised and now for it to have had this turn around is good news. Plus sometimes it has some cracking movements!!
​​​​​​It has amazing space and runway capability. Nice to see this turn of Fortune particularly as the GLA airport is frankly a bit of a sorry place these days....

excellent news, and quite the turnaround! I look forward to viewing the accounts to see where the extra revenue has came from.. i'm guessing military movements must be up significantly.

"We have been advised that the company selected as Preferred Bidder does not wish to complete the purchase of the business at this time": https://www.parliament.scot/S5_Rural...ickAirport.pdf

Like we didnt see that coming... Why would you ever at this time. Suppose could resurface again in future.
More tax payers heating bills over the winter to subsidise the half empty benidorm express....

So the mystery preferred bidder pulls out, now an apparent large European transport company and a far Eastern banking corporation now looking into possibly bidding for the airport

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/ayrshi...s-buy-22815246

Fed Ex or DHL or Amazon? Could consolidate all their Scottish airfreight at that site.