The BAA sold 03/21 off to allow Freeport Scotland to be built. It was fenced off and derelict in the late 80s. It was only the need for the BAe Flying College to fly in horrendous winter crosswinds that brought back the northern third into use. It was only under PIK Ltd that it was brought back into full use. So for short term gain the airport had long term pain to get back to what they had. Nothing changes.

Some cuts at PIK too. Including a daily flight to BCN. Gran Canaria also goes. Theres been some minor cuts this summer as well.

A further nail in the coffin for me.

Yet FR's media release indicate that MLA ccontinues from PIK:

https://corporate.ryanair.com/news/r...rom-edinburgh/

– Edinburgh: 45 routes including London Stansted & 11 new routes to Berlin, Derry, Gothenburg, Hamburg, Lisbon, Memmingen, Stockholm Skavsta, Riga, Seville, Sofia, & Tallinn

– Glasgow Prestwick: 8 routes to Alicante, Faro, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, Malaga, Malta, Rzeszow & Tenerife South

– Glasgow International – 3 routes to Dublin (3 times daily), Krakow (2 wkly) & Wroclaw (2 wkly)

Misread, apologies!

Alicante 3x weekly,
Faro 1x weekly
Fuertevetura 1x weekly
Lanzarote 2x weekly
Malaga 2x weekly
Malta 1x weekly
Rzeszow 2x weekly
Tenerife South 4x weekly

16 weekly fights for Winter '18/19. (Correct me if wrong)

The Times has reported that there has been over 20 approaches to the Scottish Government about investment or purchase of PIK.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/s...fers-mfkw2fxm2


22 approaches either means that the interested parties could not make a case for operating PIK after looking at the books or the SG did not think the approaches were viable. They do not state what or who the approaches were made by though.

However it does show that there may be businesses out there that want to have a go at operating Prestwick.

Also, on an unrelated note, there's been a Qatar 747 sitting on the tarmac for a few days now, anyone got any ideas what it's in for?

Huntin' shootin' fishin' apparently.

How the other half live...:eek:

Qatar also have 2 A320s parked at INV for the same reason they arrived on the 8th

It's a poorly kept secret that Prestwick loses money on the FR contract. A brave owner would oust FR immediately and then attract a mix of short-haul, holiday sun and a long haul to North America. Whilst FR are there none of the above will happen.

Has this been confirmed, or is it just rumoured?

That would be "brave" - who do you have in mind? I don't remember there being a queue at the door...

I just listened to the committee.

They said they have spoken to 23 airlines. Closest they have got is with a Cypriot operator but an "operational issue" with pilots put paid to it.

Met with upto 17 cargo operators.

Feel they could sustain a London service. At a recent summit they were told by Flybe and Easyjet that they would consider a PIK-LHR route if the third runway came to fruition. However they also realise that they service would need to be more than 1x daily to be attractive to business. Number of flights from Glasgow and Edinburgh works against them.

They feel a lot of smaller aspects of the business are doing well like fuelling, maintenance, rent occupancy.

They got grilled about how much the passenger ops service is costing them. Asked why it has taken them 5 years to realise that passenger ops at the airport has been losing money, which they conceded. However they said the are carrying out a review to understand truly what makes money and what doesn't at the airport. They blamed managerial changes for the length of time being so long. Admitted they are up against it with other airports which are better located. Stated that at the end of the next review they may make a recommendation to cease passenger ops if it saves the business.

Stated they have virtually no inbound traffic and are reliant on sun, sea and sand outbound.

Asked if and when the taxpayer would get their money back and they couldn't answer. They did make a lot of argument about the value of the 800 acres of land of the airport. One of the panel mentioned that Nicola Sturgeon had told them at the time that of purchase by the SG that they would not loan more to airport than the value of the land. When told by one of the panel that they didn't think they could pay the tax payer back but if they could what year would the tax payer see their money back, Ian Forgie the Finance Director couldn't answer this.

Annual loans are pretty much spent on maintaing the infrastructure of the airport, i.e terminal, runway etc.

Also told that they have now went in a different direction from their original five year plan in 2014. A panel member said they found that confusing and that the airport is playing a dangerous game by relying on FR as their lone operator when they are notorious for ditching airports on a whim.

They did say that passenger numbers and cargo were marginally increasing. Although with no service increases coming and minor reductions from their only operator, concern exists.

Said that most parties who want to invest in or buy the airport want to basically bulldoze the place and build houses and they will only sell to parties which have the same vision of the board. They are not actively looking to sell the airport but if the right bid comes along they will talk.

Asked about how long SG would keep funding a loss making entity. No one really knew.

Lots of chit chat about the Heathrow Hub and the Spaceport but nothing really concrete. Just talks and meetings are ongoing. A lot of non-disclosure stuff.

A new commercial director coming in and they have recently hired a "cargo industry expert" who lives 10 minutes from the airport and is retired. His contacts have helped the airport.

Overall it felt very defeatist. They are relying on areas of the business which make minor profits to prop up the drain of the passenger operations.

What could possibly go wrong?

Thanks for the summary... very informative, if not slightly troubling!


You make it sound so simple! I think you are massively overestimating the impact of Ryanair! How exactly are Ryanair putting off an airline starting service to North America? And just who would want to run a flight to North America from PIK, when Glasgow is just up the road? I'm surprised PIK hasn't been able to attract a few chart flights to the sun - Ryanair does well on those kind of flights from PIK.

I still believe there could be a market for passenger flights from PIK. Ryanair are managing to fill their sun flights, showing people are prepared to travel to PIK if the price is right. With Ryanair now cutting capacity out of GLA, we might see additional flights added from PIK in future. Given the right incentives, additional airlines could be attracted too - Wizzair did well enough for a few years, it would be interesting to see how the move to GLA has impacted their profits.

Closing the terminal and abandoning passenger flights is a big step, and something that is difficult to come back from. If they can grow passenger numbers, they will eventually turn a profit. With air travel continuing to grow, and GLA/EDI approaching capacity, PIK may still be in a position to attract some of the overspill.

The newspaper reports on this committee are very sketchy. I have not seen the yearly turnover figures anywhere, just that the owners (us) have loaned £40m over 6 years and that losses are at £24m over 4 years. Does that mean that it loses £6m a year which the loan is covering for now? Have any loan repayments been made? Many on the committee are politically motivated which does not help.
If it is the case that the passenger side is where the losses are, should these 700,000 passengers not be paying an extra £8.50 in landing and take off fees. Did the committee ask how much Ryanair paid at Prestwick compared to what they pay at other UK airports?

What, on a Scottish taxpayer-owned and funded airport, competing against Scotland's existing state-owned aviation museum at East Fortune? Can't see that going down well.
I've always thought there must be mileage in trying to get a commercial training school back at PIK.

The management felt that they have one of the best offerings open to any operator due to the price and availability of slots at the airport compared to competitors. They are entirely open and flexible. Ryanair being there or not they don't feel affects potential airlines.

Also said that just under 1/3 of passengers at the airport are rail users.

There was very little discussion specifically about Ryanair and their use of the airport.

They did reasonably well with a host of charter flights to the sun when FR's main Scottish focus was at PIK and inbound city routes were their core focus. When the charter carriers like Futura went bust, and at the same time Ryanair moved all city routes out to EDI for better inbound traction, this left only outbound sun routes from PIK, and so that niche for charters was lost as FR then dominated that same space, one they had avoided at first.
It is entirely possible to lose money with loads more passengers, this is partly why Infratil sold out, they scaled up their costs faster than their revenues should have allowed.
If a new customer started flights on PIK-sun, there is a high probability FR would compete to maintain market share, otherwise they risk losing the very competitive pricing PIK have to offer their only passenger operator. It's a tough call, and I have said this before, but closing the 1964 terminal and concentrating on what PIK do well at as a niche operator may well work IMHO. Trying to offer a full passenger service from that cost base is crippling. What turned PIK around in 1994 was Matthew Hudson making some hard and painful decisions which led to some medium term success in the market as it was then. No politician sees any success in doing the same as they will own the pain with none of the gain. There's a lot of good stuff there, it just needs a break from the fantasy business model that continues to show heavy losses. But it's not my job on the line so that's just keyboard-warrior-ing on my part to some extent

I'd love to know ho much it costs to run the current terminal. I wonder if they are better off demolishing it and building a smaller, more efficient terminal alongside it? It might be a big hit initially, but possibly worth it in the long run?

Ryanair don't pay airports like Manston! It doesn't work like that!

The committee were more interested in getting mud to stick to the SG than in identifying the real loss making problem (to the airport) of Ryanair's operation, and then getting the airport management to explain what they are discussing with Ryanair about closing the cash gap.

Prestwick is an answer to a serious housing shortage.

First time I've ever heard that location suggested. It was always PIK or campbeltown. Lovely part of the world, no infrastructure, peat bog, sure it's not April 1st?

Going by the figures recently provided, It costs everyone in Scotland about thirty bob a year each to keep this massive national asset open. It would be most irresponsible to pull the plug.

That's what I thought as well but it seems that it was mentioned previously in relation to the rocket launched sattelite side of things. The space tourist side, if ever developed, is more likely to be from an existing airport.
A rocket was launched in Oct 2015 from the Hebrides Range that would be similar to what would be used at Sutherland.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-35482244

You mean it costs everyone in Scotland £30 a year to subsidis Ryanair flights to the Costas.

If Ryanair were bringing in thousands of tourists to Scotland from the likes of Brussels, Frankfurt, Oslo, Stockholm, Madrid and so on then I could see the benifit. But they aren't.

Prestwick is nothing more than the cheapskate gateway to the Costas for Scottish people to go and fry themselves on a beach for two weeks. Why should the tax payer subsidise that?!

Can you explain where it costs each Scot £30 per year?
How Ryanair run their business is up to them. From the figures provided it seems that they should be paying over £8 per passenger extra to what they currently pay for going through the airport. It may be that the airport management consider their use of the airport facilities for maintenance etc and the jobs provided at the terminal as too much to lose. I don't agree with them on that but I don't have all the facts available to me.
Keeping the national assett operational is the priority until an alternative is in place.

What's the point in having a "national asset" that only succeeds in throwing money down the pan.

The only reason FR stay is due to the maintenance facility. Oh and guess who paid for most of that......

Money is not getting thrown down the pan. The losses are with the passenger side and as FR are the sole operator then the airport needs to charge them more or shut down the passenger facility with the obvious job losses and the possible loss of the FR maintenance operation. For a government that has pledged £2 Bn to Calmac over 8 years, it's a drop in the bucket.

The one asset they have, the runway, they can't afford to operate without tax payer subsidy.

The profit making side of Prestwick is nothing more than a small time property business.

I don't understand the comparison you're trying to make. Are you aware that Calmac provide essential lifeline services to otherwise inaccessible remote areas?

And not forgetting that calmac carries nearly 10x the pax of pik. Not only vital services for residents but also tourists who actually bring money in to the country, also benefiting people all over Scotland not just a pocket of people in Ayrshire. If pik was run as a proper business it would have been put out of its misery long ago.

Sadly it's a vanity project now. The Snp will never back down and admit they were wrong.

According to the reports of the committee on 20th June (above), It's the passenger side that's being subsidised.

I'm aware that maybe 5% of the subsidies Calmac receives could be classed as being used for essential lifeline services but that is not a discussion for this forum.

Well you did make the comparison...

About the subsidies, yes, but I did not mention that money-spinner, lifeline services.