Convince airlines that there's a profitable market for their flights?

The other issues are peripheral.

The other issue is catchment area. How many millions or even thousands of customers are within an hours travelling time of the airport. That is why Manston could never succeed, and it tried so many times, because there just weren't enough customers within it's area to give it critical mass.

Southend is working just and it has, if my memory is correct, a population of 5 million within an hours travelling time, plus an integrated railway station with up to 8 trains an hour to London.

Perhaps Bournemouth airport is just in the wrong place to attract enough farepayers.

There is virtually no difference between Thomsonfly back then and TUI from BOH today - apart from routes and aircraft numbers. Thomson package holidays used the Thomsonfly flights and anyone can book seats on TUI flights today.

The only thing that works from BOH (as has been demonstrated countless times over the years) is low fares and holiday/package flights that are not offered from SOU. This gives BOH a bigger than otherwise catchment area as people will travel from further distances to access the low fares.

What's odd at the moment though is that fares on some TUI services are much higher than those from LGW or LTN so it seems to me that demand is outweighing supply.

Eventually this will naturally lead to additional aircraft from TUI or spill over from another airline after BRS and London gets full.

What gets me upset is that this type of 'organic' growth only gets delivered every 10-15 years! If MAG was half as 'proactive' for BOH as it is for EMA, MAN, STN then we would be seeing more activity more quickly.

What do I mean by proactive? By slashing the cost of flying in and doing business at BOH. Right now the costs are sky high - higher than London airports for sure.

Newmarket are advertising many departure dates to Barcelona from Bournemouth from next summer May18 through Sep18, does anyone know if these are special flights or seats on Ryanair to Girona?

Ryanair I am afraid
Newmarket have stopped all ad hoc charters from UK airports and just concentrating on scheduled flights now

Superbreak are the ones to watch now

Looks as if there could be a few charters to Gibralter next summer. (Linked posted by GAZMO in the Belfast thread)

https://www.euroweeklynews.com/3.0.1...lled-next-july

enter air?
they have sent in a 738 last summer on a charter to GIB

but the 738 is not the ideal a/c for GIB at all - operates at a severe penalty

who else might it be? small planet?

Titan would be the most obvious. They operated many of the GIB rescue flights when Monarch went under. Not many airlines with crews trained to operate there (EZY/BA/Titan)

ah yes forgot about them - they have 757 and 320 family which are more suited to GIB's runway and wx conditions

I know Monarch, British Airways, Easyjet all mostly used Airbus A320-200 At GIB.

Titan Airways have 3 x A320-200 (168-180 seats) and are due to reconfigured the leased Airbus A318-100 to 112 economy seats in the first quarter of 2018. I think Gib government & local businesses are part funding this and assume if they are they will be wanting A320-200s if possible.

I think the Gibraltar flights are actually only 1 flight from each airport listed ( 7 UK airports ) for the month of July giving GIB 2 flights a week

Imminent sale?
 

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/15696200.Bournemouth_Airport_sale__to_be_announced_imminentl y_/

For those in the know is this good news?

So just to clarify the above link below:-

Mr Bath, former boss of Bath Travel, whose father Peter’s firm Palmair operated from Bournemouth Airport for half a century, said Manchester Airports Group's (MAG) tenure since taking over the airport in 2001 had been “a disastrous spiral”.

He said the firm had relied too much on Ryanair to provide flights, spent too much money on a new terminal in the mistaken belief that it would entice more passengers, and started charging £2.50 for cars dropping off passengers - “without a shadow of a doubt the most disastrous PR decision of any airport in Britain”.
“
My father said people fly from Bournemouth Airport because the parking is cheap and they can get home in 20 minutes,” he said.
“They lost Palmair and got a new terminal that didn’t make an iota of difference to passenger numbers, which people have to pay £2.50 to see, which is a lot of clunking in the machine and people hate it.
“If they hadn’t built the terminal they wouldn’t have had to charge extra. It was a disastrous spiral.”
In 2009 MAG spent almost £50 million on the new terminal, as well as an improved runway, radar, navigation and road access(really?). Passenger numbers peaked at just over a million in 2007 and stood at 667,981 last year.
Mr Bath said he felt “bitter” about the end of his father’s firm, just weeks after the new terminal was finished. He said MAG had handed Palmair’s flight data to Ryanair to demonstrate the viability of the airport, causing the aviation giant to put identical routes in place.
“In the winter that year, when Palmair normally operated four or five flights, Ryanair decided they weren’t going to do anything,” he said. “Bournemouth went down to two flights a week. It was a disaster, the place was a ghost town.”

You are....
 

Stephen Bath and I claim my £5.00 . None of that would ever happen even under new ownership. Palmair never going to do £30 flights to Spain which is what FR do well.

Palmair killed by Ryanair, may be true but I doubt it, Palmair was almost purely for package holidays, Ryanair is a seat only airline, it's like saying Amazon killed Woolworths. The reason is that both the latter were 'past their sell by date' economically and could no longer operate in the new business practices of the day.

TUI (Thomsons) who you also seem to want to get rid of operates almost identically to Palmair using their flights primarily for the package Holiday Market and they seem to do very well. Palmair was a niche market sold mainly through the Bath Travel (now Hays) retail outlets.

I don't think that getting rid of the hand that feeds you is a good idea, especially when excessive cost of operating from BOH seems to be a major factor in it's stalled growth.

Kick Ryanair out of BOU :D like to see some one try that! Ryanair leave and that will be the final nail in the coffin for the airport

Thin..
 

The newspaper article is basically a bitter angry rant by someone who's family business did not evolve but stood still. Ryanair & TUI statistics speak for themselves - the days of charging 150 one way for every seat on an aging aircraft are well and truly over. Who knows what the Rigby plan is, it's onna be a tough 2-5 years ahead - my hope is get together with both those two and secure what he has, one thing is for sure his executive airline is likely to figure. Lots of wealth in catchment. Talk from angry old people and drop off fees isn't really relevant to anyone who uses the airport now regularly - of which I am pleased to say I am one who think it's a fantastic operation all round and actually I appreciate Ryanair!

If Mr Rigby does buy the airport I doubt his plans will be limited to having a couple of 737's running to sun spots - that isn't going to make much.

Is that the same Mr Bath and family that held Hurn airport to ransom over parking and handling fees for years and also refused to have any other brochures in there travel offices like " Thomson , Intasun and Horizon " to name but a few if they sold holidays from Bournemouth

Thomson would have come in a long time before that if Bath travel had sold there holidays as well

Bath travel was a unique company to the local area but ultimately failed because they never went forward in to the big new world of the internet .
Bit like " Pan Am " and " TWA " they never invested in the future , there offices were tired and old and everything was good old fashioned telephone and paper work .
Nothing wrong in that as the old dears loved it , the personal touch but like everyone else has touched on , Ryanair and Easy Jet were waiting in the wings and the rest is history