Palmair
 

No chance of a return of Palmair. The market has moved on... and most of their customers have probably passed away. :sad:

Be careful what you wish for... Rigby owns Coventry, which has recently had its instrument approach removed, ATC downgraded to air/ground radio service, fire cover reduced, and opening hourss curtailed. Net result is West Atlantic can no longer viably fly their 737s and ATPs in and out for maintenance, so it has upped sticks and moved that side of its business to EMA (coincidentally another MAG airport). Rigby's other airports are Norwich and Exeter, while it also manages Solent, Blackpool and City of Derry. Not sure any of those are a ringing endorsements of the concept that things will get better for BOH if MAG sells out.

You hit the nail on the head.

Althought Stephen Bath likes to blame Ryanair for all his woes one of the big reasons Palmair stopped operating at the end of summer 2010 was that they also lost a vast amount of money during the volcanic ash shutdown in April of that year.

If we go off the assumption that this deal goes ahead, what next? Who do they plan/hope will come in to make it a worthwhile venture

Any takers?

Housing would make sense.

No, some of us are still here! Palmair were great in their time. You may have paid more, but you were made to feel special. They gave you a great holiday. Although European's 737-200s were a bit long in the tooth, they were comfortable. A number of aircrew were ex BA and were highly respected. But the Palmair model was dated and, sadly, wouldn't work now. Many have come to see that making all your own travel arrangements online isn't such a disaster. Probably many travel agents' days are numbered too - but that's another story.

I think that any plans to discontinue flying at Bournemouth would be a huge mistake. I am generally a supporter of SOU, as this is my nearest and most convenient airport.

However, the Eastleigh area to the north of Southampton is desperately short of development land, and indeed Eastleigh Borough Council are looking to bring forward a very contentious new development of around 5000 new homes on environmentally sensitive green belt land to the north of the town.

The Solent region as a whole has grown enormously in the last 20 years or so, and the region including Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth, Fareham, Havant, Gosport, Eastleigh, Christchurch, Bournemouth and Poole now forms an almost contiguous urban area with a population of around 2 million, with a very high proportion of high earners.

The sensible approach would be to properly develop Bournemouth airport, with improved and increased parking, further enlargement of the terminal, a new link road to the A388 and a reliable 20 minute frequency bus connection to Christchurch rail station (re-named Christchurch and Bournemouth Airport).

The idea of calling the airport Bournemouth is too parochial, and this should be changed to South Central or Southern England or similar and all SOU flights together with new routes should be centred on Bournemouth to give the whole region a much-needed large regional airport allowing proper connectivity to this major UK region.

The existing site at Eastleigh airport could then be closed and sold for development.

Some good points there SFP, couple fo points to emphasise,

Transport links are much better at SOU than BOH, given it's Straight off the M3/M27 and with rail connections. Definately beats it there.

Name change: not sure if some people would confuse with other areas. (IMHO)

SOU is much busier than BOH, wouldn't it make sense to move BOH operations over instead?

And surely they're other options for housing rather than just airports. Feels like an extension to the naysayers in the DTV thread

My sides are splitting.:rolleyes:

There are plenty of businesses making money on the site, so I would imagine slow organic growth with a strong emphasis on controlling costs.

Presumably any sale will include a deal to sort out any ongoing debt on the terminal, and I would expect there would be a lower corporate overhead being part of the Rigby Group compared to MAG.

Road links yes, granted.....but nothing a new link directly from A338 wouldn't solve (using existing quarry junction?)

As for the rail link, how many actually use this to travel SOU, most are using parkway for a London commute and not to use the airport? BRS manages without a train link, why would BOH need one.

SOU is busier yes, but is also very limited both by working hour restrictions (noise etc) and runway length/apron capacity, all of which BOH wins hands down on.

River Joint. How we've missed you.........:ooh:

I believe the terminal is all paid for now? I seem to remember MAG stating the investment would be paid for over a 10 year term, so possibly this year if not next. Meaning if that's the case, along with the north west industrial estate being a sweetner as part of any sale, could be quite a good deal long term for the Rigby Group if the actual rumours are true.

Announced at 7am...
BOH sold to RCA (Rigby Group) for an undisclosed sum.

New Website
 

the new website says it all

https://www.bournemouthairport.com/

That's a much improved web site.

New owner talking Paris, Amsterdam and possibly Frankfurt within 12-18 months.

Never smile at a crocodile
 

RCA chief executive Andrew Bell added: “I am delighted to welcome everyone at Bournemouth Airport to our fast-growing team. It is already one of the South’s flagship aviation hubs, and I am very much looking forward to working with the staff and management as we continue to expand its operations and build on that success.”

Very similar to the announcment for Bournemouth, in 2010

Sir Peter said the airport's location, in the centre of the country, was a positive factor and his company would maintain a full service with business jets, cargo, light aircraft and helicopters.

He wants it for the developement opportunities the surrounding land offers. You only have to look at the recent demise of commercial operations at Coventry to see which way it will go.

It's great to be optimistic about new ownership and I'd imagine there's a bit of feelgood factor around BOH at the moment with the change, but realistically, who can you see wanting to operate these routes?

The obvious one would have been Flybe, but they've tried already and it didn't end well.

Bournemouth's strength is its long runway and variety of aviation businesses on site. An expanded holiday flight program could work, along with further development of long haul charter for those who don't wish to traipse up to Gatwick.
But business flights? With SOU along the road with its better catchment, motorway junction, train station, and existing route/airline portfolio? I really can't see what value there is in going after that market. Flybe tried and it didn't work, the yields were a fraction of those from SOU. Stobart to Dublin, Jet2 to Belfast, Thomsonfly to Amsterdam. All came and went while those routes have continued and grown from SOU. You may pick up passengers from the Bournemouth/Poole conurbation who can fly from their closest airport, but not enough to make the route worthwhile.
I think Bournemouth has a great niche as a kind of south coast Prestwick, with a variety of movements, but there will never be enough passenger demand to make airliners the dominant business model.

Its common knowledge that Flybe used BOH as leverage to get a better deal signed at SOU (which they did initially) The truth however, is that loads were better on most routes from BOH, with no flight cancellations either. (Which Flybe do regularly from SOU if only a small number of seats are sold) then moving passengers onto the next available flight to the same destination normally later that day.

There is still a strong market for the likes of Amsterdam, Glasgow, Dublin and Edinburgh routes from BOH I feel, flight times are the key to there success though, Ibiza (Ryanair) was also very busy in the past.

More winter ski routes would no doubt work too, Geneva alone isn't enough.

Sorry to take issue with what you've written, but are you able to provide any factual information or statistics to back up your assertions there?

Were you party to the details of the negotiations between Flybe management, SOU and BOH? People have speculated that Flybe's strategy was to force a better deal from SOU, but speculation doesn't necessarily equate to fact and the only people who know what went on in those negotiations probably won't be posting on here.

Even if BOH loads were better (which I doubt), it's yield that matters, not load factor.

Are you sure no Flybe BOH flights were ever cancelled? Got the stats?

I'm aware of occasions when Flybe have combined flights into or out of SOU (and other airports), but only in cases of technical problems causing flight cancellations or recovering from schedule disruption. e.g. fog or airport closures. It's fairly standard practice. They are a under a bit more pressure at SOU because it closes overnight, so it's very important to them that they get all aircraft in before closure to prevent more disruption the following morning.