Yes it is but central London is where the train drops you off and where a majority of people would be heading, plus Southend isn't so good for reaching parts of the south-east outside of East Anglia. So looking at the centre is probably the most useful basis for comparison.

The market for Essex to Cumbria/borders has to be pretty small I'd have thought.

Definitely agree with AirportPlanner1 Does not mean that a subsidised small aircraft cannot do ok between CAX and SEN, but be bold Stobart. You know CAX - LCY would be a better option.

I honestly think they should try both (if they think anything at all can work, which I don't necessarily do)! Neither route would really cannibalise the other.

If they want to compete with the train in such a way as people will be willing to pay a fair amount for the pleasure then there needs to be a number of flights per day that are at nice times and that are convenient for as many onward destinations (by surface and air) as possible. It's all very well for people to point out that the train that arrives before 10am is pricey, but there are a lot of trains and it won't necessarily be possible to beat them on convenience with 2 flights a day so an airport that doesn't best serve the largest area of SE England. And if they want to complete for all the passengers that go on all the other much cheaper trains... well, they're not paying so much at all and that might be more of a SEN type job!

Clearly genius since the government (also known as you and I) are paying for it.......

So happy days then Barling Magna.

Noted the "Terminal" at CAX is being funded by a £5M injection from Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership too.

Is there any concept images of how the terminal will look? Or just a miniature version of Southend?

The new terminal at Carlisle is absolutely nothing like the terminal at Southend, there is absolutely no comparison :-)

There are images online a simple Google search will show you images.

It's basically within an office building as in the Stobart HQ with a very small passenger terminal incorporated on part of the ground floor and as others have mentioned it's only big enough to handle about 50 passengers so it's definitely not a 'miniature version' of the Southend terminal in any form.

The newspaper reports the creation of 50 new jobs when the terminal opens.

So how many passengers are likely to depart the airport each day? What fees would be generated by those passengers and would it cover even the wage bill?

As no airline, type, schedule, fares have been announced, who knows?

However, I'm confident that up to 50 jobs will be created. :E

Looks like one job per passenger then!

surely not 50 pax for the full day? Rather more 50 pax at one time, if the airport got upto 10/12 flights a day we could be looking closer to 500 than 50, which would make the operation more commercially viable

I read that 2 x SEN and 2 x Ireland flights per day, presuming the aircraft is a 50 seater that's 200 seats, not 200 passengers, a 20% load factor would be 40 pax, sure there will be incoming pax also but they don't generate airport revenue the same as outgoing pax do.

Let's throw around some rough numbers:

Based on the drawings, there appear to be positions for the following roles:

2x Information
2x Check-in (I assume also handling boarding)
3x Security
2x Passport / Immigration Checks

Turnaround will probably require 3 ground handling personnel too. So that's a total of 12 employees at any one time. Assuming 2 shifts of 7 hours, that's 24 employees working each day.

Assuming all can be persuaded to work minimum wage, that's a cost of £1260 per day.

A lot of the other costs can be written off - it's already an active airfield, so write off ATC, fire and airport ops expenses. The terminal is also part of an existing building, so write off heating, cleaning etc.

So, expected revenue?

Let's assume it is a 48 seat ATR, operating 2x SEN, 2x DUB and 1x BFS for a total of 5 movements per day.

Based on the quoted costs for Leeds Bradford as reference (1), you can expect the following:

Landing Fees (£15 per tonne - 19 tonnes) - £285 (£1425 for 5 arrivals)

Passenger Fees - Per departing flight:
Passenger Charge: £13.20 per pax
Security Charge: £3.79 per pax
Baggage Screening: £1.09 per pax (regardless of whether they have bags or not)

Total Per Pax: £18.08

Assuming every flight is 50%: £2169.60
Assuming every flight is full: £4339.20

Therefore, the profit per day can be expected to be £2334 - £4504 based on those rough estimates.

Obviously there's a lot of assumptions here. Depending on what the real impact on other costs will be, it may certainly be possible for Carlisle Airport to make a profit from passenger flights. However, it all depends on whether Stobart Air can make a profit off the flights. They will be the more cost sensitive part of the operation - if they can't make a profit, then no-one will.

(1) https://www.leedsbradfordairport.co....es-and-charges

None on here seem to have considered that the people that work in Stobart HQ in non-aviation areas, may well be called on to multi-task and provide some of the work force for the sporadic flights. It would certainly make sense to do this.

Leeds is quoted, but they don't make a profit!

Have these non-aviation staff been security vetted for all the airside security that exists these days?

A good suggestion there Nighthawk, worth mentioning my 500 pax estimate was very much on the optimistic side, and probably will be when it all kicks off

Don`t forget the Stobart staff shuttling between the bases as alluded to before..Lol

Cheaper to take a truck!

The two passport/Immigration checks would be Home Office employees but they wouldn’t be based there. As all flights are currently within the CTA and EU Customs Union there’s no requirement for a permanent Border Force staff. The Dublin flight does require it to be separated for baggage and arrivals from the domestic flight as a requirement of Customs. This can be done by simply not having a domestic arrival at the same time or holding pax on the plane until the other flight clears. Desks will be needed for both Police & Border Force if they wish to carry out checks under the Counter Terrorism Act & Immigration Act/entry from Eire order. Cumbria Police will provide a permanent presence for CT work and Border Force will cover as per risk from probably from GLA, NCL or MAN. All at the taxpayers expense.