Sounds like a good idea to me - not even anything new in this latest press release, though it does seem to be getting some nice coverage.

With credit to tws123, this schedule has been quoted on the SEN thread - the DUB rotation doesn't look much good for the trans-Atlantic connections which are meant to be one of the benefits of that link?

Neither is the terminal, with room for about 20 passengers (by my estimates based on the plans).

Why not use Manchester, and take the train straight to the heart of the lakes?

And those 20 would have to be good friends.... ;)

I hope people will forgive the cynicism, but I find it rather strange that a route has been announced but no airline has been explicitly mentioned. If it's Stobart that's fine but I really don't understand why this has been left unstated by the press release (s) - almost as if somebody is leaving wiggle room to blame somebody else in case plans should fall through

Cannot see this being sustainable from Belfast. Most holidaymakers from Northern Ireland, family included, usually travel by boat and car and also take in the Scottish west coast with a few nights in the northern lakes. With multiple sailings from Belfast and Larne to Cairnryan, it's a 75 minute drive.

They will be Stobart flights (they are named of the Regional fund award), what hasn't been decided (announced?) is who will be operating the flights - and it has been previously said that this will be decided in the new year. There isn't anything new in this release, but it seems to be getting good coverage - which presumably is the point.

The airline doesn't really need to be known at this point (no tickets on sale yet ), and that announcement will be another little publicity bump

I think it can be safely assumed that whoever the airline turns out to be 100% of the commercial risk will sit with Stobart. I have no doubts that it will be Stobart but they may be able to persuade Flybe to stick their code on it which will clearly help matters. The problem will be catchment and market. There unfortunately isn't much of either but the guys at Stobart have a vision of what they want to happen so good luck to them and I hope that they prove me wrong.

TT. STK have a franchise agreement with BE. There is no persuasion required. BE will happily collect franchise fee!

Dozens of new jobs to be created at Carlisle lake District airport soon.....

Is that new jobs or staff moving into the Stobart Rail HQ offices?

From today's Blue Swan:

https://blueswandaily.com/carlisle-a...utes-it-needs/

Pretty accurate article...as has been said many times on this thread..history tells us it won’t work.
Catchment area too small and the Lake adistrict a red herring as I would think the majority of uk tourists would use a car to get round,especially with all that walking gear and the Dog!!
Most foreign tourists are on busses..?

perhaps they will utilize the 42s for freight out of Carlisle to southend :confused:

One thing in that article.. since when did KLM stop flights to and from LBA ?.
Also nothing to stop Stobart operating a Flybe EJET into Amsterdam . The Ejet is small enough it's under the size limit .
Also
It may see DTV style charters.
Plus similar to Irish airports some incoming foreign flights again charters or summer only routes .
If they sold seats to Brits wanting to travel outbound is a different thing .
But the other question should be with a new runway and Terminal .
Will the current Scruffy Business jet ' Terminal ' be smartened up? Is it staying put or sharing with the new operation?.
Seems Cargo is worthwhile.
It's not a desperately short runway.
I do wonder about that figure mentioned of 50,000 pax in the first year is to me a wild dream if they are starting six months in.
DSA has been going Ten years and still people don't realise it's there
Travel to Brampton or from the M6 not a single ' Airport sign or advert anywhere they need to get that sorted in quick time.
It takes highways months to lift a spade

I think price is the only thing that gives the SEN route any chance of success.

There appears to be only one train that will get you into London before 10am and it costs over £200. Based on MAN fares a last minute ticket to London via SEN should be around £150 flight + train and really you should get into London by about 9am.

I have my doubts as to whether many people will use the early flight heading north, I also wonder if people will fly down and just get a train back later on.

The usual pre-occupation with getting to and from city centres. Big place London!

Plenty of other errors in the article, though the general gist isn't far off. I don't see any sort of cargo operation.

Has anyone considered the fact that they (Stobart) would use it for flying staff from HQ to their London airport for meetings and the like, they do it with the MAN-SEN flights.

Comic then or genius...

Stobart provide.....the airport..the terminal..the handling..the aircraft..the airline..& now the pax!.

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.