d.j.powell
ihave used dsa and lba many times,and lba is not a second rate airport.
an.

That may be the case but like it or not the fortunes of LBA have a direct impact on the scope of any development at DSA, MME and HUY. EMA compounds this. This year will be LBA busiest year on record, it has more than doubled in size since DSA opened. I know everyone seems to believe DSA was mismanaged, but evidence would suggest it wasn’t and the operating company were offering competitive incentives and subsidies to attract airline investment which had little success in real terms.

Agree though, it rests on whether anyone credible will make any serious approach to a lease/sub-lease, but you cannot ignore the factors of growth at LBA and neither will any interested party who may or may not be interested in joining the Council in their endeavours. There has to be market support, the airlines/freight companies in this case are key stakeholders who will have to have some level of interest before anyone will seriously consider investing anything into the venture, regardless of how many people say they’d fly from there if there were ‘flights to the right places’.

I notice various Facebook groups and MP Nick with his selfie stick are celebrating that LBA ACP has been rejected. They would be best placed to actually look a bit deeper into this and they might realise that this was initially applied for in 2021 and is not the ACP request of 2022 on the back of DSA airspace closure.

Also, it has not been rejected in principle. LBA have been invited to reapply once they have satisfied the criteria outlined in the initial rejection, mainly full stakeholder consultation and design proposals.

One rejected today ACP 2021-066

Ongoing proposal tagged on to DSA airspace closure (to take a segment of DSA airspace) ACP 2022-082.

From my understanding the original proposal from 2021 concerns certain aspects of Class-G which can lead to high workload descent profiles onto RWY32 compounded by a lack of STAR procedure, and this is separate from the other proposal to take a segment of DSA CAT. The proposal is built purely to enhance safety of all airspace users, not to undermine any business case that may or may not be in the making.

I noticed a thread last night where Lord Chadwick calling everything fiction.
it looks more to me like a man out of his depth. It appears when he doesn't understand he just calls it boll@#$$.
I am not sure whether the airport contractor thing looks true or not but it looks genuine.

I'm trying to access the most recent post, apparently from RobinRed, but it's not showing.

Now it is!

Think it is a ‘feature’ of this type of bulletin board. Had a few occasions where front page indicated a new post or posts were available, only for them not to be visible when opening the thread. Not sure if it may be connected with new users and their posts requiring some sort of approval from moderators before they appear?

I thought this too.

Yes new members are on post approvals. I think it is til a certain number of posts have been reached to make sure that it isn't a fake/ spam account.

No idea whether he is informed or not, but I heard an interview on BBC Sheffield with Oliver Coppard yesterday who didn’t mention the lease proposal at all and was fully on the line of searching for an investor to take on the airport after a successful CPO. Strange that he’s deviated from the last joint statement unless something has changed in the week or so since it was released. My interpretation is that he will ensure funding to purchase the land at CPO value and then sell it to another interested private sector operator. Not sure how that would stand up to legal scrutiny.

Supposedly interested parties already been approached in Middle East, South of France and U.K., although that sounds like the same ones mentioned in November last year.

Airspace Update - The CAA have uploaded their assessment of the request to call in to Secretary of State regarding the ACP to remove CTA from DSA.

https://airspacechange.caa.co.uk/doc.../download/5865

This document confirms that none of the call in criteria has been met, and though the report has been sent to SofS for final decision, it looks like the CAA will be pushing ahead with closure proposals regardless - outcome to be determined but I would expect they will take on board LBA proposals to retain the northern segments.

Was always going to happen. Another nail in the coffin. Maybe it can all be forgotten about now.

The disciples will not let that happen

The CAA has always said that it's not a difficult task to reinstate the airspace if it reopens. How true that is I have no idea.

It would be a case of reapplication and jumping through the hoops. As is clear in the document, they obviously do not believe that a reopened DSA would necessarily require that level of CAT anyway so it would all be taken on its own merit.

I believe that Sywell must re-submit an ACP for the previously approved RNP approaches. This is due to no AFIS for a two year period I am told? Seems very heavy handed. I get new staff would need to be trained, the approaches flight checked and any new ground obstructions noted. Full ACP required though.

Staff, systems, equipment everything has been removed so how long would that take and cost to replace.

Systems and equipment are just costs. As long as whoever is paying for them has budgeted them then its no obstacle.

Staff is more tricky. But I dare say it won't go zero to hero but ramp up. Some people will come back, some people will have to be trained. I guess a few key positions like ATC and firefighters may be tricker than others.

"Systems and equipment are just costs"

yes but it drives up the initial costs you have to pay long before you have any income - it's a major hurdle - and then its a sunk cost right at the start . The time value of money means it's far more important than the same sum later - it really hits the NPV calculation.

It will either be saved or not. I'd like it to reopen, but I'm not naive enough to think iit's more than 50/50

I think most people on here reckon there's less than a 5% chance it will re-open TBH

Despite all the current pallaver about leases and CPO's etc I'm struggling to see what the business case is i.e. how an airport operator makes any money. Is it the Southend approach of waiting for MAN, LBA etc to fill up and then pick up the overspill??