I thaught Gill closed operations in December 2000??? We will always go around in circles about the catchment area, we have our own opinions on that subject and i keep saying that airlines are probably holding out to see what happens at DSA before making a decision! Im sure HUY can hold its own!

I agree that the management seem a bit incompetent and the marketing leaves a little to be desired, im sure FR will have pproached the airport at some point but the loser would inevitably be HUY! It makes me wonder if Nrth Lincs Council are holding MANplc back, fearing losing the profit theyve been making in the last few years making HUY a no go for lo-co?

Ryanair have approached the airport at some point but I remember a Scunthorpe Telgraph article saying the airport had been informed by Ryanair that they would not be serving Humberside:(

I think that was more recently though! I recon they may have been in talks a few years back but that kind of operation would really do HUY no good, they want too much for nothing and a tight profitable airport like HUY cannot afford to lose that, this probably has something to do with a certain local authority that kept its shares! I wonder what their intentions are? I suspect they dont care, afterall much of that region is just as close to DSA so as long as HUY stays profitable they wont care what goes on!

North Lincs Council will care if there profit goes down the plug hole because passengers/airlines desert the airport. How about thinking of the wider economic/regeneration impacts to the area of attracting a new low cost/regional/hub (eg Air France) airline?

Thats what i mean though, they have DSA on their doorstep and will brand that as their local airport! I cant see the services moving myself but it would seem that someone some where does not want the airport to grow much in terms of pax movements. Be it incompetent management not wanting to move into the 21st century, or not marketing itself the best it can, or the owners are just happy with a tight profitable organisation who would rather have the money in their pockets, rather than providing a public service like most other airports in the country do!!! The catchment area (or lack of) does not brush with me, it is no worse than CVT, EXT, MME etc.... Something has to give! They wont survive off niches, someone down the road will always go one step ahead! They need to start listening to what the people want and not waht keeps certain other people happy! I realy hope the airport expands in terms of pax movements and everything else, it just makes you wonder why HUY is so unlucky!

GET RID OF THE SMALL TOWN MENTALITY!!!

Sorry mate dont want to sound snotty, im still optimistic that something good will happen there in the near future! Just something seems to have held it back all these years, and no its NOT the catchment area! I hope FLYbe move in and offer us what the region needs to stay alive, Not talking about Scunny but Grimsby and Hull, the main population that needs an airport to be proud of. Just like Donny have DSA!

AndyHUY

Your wish list if routes isnt going to happen, the small town mentality is because the area just aisnt large enough. Check out previous posts for the possible pax that may use HUY and youll no doubt see that the population is quite small or as you enlarge the catchment area DSA has the market covered.

To atttract pax you require services, to attract services you require pax, its a double edged sword and HUY has missed the boat.

If low cost was comming to HUY it would of been done by now, as Air Humberside stated Ryanair (A major low cost operator would you not agree?) whom have the financial stability to give a route suffcient time to mature and break into a profit.

Alas, for reasons probably linked to airport charges etc demanded by Ryanair we shallprobably never see a low cost at the airport.

Im afraid your comment doesnt rest easy with me, the catchment area is the major problem, operators without the financial muscle of the major low cost carriers are not going to start a route just because there arnt any, its about bums on seats = profits and im afraid that just aint going to happen at HUY, HUY is just situated in the wrong location.

Read Nik Naks post, it probably sums up the whole HUY operation in one better than most posts on here.

As for marketing HUY, the owners do make a profit, they probably, unlike you realise the airports limitations and have decided to stick to regional routes and charters.

I think your being a bit narrow minded arnt you bud? DSA is not the be all and end all in terms of Yorkshires airport future you know! HUY CAN grow to service more than it does now, i dont care if you agree or not it can! The high profile demise of Sheff Citys services should have shown you something!

AndyHUY,

With respect, your attitude seems to be one of "I'm right and that's the end of the matter". It's not very convincing, certainly not in comparison to a well argued post such as niknak's.

I can't help but smile at some of the reasons given for HUY's inability to take a great leap forward. "The loco's are interested but the narrow minded council are keeping them out", "the right sort of aircraft aren't available", and of course the great catch all "they've been unlucky".

The simple fact is, despite several attempts, over many years, no one has been able to establish viable scheduled routes out of HUY other than KLM and Eastern.

Why do you have such a problem accepting this?

AndyHUY,

My initial response to your post was neither inpolite or narrow minded, I felt, yours however, can only be described as offensive and quite wrong.

I am neither pro DSA or HUY, I grew up actually between where the two airports are located, I take an intrest in local aviation and have just come to a conclusion that is somewhat different to yours. No one whom takes an intrest in the area wants to see one of the airports fail, having two airports so clsoe together is a bonus with both airports offereing services for different markets.

This forum is about discussing aviation related topics, like life most people have a view on subjects that may or may not be in line with your thoughts. Respecting anothers view point and then replying with statements that are neither correct or dont further the topic is obviously something you fail to get the hang of.

Andy_S seems to of have found your post in the same vain as I do, too not too reply would give the impression that I concurr with your "childish" like response, and therefore, hence my response.

As for linking the owners of both Sheffield Airport and Doncaster airport is meant to add what to your eratic post, yes they have the same owners, your point being? Or are you trying to imply that because Peel took over Sheffield Airport and its contratural obligations and may (or may not) close for the devlopment of industrial wharehousing does not have any bearing on DSA, so again your point is?

Childish? No, i wont accept that! We are both going over the same topics over and over again! You cannot accept my point of view either, i dont see my posts offensive at all and i dont mean any offence!

You may be the same person arguing with me over DSA a few months back, on the airhumberside site, i dont know, but you came across to me as narrow minded!

I respect your views but i feel as though you give me a similar response at times, to what you say to me is my response and dont feel as though you can respect my view point either!

I am fighting the corner for my part of the world, the part of the world i have lived all my life (Hull) and i agree with you, the catchment is not great but simply saying that it can do better than it currently is, is not saying that it will attract the large ammount of services that DSA will have! Just simply a few more core routes that it has not been able to offer before! Which people would use regularly!

No it was not BUT there are more people, not just those in north lincs (Who appear to have the best of both worlds) thatdont want to make the 1hr plus journey to DSA when they have a perfectly good airport on their doorstep. That was the point i was trying to get across! There is a big city here, it is a regional center, with an estimated day time population of 500,000 people who work in the city but half live in the more affluent outlying towns and villages! That is what i mean, that and grimsby, i would say, is enough to offer a few more services than currently on offer, therefore i feel my point of view is valid!

That may not be so, some airlines from time to time look for niches and, although things dont seem to happen much it only takes one to make a go of things! Time will tell but i remain optimistic, in the light of big things at Exeter, Manston and Coventry i think its possible at HUY too.

I think the future of HUY will be revealed in the Master Plan, required by Government, to be prepared by all airports. The content should outline proposals for the next 30 years (i think), but also detail 10 year chunks. Someone told me growth was forecast to be slight with pax numbers not reaching 1m until the early 'teens!
I really, really, really, hope that is not true, if it is then the towel is truly in the ring :(
HUY does its B&S charter really well, (the scheduled AMS is efficient -shame about the continued return of the F50 by KLM though), but there is only so much charter that can happen b4 people move on to different holiday locations.
Varna was supposed to happen 2 years running and hasn't, rumours abounded of Croatia -zip. at least there is a new Tunisia for Winter, they also have 2 Turkey as well but all are very vulnerable to changes in the market and load factor performance -get a rise in fundamentalist attacks and..., if the Spain market begins to wane and these new destinations are not whizzing of the tour ops shelves then there is a big hole that cannot be plugged by the non-existent bread and butter scheduled market HUY should have to enable it to bounce along in a forward direction and not slowly sink to the bottom, please let that not happen too many third parties have a lot of money tied up there.

Apparently from October 05 there will be two F100 and one F70 daily, that can only be a good thing!

I think the holiday companies should start to advertise more of their seats as flight only, as more people are going on villa holidays now, if no lo-co is going to operate these routes then that should put a few more bums on seats. I fly to Alicante in september from HUY flight only. It is the same price as Thompsonfly at DSA and CHEAPER than easyjet at NEMA! maybe a company like Planet air at leeds that sold seats on charter aircraft?


It may not, but if it continues to grow it would be nice if about 750,000 in the next 10 years can be achieved! Or at least so that its in line with MME!

I think something in the scheduled front will happen before long! I see FLYbe were advertising in the Hull Daily Mail today, OK from Leeds Bradford BUT...... I still wait in hope!

Failing that how about air southwest? Perfect aircraft for a LGW, CDG, DUB dont you think?

To AndyHUY

I am no expert but I like to think my credentials entitles me to maybe argue a point you made. Hull is not classed as a big city, it actually falls in the category of large town/medium city status, along with the likes of Doncaster, Derby, Leicester and Huddersfield to name but a few. Because of similar sized economies, Hull use Doncaster as a 'yardstick' in terms of measuring and comparing progress. Both (I could be wrong) have economies to the value of approx £4 billion.
In years gone by Hull, I believe, was the 4th largest city in England, but you have to remember that in the 1980's the entire economic infrastructure of Hull was ripped to shreds.
Doncaster alone could not sustain a (successful and dynamic) international airport, and neither can Hull. The immediate population surrounding HUY (Hull, Grimsby/Cleethorpes, East Riding of Yorkshire, North Lincs etc) amounts to little over 500,000, which is less than Sheffield alone.

I read somewhere that you suggested only 1% of passengers at Humberside Airport were attributed to South Yorkshire. Being a bit of a statistician I find that incredibly hard to understand, paricularly as Humberside, I believe, is bordered by Doncaster to the west. I don't suppose you can cite your source Andy?

Passenger figures in April at HUY, according to the CAA, were down 17% compared to April of last year. HUY was struggling before the arrival of DSA. The next 12 month are excruciatingly pivotal for HUY. I hope it pulls through, but I think it needs a good deal of fortune to do so.
It's been said many times before that an established airline offering a variety of destinations is paramount for HUY. If the 1% of South Yorkshire passengers is accurate then the figure needs to rise dramatically because that is a geographical area HUY should have sewn up years ago.

Mr Dearne

I might be wrong but the drop in pax is, I think, purely down to Thompson haring off to DSA -nearly lock stock and barrel. But they are now trapesing back again because their theory that HUY pax would follow the plane was wrong, the HUY pax is loyal to HUY and it is that loyalty that is important, a loyalty to an airport not a route. Interesting concept is it not? But given the population of the area, it does somewhat toll a Lutine Bell for HUY unless they can encourage a wider 'loyalty factor'.
The no-hassle aspect of HUY is great for me, getting AMS onward connections, a second Star Alliance carrier to another major hub would be excellent news, bring on another scheduled service (Paris/Copenhagen/Madrid...) HUY.
PLEASE


:ok:

Mr Dearne

"Humberside were struggling before DSA"

Depends on your definition of struggling, I suppose. 2004/05 showed (slightly) more pax the the year before. 2003/04 produced a profit at HUY, and another can be expected this year when results are announced.

I agree, DSA will make a difference in the short term, and HUY can look forward to a difficult couple of years, but if airport operators worried about a bigger airport just down the road, then Coventry, LBA, Teesside, and even Liverpool would never have developed as they have. As the old joke has it, those people announcing HUY's demise are a bit premature!

I believe the point Mr Dearne is making and this whole thread seems to be revolving around is the FACT that DSA will be the dominant airport in terms of offering destinations and of through put of passengers due to its locailty to a mass market.

AndyHUY and others can argue and stick to their guns as much as they like, thats their porogative but too class the two airports as the same is just not either reality or correct. They both want the same market but unfortunatley due to CATCHMENT area of their locality only one will appeal to the operators they so badly want to attract.

I admire you Andy for fighting your corner (Over the top sometimes fella!) but even you must see the facts and figures clearly speak for themselves and while your precious HUY is making a profit it can and will not compete with DSA solely down to its locaility.......NO ONE IS KNOCKING HUY....... like you I was born and bred in the area, like you I want to see HUY grow but you want european services on a par with major regional airports.........Andy its not going to happen........but you know this already dont you.

Most people see catchment areas in far too simple a manner, usually in terms of distance/time from the passenger's starting point to the nearest airport. However, I suspect that I'm far from unusual in that, although I have three airports within an hour of my home, and have in fact flown from two of them, most of the flights I have taken in the last twenty years have been from further afield.

The definition of catchment areas needs to accommodate the services available from the airport in question. So, even if I live at the gates of DSA, if I want to fly to Amsterdam, or by KLM, or in any way not served by DSA, I am in someone else's catchment.

Simply counting the population within an hour's drive is less than helpful, even if everyone does that. Differentiation is the way close airports can compete, even with their bigger neighbours. So Liverpool competes with MAN by specialising in LoCo, and Coventry competes with Birmingham and EMA, even though EMA is a big LoCo site itself, by offering a different LoCo operator. Writing off HUY is premature, as I've said before.

7006 fan, isa kite

Hand on heart, I can categorically say with 100% conviction I wish HUY to succeed. I spent a good 2 years of research with regards to urban regeneration projects in the area, mostly (I hasten to add) tucked away in the famous Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull. I know what the airport means to you guys, but the simple fact of the matter is that for some reason HUY has chose to 'cocoon' itself for a better word. I know, that the potential has ALWAYS been there for HUY. If what Andy says and only 1% of users came from South Yorkshire (before DSA was in use), then what a horrifying statistic that is. Your talking what, 25 miles from Doncaster, maybe 40 from Sheffield. It just does not make sense. Thousands of people in your area used LBA, Manchester International and NEMA when there was a good enough airport on their doorstep. We all know why this is, due to the limitations of HUY etc., but you have to ask yourself WHY the limitations. I just can't see any rationality behind the powers that be wanting HUY to stagnate for so long. Long before now HUY could have had the likes of Easyjet, Flybe etc, if it had sold itself properly. I just do not know what the thinking is behind HUY. It's like a nervous child with the fear of failure motivating its limitations. All around HUY has seen substantial increase in pax numbers and destinations...NME, LBA, NEMA. There is no excuse as to why HUY could not have done the same, only now it's going to be increasingly more difficult because DSA is on the scene and DSA is intent on moving rapidly forward.
A hell of a lot of what you guys say, is said trying to justify and making excuses for the lack of success enjoyed by HUY. It's only natural for you to protect and 'stick up' for your airport, but sometimes you wonder if your loyalty is misguided, and to some extent misplaced. To be brutally honest, I think HUY has missed the boat. I think it missed the boat 3 or 4 years ago. Maybe DSA in years to come will faulter as a consequence of running before it can walk, but at least it had a great time faultering.
At the end of the day, I feel, there has to be some agenda as to why HUY has not progressed and emerged as a big player, as it should have done. Everything else in the area is progressing nicely. There is a huge amount of investment totalling tens of millions being spent in the Hull, Grimsby, Yorkshire East Riding area, the airport is uncharateristic of the way the area is developing.
2005 should have seen HUY at least on par with the likes of NEMA, and as a consequence of that DSA would never have been built.

isa kite - Totally agree with your comments, however to understand why HUY cannot seem to attract new services from the airport it is, I believe a factor in its abilty to maximise its possible potential.

Its locality, even with excellent road connections has not attracted the services that other airports of roughly the same size of runway and potential catchment area it is still to attract an operator with multiple routes to either UK or European routes.

There must be a factor as to why these operators have not come to HUY and with the opening of DSA it now has an even harder uphill stuggle to seek the services that the likes of AndyHUY and 7006Fan desire.

The facts add up for themselves as to why DSA will become the airport of choice for the region both by shear potential nyumber of passengers and by the routes currently being offered from dsa. With the possible introduction of long haul to DSA it will leave HUY as a small regional airport with limited flights to destinations that the public want.

Mr Dearne - "I feel, there has to be some agenda as to why HUY has not progressed and emerged as a big player, as it should have done" - COULDNT AGREE WITH YOU MORE

I think that's a very fair comment. It does, however, imply acceptance of the limitations of the airport in question - and that's something that the local spotters and enthusiasts seem to have a problem with (and HUY is by no means the only example).

This part of PPRuNe is full of so called 'happenings' threads which have proliferated over the last 6-12 months. Having browsed through a number of these, it strikes me that virtually every regional airport has die hard followers who claim that their particular airport is underutilised and that there is demand for much, much more than is being provided. (Many even go so far as to specify in fine detail the destinations, aircraft types and flight frequencies needed, and even the most appropriate airlines to operate the routes).

My observation therefore is that there is either a vast market out there which is not being catered for, or that the local enthusiasts are perhaps kidding themselves. And when I read about the many and varied routes and airlines being mooted for HUY, and indeed the excuses offered for their non appearance thus far, I know what I believe......

I have no axe to grind vis-a-vis HUY and DSA. I hope when the dust settles that both are economically viable and able to co-exist with eachother. But I DO wish that one or two people would occasionally take a reality pill.