Andy,

Think as I said earlier, should any low cost operator decide to take a chance and actually fly to/from HUY then at least one way or the other it will finally answer the question, can Humberide International Aiport attract enough passengers to attract and fill an aircraft operated by a low cost operator........ It may be a long wait Andy.

It may be a long wait yes, the general members of the public up here would have probably not heard of EUJet so to get the best potential out of Humberside would a well known and well branded airline not be better for the HUY market? While i agree the HUY area alone could not support extensive lo-co operations the chance of getting such names as FLYBe or JET2 would mean that people from further afield may come in and make up the short fall of PAX. Thats the unique thing about this country that people have the choice of not traveling too far to a number of different airports within a couple of hours away, HUY has that chance as it isnt realy far from South Yorkshire and parts of West Yorkshire and DSA cannot provide everything its catchment wants, thats where airports like HUY can pull back their market share and increase it. 6-11million people living within 2 hours of the airport is not a bad number, despite DSA and LBA im sure there is room for HUY.

Which is, indeed, what they've been doing. Cutting back on routes, and substituting their F100's with turboprops on some flights. They can continue to operate their scheduled routes only because they are being propped up by their owners Planestation. Without parent company support, they would go out of business in weeks, if not days.

And the same I suspect for BFS .I have not seen ONE advert for them here!. The times are odd as well...arriving in Manston at 2300ish...not convenient for much.

Andy_S - I stand corrected, ATR's instead of F.100's and just read that even after the investment at xmas they are still selling assets.

Thats exactly what i mean though, any new airline has to be looked at as unstable at first as many dont make it very far at all due to the 'cut throat' nature of the business. If EUJet did come to HUY (Which i doubt if they realy are struggling at their current bases) wouldnt it be worse for the airport than none at all? We dont realy want to be let down again do we? If a well known and succesful airline came in then i think we would see a lot more stability and loyalty. I think the regions pax should be given a choice, lets see if any airlines see it that way, or is HUY too much a risk for investment?

This is all getting very interesting. Sometimes I wonder about the aviation industry, its' Business Plan usually does not extend beyond the next flying season. "How we do last time...not good...Ok cut some routes..." Thompson did that at HUY, now Thompson are coming back. They could have shafted HUY with that move, good and proper, but HUY have fronted it out and Thompson realise they made a boo-boo. My earlier post refers.
HUY needs an entrepeneur to come in another Stellios or such and start ops maybe on a long term risk share deal, maybe the Airport co-operating the aircraft and fly the routes they want/think will work to encourage an airline in (the proverbial sacrificial lamb or stalking horse) try the route, see if it works. People seem to want proven destinations but lo-co proves this incorrect, I am good at geography but some of the places Ryan fly to, well...
Quick poll (unofficial)

Within 1 hour drive time of Lincoln (for example) or Sheffield
[please indicate in your response!!] to an airport (encompasses CVT, EMA, DSA, HUY & BHX if you own a Ferarri! LBA {doubt it-it takes over an hour to get to LBA from S.Leeds :) } )
get to or be connected to the following destinations with a maximum 1 change of plane:
Milan
Madrid
Brussells
Southampton
Frankfurt
Amsterdam
Bankok
Cape Town
Kiev
Vienna
London
USA
Belfast
Cardiff
Cologne
Copenhagen
Helsinki

Not wanting to bang the drum for HUY, but most of the 'long hauls' are via Schipol. The others are routes have "fly appeal", yes/no? are they routes the lo-co don't do generally (sorry about the grammar!!!) [mind you they go everywhere now?!]:uhoh:
What about lo-co to Bulgaria (yikes)

Andy,
I think pax go where the route is. The SLF are like sheep. If HUY offered/convinced an airline to do Falaraki (for example) on lo-co or club 18-30 or whatever, the desination is the key, but and it is a big but...would they drop their prices to make it happen, not only landing fees but car parks, food, beer... it is a big risk and needs a lot of guts to front out, nerves of steel and possibly a death wish!!!
Bulgaria is a property hot-spot lo-co might just make 2 turnaround per day (3 flights in possibly)bargain houses and flats. Run the route for a year and see what happens.
Ski is a first for HUY in 2004. I gather it has been busy with the ski flights. We are closer to Sweden etc than most why don\'t HUY offer more ski/mountain routes?
the speciality guys: Voyage Jules Verne, Hayes, Dragoman, Explorer, regional should surely appeal to their mrketing strategy.
What p**sess me off most is getting tickets with LHR on them, that just puts me on a downer. Sorry LHR it is not nice flying from you, great airport highly efficient and briiliant facilities but when one is doing \'euroshuttle\' A320and the passport queue is mainly 747 three of them!!! it's a pain.... hence I love regional, through check-in job done.

Many of those ideas are great, however wont DSA just snap them up? I would have thaught an airline would just go to the most popular destinations that maybe prove popular from similar sized regions like Exeter and Norwich. Did Thompson realy try to drop HUY? I know that some timings have gone to DSA but they have always said that they remain committed to HUYs PAX.

Does HUY even intend on trying to get a loco? Might they just want to stick to the services they have and maybe gaining and losing the odd charter flight here and there, whilst making money off other things so as to stay in profit?

Andy.
I am sure that is an option, and seems to be the HUY gameplan. "Stick with what you know, don't gamble". I heard that Thompson were pulling loads from HUY but the HUY pax were not to be bullied :ok: to the pax. If Thomson had not come back this year then HUY would have had a real problem I am sure, the loss of a 767 would have been awful for them, but it did not happen, whether that is down to HUY or pax or a combination we will see.

With regard to skiing in Sweden. There are only or two ski flights to sweden a week in the ski season. Austria, France and Switzerland are far bigger ski destinations

I don't think Thompson had any intent on pulling out of HUY.
I feel Thompson are maybe playing the 'foothold' self-preservation game at HUY. If a low cost showed an interest in HUY, then I think you might see Thompson or a Thompson subsidiary increase the activity there.
As it stands now I think you'll find Thompson are playing the waiting game at HUY. If it doesn't feel threatened then it has no need to increase destinations, particularly as DSA is seemingly their pet project and most new routes are going from there. Which works well for me since I am a DSA supporter.

At the moment Thompson is a bit like Scunthorpe........both sitting very pretty, and in a win win situation.
However, one thing I have learnt since taking an interest in this kind of subject, is that it's certainly a 'cut-throat' and 'dog-eat-dog' business.
When (I think it's only a matter of time until it does) a second lo co operates from DSA, it might just might have a positive knock on affect at HUY.

Do you mean that all the work DSA is doing to grow the market could also make room for HUY to expand? Thompsons have got pretty much a monopoly over that airport at the moment and i believe that if another lo-co does go in then Thompsons will probably begin more expansion at HUY so not to 'put all its eggs in one (DSA) basket'

I do think though that DSA has had all the hype and i dont believe that it will live up to all of its expectations, i had people asking me when the A380s would be operating from there because it was apparently on the news! I just cant see it, maybe a few scheduled long haul routes as Peel seem to be able to 'sell ice to an eskimo' so if anyone is going to convince the likes of Continental and Emarites that the region is viable for long-haul then DSA is the one to do it!

By the way circseam i am 25 years old, sorry i dont know how to send a private message on the AirHumberside website but i do agree with you. I dont take offence to your comments but i got the impression you were one of those die hard DSA fans that have become very ignorant of the needs of our region now that theyve got what they wanted (And thats only a very small number of DSA supporters may i add)

7006 Fan, I can't believe some of the drivel you come out with on this forum :ugh:

I hate to sound really picky, but its 'Thomson' not 'Thompson'.

That really annoys me for some reason, dont know where people get the P from!

I guess it shows some people can take the "p" and some can't :O

'That really annoys me for some reason, dont know where people get the P from'

I think it's because used in the surname it's usually spelt with a 'p'...but point taken.


AndyHUY

A couple of points.
Firstly going back, the reason I questioned the 1% South Yorks pax, was because South Yorks (most certainly the Doncaster Area) were included in what was called the 'primary target catchment grid'. The area in and around the airport was to be a hot bed for internal and external investment. The project was on-going when I left and I basically lost interest.
I was privy, however, to plans that foresaw the airport operating on a much higher level than it is now, and if these plans came to fruition DSA would not have been considered.

I think if Thomson's are challenged head to head on routes at DSA by other lo-cos, rather than lose out completely they would sooner offer the same destinations from HUY.

I am no aviation expert, infact I wouldn't know a jumbo jet from an airbus (for all I know they could be one and the same), but I do take a keen interest in major developments in the South Yorks area, and DSA seems to be the focal point of upper-epsilon conversation. I don't think the 'hype' as you put it is without foundation. From various feedback I have been getting, I personally think it will well exceed all expectation and beyond. I believe also that if HUY can hold out for a couple of years, it too will begin to expand, but the interim period I believe is going to be a major telling factor for the airport.

I have to agree with you. No doubt if a low cost airline came to HUY or one of the other big tour operators expanded at HUY they would increase services.

Thomson will want to keep a large presence in the area. If there was expansion out of HUY by airlines/tour operators to destinations they serve from DSA and they did not have HUY operations anymore they couldnt compete as well out of DSA than they could if they still had a HUY operation. It makes sense for them to keep operations out of HUY

In my opinion HUY would never see Thomson Fly in its scheduled form.

Well I have just spent the last hour reading this thread from start to finish, and found it very interesting. HUY is my local airport and when I use it i like it, but, as I pay for all my own travel now in general it is an expensive place to fly from. I used the Air UK flight to LHR on a regular basis and it had good load factors with most passengers travelling onwards, naturally when KLM bought Air UK they didn't want to support LHR. I wrote to BMI and suggested they extend either the LHR/LBA or LHR/EMA flight on to HUY twice a day, they had the decency to write back and whilst they thought their was some merit in my suggestion because of the extended time the aircraft would need to come to HUY by the time it got back to LHR it would have lost it's time slot. I still believe the business community would love to have a London connection, probably LGW rather LHR.
Getting back to cost, apart from good deals into Europe with KLM in the summer other destinations are usually more expensive. Long haul through Schipol is generally more expensive than LON or MAN, charter to Spain is almost always cheaper from LBA,MAN, Stansted etc. This includes taking car hire to the distant airports into account. So far Donny hasn't been cheaper than HUY on common destinations, so I ain't going there..
Surprised about the one percent usage by South Yorkshire, on the odd occasion I have used HUY to Spain I seem to have been surrounded by Barnsley lads on every flight...
My gut feeling is that HUY will continue in it's niche with slow expansion, but, you know the old saying... When change is made it will usually be a surprise and little to do with what the pundits are suggesting!!!!!
So much for my two penneth.....

What do we reckon to these:
1/ HUY-SOU-HUY
2/ HUY-Marsaillies-HUY (sorry at home and don't know the code!)
3/ HUY-CDG-HUY
4/ HUY-BFS-HUY
5/ HUY-DUS-HUY

marks out of 10?

Or LCY for London itself maybe?

7/10 - some potential

Code is MRS. 1/10. Only served from London, no business links so no chance from HUY

10/10 The market is there. Someone needs to come and get it

8/10. BHD would be better

6/10. Not sure on this one