If the new owner decides to fork out the £400 million to purchase and the £400 million or so to upgrade the facilities, then yes it could be worth more than the £800 million spent. My point is, and has been all along, that investors are looking for a return on their investment as quickly as possible, and spending close to £1 billion to purchase and upgrade an airport that may or may not attract long haul routes is something of a gamble.

Spending any money on airports is always going to be a gamble - look at the risks the industry faces.

However, there is a clear opportunity to buy EDI & develop it.

There's also the flipside of the high speed rail point too - if it served the airport directly, pax could be poached from what by then would be rival GLA.

On the other hand, if London is within 2 1/2 hours, big loss of all those shuttle flights.

Meanwhile, what impact would a yes result in the independence referendum have? I can't see much reduction in demand on routes to what would be then be EWNI, meanwhile, Edinburgh gains international stature. Probably just greater yields to BRU, and President Salmond wanting a direct link to the White House! Apart from that, the Castle is still the Castle, and Arthur's Seat isn't moving anywhere. What about all the financial services?

Whats the latest on the Tram Service in Edinburgh and linking it too the Airport?

I think we'll have High Speed 2 and Forth Bridge 2 long before Trams 1 :ugh::ugh::ugh:

I don't deny there is an opportunity to develop EDI, just that in the current financial climate it may be seen as too much of a risk. There hasn't exactly been a deluge of bids for it.
Tourism will always be a strong point for EDI, financial services less so at the moment,
But may I ask, is there a plan to serve Edinburgh airport directly with a high speed rail link?

Not at the moment. There have been various plans for direct rail into the airport, apart from the trams. The most ambitious was a triangle heading out from a station under the terminal - 1) to city centre, 2) to and across the Forth Bridge and 3) towards Glasgow. This was costed, iirc about 5 years ago at £600m.

I haven't seen a costing yet for EDI-GLA high speed, but it would be in the region of £5bn. The way these things work, throw in another £600m-£1b, and it is still 'only' 20% of project cost. There will need to be a stop somewhere between the two cities - or at least there should be.

I'm just trying to mash out the best case scenario for EDI - namely that it gets a fast train link, then the line shoots down to Newcastle, but then doesn't go any further ;)

If there is any serious moves for the high speed link, there would be demands for the trains to continue at least on the conventional route to Dundee & Aberdeen. A tunnel under the airport would also present a challenge for diesel trains.

If there are any rail bods reading this (I know there usually are) - are there any issues with electrification on the Forth Bridge?

From Gogar depot towards the airport, the ballast for the tram track is in place up to the Hilton, as well as the foundations for the overhead stands. Four way control traffic lights have been introduced from the Hilton roundabout, Car Rental exit, Long Stay Car Park road, and from the Control Post. Four way lights in place to allow rails to be laid across the road towards the terminus. One lane shut at a time. Major earth works on going at new terminus for trams

Iceland Express will return with a weekly flight to Reykjavik this summer
Iceland Express returns to Edinburgh summer 2012

Flights are actually 2x weekly.

I see there's been a fairly substantial drop in EDI's January figures.

-4.4% for the month.

I wonder how this'll impact on the bidding.

g

So, pax numbers were down in January. Annual growth was up 8%. So what? That's nothing unusual. All airports have up and down months, even LHR, but that's not to say the interest will have tailed off, nor that the bidders won't have their eyes on the bigger picture.

Quite the contraty, in fact, with reports that BAA can anticipate bids at the higher end of the scale (£700m or so) when first round bids open today. The level and calibre of interest in EDI has been excellent, and bodes particularly well for passenger numbers in the near future. Seems BAA knew exactly what they were doing when they put EDI up for sale.

Still showing 8% annual growth

Growth may be coming to a sudden halt
 

But for how much longer ......

BBC News - Ryanair to cut number of services at Edinburgh Airport

20% of traffic is through Ryanair; if they pull back and focus on PIK would that not challenge EDI's title of lo-co hub extraordinaire?

Clearly MoL is applying pressure in the expectation of getting his charges reduced. (And we were never told what kind of deal prompted him to go to Edi in the first place).
One fears for the negotiators sitting down with him. Chickens with the fox comes to mind.

What it needs is Wizz to come along and take the routes they drop and for BAA to refuse FR permission to operate them if they come scarpering back.

Wizz 1 - 1 Ryanair - if it happened. Which it won't. It just needs a brave loco to follow FR around and punish them on their own soil.

Edinburgh isn't dependant on Ryanair. It should give Ryanair the same answer as Manchester when Ryanair tried to fly for free. If the demand is there O'Leary will come back with his tail between his legs.

But our Executive in Embra (and especially all their attendant civil servants) wouldn't want to lose their cheap flights.

The 'expertise' of Laurie Price, head of aviation strategy at Mott MacDonald in the Scotsman.

“Why would he not want to serve the capital of Scotland? If he did pull out of a key route, like Edinburgh to Stansted, there would be a lot of other airlines standing about waiting to thank him and step into the gap.”