http://www.thesundaypost.co.uk/news2.htm

National press! Well, sort of

No new news then ? Same old reponse from council " we are blah blah blah" ,

Have heard a wee snippet that HIAL visiting next month ?

No exclusives there, il resist from posting the courier story from this morning as its invariably virtually the same report.

Something must be about to give somewhere you would imagine, though thats seems to have been the case for a long time now.

All this story seems to be is the city council agreeing tom the proposal of transferring the airport officially, i still dont think anything has been agreed officially but allegedly HIAL are due to visit next month

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/output/2...y8077633t0.asp

Different take on things this morning, interesting making comparisons between Dundee and Inverness as if they would be in competition against each other.

Didnt know The Courier had an aviation reporter:ooh:

Don.t know whether courier has a dedicated aviation reporter, but he does all the snippets, news etc on airport. Cant see Dundee being in competition with Inverness as catchment areas are nowhere near each other. I think in fact that they would complment each other with some routes INV-DND onwards ?

Oh and i hear the HIAL bigwigs visited Dundee last week !!!!

Just wondering if HIAL, (as they are all but certain to take over Dundee), would use some of their routes to go via DND to pickup/drop off pax ?

I was wondering as eastern fly INV-Man & Inv to LBA now so how about a
INV-DND-MAN-DND-INV route ?

Anyone heard anything new about Dundee & HIAL ? Its seems to have all gone quiet, which might mean nothing knowing the speed the executive move at !! Did hear rumblings about Stagecoach, as Brian Souter and Ann Gloag regularly use the airport ?

I think it will be a particularly lengthy process before any proposals can be agreed. The whole issue of ring fencing the subsidies for the airport will need resolved before anything moves on.

I cant imagine HIAL would be interested unless such assurances were in place.

Think we will find ourselves speculating for some time yet. :{

I see dundee made the national press, clip in the Daily Star about the proposed Errol Airport again as executive are looking into future expansion of edinburgh and also the feasability of Dundee.

Personally cannot see errol ever taking off as the investment would be astronomical, Dundee could be widened and extended for a fraction of the cost, though whether it ever happens, no one knows.

Daily Star:oh:

What is the runway length at Errol?

The airfield itself cant be further away from Dundee than many cities 'main' airport (i.e. Glasgow rather than Prestwick etc etc), so would it be assumed to be Dundee Airport?

Mind you, have they even considered the car boot sale yet;) ?

Don't see the need for widening/lengthening at Dundee, or for any gubbins at Errol. Dundee has enough to support airline ops as it is; instrument approaches both ends and enough runway to permit Do328/Saab340 size aircraft. It just needs people to make it happen (both airlines and pax). It will be a while and a local population explosion before it needs to look to the likes of Ryanair and easyjet and their 737s.
Edit: Talking bollocks, no instrument approach from the East, only circling, so a bit hamstrung by that.

DB6

Nail on the head.

And a population explosion doesn't look like happening anytime soon.

Well,they may have missed out,as Ryanair were looking at Leuchars AND Errol for possible Ops. The MOD eventually deciding it wasn't a good idea,and Errol was mentioned as a possible location in the Perthshire Advertiser,but I think it was Tim (ATC Dundee) who told me it would cost £25 million to make Errol fit for that. Tim also said that Dundee could not accommodate 737s even if the runway was extended (something to with lateral dimensions,as opposed to length)

I concur, Leuchars ditched the idea dur to costs/profit and the fact that it would affect military training etc. The figure i heard was about £50 million to sort out errol so definately no chance there, it was quite funny as the letter to the daily star had been written by a businessman who owns premises on errol airfield......mmm i wonder why he would like it to expand ?

And as for extending dundee, the runway actually needs to be moved towards the shoreline due to proximity of buildings which in turn would need the shoreline extended.

I don't think we will see any movement on new routes this year now, from what i hear the city council are tightening the belt with regards to investment in the airport and are basically refusing the airport any assistance financially and technically while they wait on HIAL's decision.

Can't blame them

Would have thought a succesful airport would be good for the economy of any city and a council would see that too. I'm sure there a lot of Irish students in the city, even without them I'm sure a Dundee-Dublin would be a hit. I live a few miles from PIK and its amazing getting off a flight and being home in 10mins as opposed to about an hour from GLA.

I bet if Dundee had more destinations you'd find it far more convenient than travelling to EDI or GLA.

I know for a fact that Dundee has many students from both Eire and the North. There must aslo be a considerable amount of English students aswell. Often I'll get a GNER train up to Dundee to visit my friend at the uni and when it arrives there are alot of Young English people getting off. The train I often get starts in London and continues up to Aberdeen, and going home it will be returning to Leeds or London, and again the loads are pretty heavy on some journeys.

I don't think the terminal at Dundee could cope with the likes of a FR flight. I've never flown from there but before departures there are 2 check in desks, a coffee stall and 2 vending machines. One day me and my friends went for a walk along the Tay and we ended up going into the airport to see if there was a shop to get a drink or something, and there wasn't. In fact the ONE member of staff we saw quickly dissapeared when we walked in.

fish
 

the terminal at Prestwick was a ghost town before ryanair arrived. Now its a bustling airport. The town of Prestwick is booming economically. I'm sure the local Ayrshire council, although they have no involvment in the airport unlike Dundee council, gave FR incentives to build maintainance hangars at PIK. Thus providing many jobs in the area. As I say the area is booming with house prices to match. If Dundee council were to invest more in the airport and attract new customers, I'm sure the benefits to the city would soon become very apparent.

Smith this is not entirely true in that before FR had such a big presence in PIK the freight companies were making PIK power up I myself was involved in many B747Fs transiting through there and was personally involved in raising the necessary funding to build the Polar Air hangar several other freight companies were/are using PIK before FR had any meaningful input there and in fact PIK was handling more cargo than LHR and LGW combined.

Firstly, thanks for addressing me as Fish, I did want this to my username, but I pressed the autofill button and then forgot to change the Username field to Fish. Is there a way this can be changed?

Secondly, and from a passenger POV:
I visted PIK a few times before Ryanair moved in (I have fmaily near the airport and we used to stay at the caravan site which is across the motorway) and there was at least a long row of Desks, a fair sized shop, a bar, café, games area and a large waiting area landside. Through departures there was also some eating areas and two or three shops (one of them was quite large). So when FR started from PIk they didn't have a lot to do, just a tidy up and a fresh coat of paint really.

I think if they started operating from Dundee they'd have a fair amount of work to do to make it an airport people would want to fly from. Having never flown from or to Dundee though, I don't know what it's like, from what I've read it's just a few vending machines though.