I'm sure QR, UA, EK, DL etc would just love watching all their GLA and EDI premium pax routing via AMS, LHR, DUB etc rather than go through the inconvenience and wasted time of getting to PWK.

Ludicrous suggestion.

Oh dear N-S, there appears to have been a nationwide sense of humour failure. Next time yr taking the p*ss, could you signal it a bit more clearly?

Perhaps PPRUNE should mandate the wearing of a special type of hat (was that a Monty Python sketch?)

It truly is selfie's pet project.

I've been having a look through the PIK accounts. Turnover last year was £9m, vs costs of £14m, plus administrative costs of around £1.5m, giving a total £7m loss pre-tax.

So to break even, the airport needs to increase revenue by 77%, or slash costs by 64%. That's a tough ask!

Here's the breakdown of income by sector:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...K%20Income.png

Passenger numbers are down from 827,000 to 624,000. From those figures, we can see revenue attributed to passenger ops (passenger + concessions + car parking) is approx £5.69 per passenger. You'd need to add another 1m passengers to cover that assuming costs don't increase proportionately.

Freight appears to be making £218 per tonne. So another 32,000 tonnes of freight needed to cover that shortfall.

Or a combination of both.

So quite a long way from profitability!

EDIT: For comparison, GLA reported revenue of £9.80 per passenger, of which £5.80 was aviation related, and £4 was retail. PIK managed £1.10 from aviation, with £4.59 retail / car parking.

Probably talking without real knowledge...but just watching a documentary on Fair Isle and the financial problems that and probably other Scottish outcrops have....I know not the proper forum but am I being nieve and living in fantasy land...but could the money subsidy going to an overcrowded middle Scottish airport not be diverted to a true Scottish heritage? Sorry to be Trumpish...

Una Due Tfc.
I'm not sure I understand the "inconvenience and wasted time of getting to PWK" bit.
I have been doing rotation work overseas for almost twenty years and don't have allegiance to any airport.
The only thing I look at when planning my route is which one allows me more time at home. At present I go from EDI to CDG as I can get an extra night at home on the outward leg. Coming back, I come via EDI on the mid morning direct flight. This flight will not be running in April so I will route via AMS to GLA. If there was an alternative via Prestwick I would be weighing that up as well.
A colleague who lives in Ayrshire gets driven to EDI on his outbound leg for the same reason as I do.
I've been sailing in the Firth of Clyde in the afternoon before my journey, wondering why some people have already begun their journeys from their local airports to do overnight stays in AMS or Paris.

The elected Scottish First Minister has many responsibilities so I'm not sure she has time for pet projects.
Everyone knows that Prestwick needs support to survive and a lot of people question why we have so many airports in Central Scotland.
If the long term plans of EDI or GLA would tell us all when one of them is going to build a runway capable of landing a fully laden cargo jumbo then I would be happy to see Prestwick being phased out or at least the loss making passenger part being shut down. Until that day dawns it remains a necessary Scottish asset.

On the Beeb this morning was the news of the Spaceport development. I previously thought of it as, forgive the pun, pie in the sky. But..........this could actually have some mileage. Forget pax numbers, forget bucket and spade holidays, but look out of the four walls that surround PIK. If it COULD be developed as a Spaceport, for satellite, close orbit launches, then the business infrastructure surrounding Prestwick, with jobs, satellite and space development, just possibly could rejuvenate the whole area. Now, you would need to forget about it as an airport, but it could be a technology hub, with piggy back launch vehicles putting up the sub orbitals. Method in the Madness?

I'm sure that all this potential space bound traffic, going up and down through the NOTA/OCA Entry Points, will be the best news the folks Shanwick have ever heard.

Don't rule out the southwest contender for this project just yet ;)


cs

But Zooker, that's the point. The orbitals are carried on regular aeroplane launchers......would be like any RYR routing out over MAC, climb up, and let go of vehicle

Exactly - it will have zero impact on airport or air traffic operations. The launch vehicle is just a normal aircraft. After departure they will head out to a restricted part of airspace somewhere off the coast, launch the rocket, and return for a normal landing.

Why does everyone seem to think there will be Saturn V's launching vertically from PIK?

First, the idea of choosing a single spaceport has been dropped. There are several consortia putting together business plans for different airports.

Second, although the future is certainly 'air-launched', the use of old-school ground launches as well has not been ruled out.

Why necessary? Land it at MAN and truck it. Cargo cares not one whit where it lands.
How many fully laden flights are we talking about? Air France Cargo is closing down main body freighters so that leaves Cargolux with how many flights per week? 5-6?

They couldn't even manage a Freeport against Shannon (who remembers that fiasco?).
It doesn't matter, no one will take tough decisions on this, it's too political especially with Sturgeon about to call #indyref2. Unless the Nats can use Brexit as a last gasp excuse to get over the line, it's hard to see how they can win one once we've escaped the claws of the European Commission.

The hard decisions, well, let's kick that can down the road again. In the meantime, both GLA and EDI remain commercially viable and profitable airports competing against and continuing to beat a state owned PIK that continues to lose increasing amounts of money.

As things stand MAN is the next best option, but Mrs May has promised an Independent Scotland a Hard Brexit Border.

Sukhoi SSJ 100 in circuit
 

There has been a CityJet Superjet SSJ100 at Prestwick in the circuit last few days. Quite a nifty looking aircraft. Similar to EMB 170.

Lot of companies use PIK as training especially Touch n Goes. Past couple of weeks Thomas Cook, Easy Jet, Jet2 all doing circuits. City Jet use to send their RJ85's here, great looking aircraft.

New route for Prestwick with Ryanair to Rzeszow.

Twice weekly from this winter.

Source: http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/ryanair-announces-new-route-prestwick-10163122

That's interesting, slight move away from the sun routes.

Last seen summer 2013 twice weekly Wed/Sun as FR8339.
If that doesn't have SNP Intl in the black then I really don't know what will.

Perhaps Ryanair are intentionally drip feeding just enough traffic to PIK to make sure Wee Jimmie Krankie keeps it open for their maintenance base?