And then perhaps, just perhaps, the new management team are slowly but surely getting PIK more business? Military activity , tech stops, mantenance, training movememts increasing on previous years plus a modest ncrease in PAX. All heading in the right direction provided the cost base is beng managed. Lets see what the annual report for 2016/17 brings.

More losses & being shored up by the taxpayer no doubt.

At some point in the last 10, maybe 15 years, did Prestwick bring executive handling in-house, resulting in a decline in visiting BA/GA?

Just curious as there is an ex-Prestwick guy about to do the same at the airport I work at, and whilst he delivered a fantastic pitch about the positives it would bring, I've since heard his attempt at Prestwick failed.

All visiting aircraft handling is now inhouse with Prestwick Aviation Services, a move that reduced competition between the three previous handlers, some of whom thought it was quite OK to argue who would handle an aircraft in front of the crew, and on one occasion, in front of myself. In my opinion the present arrangement works better, with PIK investing in marketing the service and getting results.

Really? Because from what I see, under PIK handling the airport is losing traffic hand over fist to Belfast, Shannon, Edinburgh and Glasgow!!

Really ? You should look harder.

1/ US Navy C-130`s and C40`s to BFS.
2/ Various USAF C-130`s to BFS and GLA.
3/ US Marines C-130`s to EDI.
4/ Gulfstream deliveries to BFS and now Luton.
5/ M-28`s to EDI.
6/ All AN-124 fuel stops to SNN.
7/ Cargojet now fueling at SNN.
8/ UC-35`s and C-12`s regularly stop at GLA now.
9/ USAF C-37`s to BFS by and large.
10/ USAF C-40`s to BFS and SNN.
11/ USAF C-17`s to BFS.

I shall stop there to save your blushes. The odd C-17, KC-135 and C-130 every other week doesn't mask the empty ramps day after day.
Worst thing they ever did was getting rid of Landmark and Greer aviation.
The current management are in danger of making Infratil look competent!! :ugh::ugh:

Looks like Beyond the Boundary has a very large chip on his / her shoulder. Ex employee of Landmark / Greer perhaps? Competition between the FBOs is intense but PIK is still picking up decent levels of business from the USAF / USN / CAF / Kuwait etc while some traffic does transit through SNN, BFS etc. No one airport will exclusively capture all TA traffic gven the choices available.

Absolutely spot on. It is and always has been a competitive market with BFS now in the thick of it too.

Yes a large chip.
US Navy are ex Shannon not PIK
USAF C130s still transit PIK
Marines C130s always were EDI, now expelled to GLA
G280 finished
Cargojet no longer LOT flights
C17s - What was I seeing in the last couple of weeks ? At PIK. What came last night ?
Etc.
Give it a rest.

Day after day of empty aprons doesn`t lie I`m afraid. We`ll leave it at that. Good luck keeping your airport open with dwindling GA and mil traffic, the only hope to keep a great airport alive.

None of which offsets the care and maintenance costs of the huge terminal. Nice to see but never going to balance the books.

Certainly wont cover the costs of the terminal however the income it brings does have the ability to reduce the losses quite considerably.

OK so to try to add some context to the recent exchanges I've done a wee comparison of the latest CAA stats (Feb 2017) with the same month last year. It shows:

Pax ATMs up 57%
Cargo ATMs down 8% (but only very small numbers so not significant)
Military down 18%
Test and training up 33%

I'd call that a mixed picture.

It doesn't of course cover a large chunk of FBO activity which will be under the 'Private' heading, but that's always been a poor indicator of FBO activity because it also includes lots of light aircraft.

From what I was told airports don't have too much influence over where the US military go, they decide which airport to use based on how many stars the local hotels have, how good the local golf courses are, nightlife etc, I believe Whiskey is also a major factor!

There's no plan to make money.
There's no way to make money.
There's only a plan to lose less money.

It's George Younger all over again, kept open only for politics.

Instead of getting back on the merry-go-round, the answer to the original question, "is an in-house FBO better than an externally operated FBO?" seems to be ambiguous at best.

Certainly BFS seems to be getting more of the delivery movements and the G.280's now go through STN.

Ofcourse it is. Why would an airport that is losing money have 2 external companies on site raking in all of the profits?

What about Pilatus, Grob, Socata who still all regularly deliver aircraft through PIK? Not to mention the Mil, exec and GA Ferry flights it still gets. The g280s now go through STN as it is closer to their maintenance facility in London.

So to illustrate PIK is firmly in business, today 2 USAF, 2 US Navy, RAF 2 C130, 2 A400m, 3 A330, First Air RJ85, R Moroccan AF RJ100, bunch of Biz Jets, and the norm Ryanair, Air France, Rescue helicopters, crew training and light stuff. And plenty more for each day this week.

Getting back to the original question I suggest it's matter of whether two or more FBOs can work alongside each other enlarging the traffic gain and even co-operating or whether they cut-throat each other under-cutting uneconomically and even going to behaviours particularly in front of crews that leave the crews determined never to go to that airport again.