Gazette dont like good news, all doom and gloom, see councils gonna waste another million on a 1 way system down south shore, which will probably get changed again in a couple of years time, and yet another damn roundabout!!!!:ugh::ugh::ugh: That shouldnt cause much congestion now :mad:

Surprised they never put a roundabout on runway while they were still in charge, that would have made it a bit of fun:E:E:E

yessir the gazette sure likes bad news only:= always have, always will as its what sells newspapers:rolleyes:. Would be nice though if the airport PR got with it and made sure we got the little bits of good news too. place is like a morgue most days and needs some cheer:ok:

New Airline at BLK?
 

From another site:

All European (Blackpool) is planning to start charter operations with four ex-Alaska Airlines (AS/Seattle/Tacoma) MD-83s in 2009.

WTF????

New airline at BLK?
 

Although Blackpool is in the name, there is no connection with Blackpool Airport.

It is my understanding that this business is being planned by ex-employees of Travel City Direct which had its main office in Blackpool, but ceased trading as it
was a subsidiary of the XL Group.

With the demise of XL and other charter airlines,there appears to be a shortage of capacity in the market, which presumably is planned to be filled with these MD83s. Whether such an aircraft would be appropriate for the charter market is another matter.

Just wondering if Aer Arann has got any marketing going in Blackpool or not?

I am flying out of BLK next week on one of the last Ryanair services!:sad:

Hope they really make a go of it!

You not flying on the 27th then Ray?

October and November passenger numbers
 

Hope all had a good Christmas and just before the new year I think I should give an update on passenger numbers. Although some people say that revenue is the most important thing, they too are wrong. It is profit that is the big thing but we can all have a nosy at the numbers of people using the airport, however we are not able to see the profits made or lost. OK, little rant over, with the numbers:

October
BFS 3742 48%
IOM 2003 63%
DUB 8186 70%
FAO 4496 89%
ALC 4509 85%
GRO 9016 82%
AGP 5491 84%
MJV 2714 83%
PMI 4382 78%
TFS 133 45%

November
IOM 1991 68%
DUB 6354 60%
FAO 312 53%
ALC 2195 82%
GRO 2976 68%
AGP 345 58%
MJV 208 70%
PMI 283 48%
TFS 962 81%

Thanks MUFC fan for those figures. No wonder jet2 are so keen to stick with BLK in the face of the ADF. Very impressive October figures, load factors that high must be very pleasing for EXS. Of course it would always be the case that the Nov figures would tail off as the "summer" routes were cut for the winter, but to have TFS at 81% iand ALC at 82% is impressive.
Does anyone know why Malaga isn't operated year round? The costa del sol has good weather year round so i'd have thought 2-3 rotations per week would work. Plenty of AGP flights ex-MAN/LPL so why not BLK?

AGP should be year round but and to some extent FAO but obviously LS don't see it that way.

:hmm:

Would be a bit foolish to lose the profits down the back of the sofa (that would be the 'Lost Prophets', dreadful music inflicted upon me by my own kids!). I do understand what you're trying to say though.

Unfortunately, stats don't tell the full story!

Rgds
The Moss:ok:

We ran a FAO winter service a couple of winters ago, and the traffic loads were dire. If people don't use it and all that.

As for the profits on the winter routes - if they don't make money, they don't survive.

There has never been a huge demand for an FAO route during the winter from any airport and I would imagine even less demand now with the current exchange rate. I noted the tourist exchange rate this morning was £1 = 0.98 Euro.

Backtrack

To an extent you answered your own question: there are a reasonably high number of AGP flights ex MAN and these mop up most of the passengers. Yes - I am sure some people would prefer to support their local airport, but not enough of them to make the flight commercially viable. 2 or 3 a week are the minimum to make a go at it and there simply wouldn't be sufficient (profitable) demand to make the route pay.
Sad but thats how it is.

MON managed a successful winter doing agp, why cant LS?

The market has changed:
Cost of fuel up. Exchange rate down.
The general state of the UK economy.
Charter market vs low cost market. (The first may have supported a once weekly flight - the latter demands higher frequencies to offer short breaks / ability to get to holiday homes for weekends etc.) In the current financial climate, winter low cost services rarely sell much (if any) capacity above base fare. If they up the fares, the people simply switch back to a cheaper option (i.e. MAN!) Ultimately, moving 60 odd passengers twice a week on a 3 hour flight simply doesn't make financial sense. Cheaper to park up the plane & send the crews down the pub!

Don't blame them this year, although I take your point in general.

Winter routes from Blackpool have always been sus, what happened to the Thompson route to Alicante?.

Looking at the pax for GRO - I can't help but this Ryanair have shot themselves in the foot.

For most the free parking will more than offset the £10 development surcharge.

When I fly to Palma in May, I will be £40 in pocket from the parking, and £20 worse of from the charge(as under 16's are not liable for the charge) - leaving me with a net profit of £20.00.
Same in high summer.
So while Ryanair are right to champion lower fairs, they could well be wrong here as most passengers maybe will pay less as a result of the parking rebate.

Thomson
 

dnt know if it a computer glitch but Blackpools showing back on thomson website again, dont think anything is available to book, but maybe some good news to come , or like said a computer error!!! As for monarch the few times i flew that winter the plane had far more than 60 on, generally almost full, but airport needs to offer something to locals to fly, no good using the excuse they can fill planes at man, people can't or won't fly blk, if nothing is available to begin with:ugh::ugh::ugh:

Blackpool always appears on the Thomsons search.

Ryanair still has Stansted in its system!

I really hope that Thomson could come back to BLK.

The best option would be a summer flight to Dalaman, Turkey..which is now very popular among most of UK airports.

During the winter time, I would like to see a weekly flight to holiday spots such as Lanzarote or Gran Canaria but they would need to do a great marketing campaign among local travel agents, after all.

BLK definitely need another year-round holiday operator which is able to offer a limited range of different destinations, alongside Jet2Holidays.com

There is no chance of a Turkey flight as all flights by TOM to BLK were by a UK based aircraft which mean the crew would have to swap in ALC where as doing it in DJV would be difficult I think.

Not much chance of a charter carrier returning to BLK in the current market - if they aren't growing from MAN, then there is little chance they will be growing anywhere else in the North. TOM have even withdrawn their based 757 from LPL so BLK is definitely bottom of the list!

The best we can wish for in the current climate is another carrier (maybe U2 who were rumoured a while back) at flying a 'W' flight or from one of it's European bases. I know that BLK said that even though it wanted to expand, there was little chance of another major carrier at the airport and would stay with Jet2 and Ryanair plus smaller airlines such as Manx2 and now Aer Arann. As Ryanair have now left,surely they will be looking for another carrier to bring services to the shore.

I think W09 will bring:

AGP 2x weekly
ALC 2x weekly
GVA 1x weekly
TFS 2x weekly
LPA 1x weekly from LS and maybe another new airline will arrive with a couple of destinations 3/4x weekly - but thats a push.

Airlines that would be in the mixer would probably only consist of Flybe and easyJet but I would LOVE for Thomson Airways to do what they have done at Exeter (well...First Choice) and base an aircraft to fly charter routes but I am living in a dream world!:}