Gazette Holiday Show 2009
 

I was pleased to see that Blackpool Airport are sponsoring the Gazette Holiday exhibition in January 2009 at the Norbreck.
The 2008 show was sponsored by Liverpool Airport, and Blackpool airport didn't even have a stall despite it being held at Pontin's - a stone's throw away.

It looks like the new owners are taking marketing more seriously.

Absolutely Agree! Glad to see that when Blackpool told the Gazette they wouldnt come to the show if they didnt offer them the sponsorship instead of Liverpool Airport the Gazette took notice!! It was ridiculous giving Liverpool first dibs at sponsoring the show.....good on you Blackpool Airport it worked!! Looking forward to seeing you there this year....

B'pool Airport
 

Well, I have faith in the latest owners of our airport, who seem to be just that liitle bit more aviation-orientated than the previous two were, so let's hope they can make a success out of the place.

Hello, everyone, by the way; I have just joined, I live here in Blackpool, and like everyone else here my life-long ambition is to see the airport become a soaraway success!

S.

:ok::ok:

Flew out of BLK on Friday to GRO - only 22 onboard! Obviously due to the closure of the route but the inbound was very busy and by looking at the booking system before I went the Sunday flight was quite busy aswell (inbound obviously). Just returned into LPL this evening which was very busy - 170+.

Also, just to let people know who didnt know that Aer Arann made their debut scheduled flight at lunchtime to Dublin. Was operated by EI-REM (ATR 72). Don't know if Aer Arann have let anybody know, but they are only turning up 4 days a week until the summer - not the 5 advertised everywhere!:rolleyes: There is no Saturday flight.

any news on the new London route? :ok:keep hearing LTN mentioned. Is it just wishfull thinking:confused:

Fredtheanorak
 

Almost certainly wishful thinking I fear.

Probably is wishful thinking.

I was looking at the press release for the new flights from BLK to DUB and the BLK CEO mentioned that they want to work with RE on developing their route network. Could this be a sign that RE could bring more routes to the resort?

Maybe the most we can hope for a 4x weekly service to ORK which would be nice but I would like to see something a bit more. RE have seen the numbers FR was carrying on the DUB route and has come to the rescue. Could they see the numbers FR carried on the STN route and give LON a go? After all...LTN is the LON airport of RE's choice (well...there is LCY but not economically viable from BLK)

Gentlemen

Blackpool-\luton never worked in the Late 60 s with the Autair Vikings

this was when there was no Inter City//Motorways

So It will not work Now#


I Feel sorry for Blackpool but regretfully they do not have the catchment Area for Flights as has been proved by the Likes of RYR and Jet 2 to name a couple,
MON dinot work even via NQY


Seasonal flights IOM/DUB/BFS are the best they are going to get
obviously TFS and winter IT flights with TOM etc may continue
but for how long in the present climate


Sorry to be trueful



Regards

Just been pricing flights for a weekend in Dublin.

Aer Arran from Blackpool - £76 return + £10 ADF = £86

Aer Lingus from Manchester - £47 return incl taxes & charges.

Ryanair from Manchester also £47 return for similar flight times but offer £33 return on very early/late flight times.

Will be interesting to see how things pan out for Aer Arran on this route given the competition down the road.

There is one thing different about the BLK-DUB route is that there is significant traffic going BOTH ways.

The main reason for this is most definitely the stag and hen weekends which provide huge traffic, well huge on a BLK scale ;) between the two destinations.

BLK-DUB will be successful with RE certainly on a smaller scale but they fly aircraft with less than 50% of Ryanair which, as FR could make it workable then there is obviously enough demand for a 4x weekly and soon to be daily flight, even with an increased fare.

I don't think the competition both at Manchester AND Liverpool will make much of a difference to the demand for the RE flights.

For a start Ryanair have pulled a profitable route to Girona because MOL threw his toys out of the pram because he could not get his own way over the £10 Dev Charge, which makes little difference when the parking is taken into consideration - plus the fact that under 16's are not affected.

Blackpool do have the catchment area for summer flights, and would have more if marketed properly.
In fact in term of population taking in Preston-Chorley - East Lancashire and the Lakes, Blackpool has a decent catchment area not reflected in the number of routes flying out/
Pax numbers as supplied by MUFC_Fan shows this.
Ok the regional routes never worked, and I never thought they would - Blackpool IMO is best suited to being a holiday airport.

Personally, I think it could hold a based A320/737 from TCX or TOM serving Greek Islands, Canaries etc. during the summer like EXT and BOH (Palmair)

How about the free parking at Blackpool? That must represent a good saving rather than driving and parking or getting a return taxi to Man or Liv?:ok:

Unfortunately you cannot express the Dev. Charge as being offset by parking charges because parking charges are only applied to those who choose to park at the airport (i.e. misses those who will be dropped off and picked up, and 'kiss and fly' is always a high proportion of private car usage at airports). Furthermore, the parking charge would be split at least two ways for many leisure travellers who are likely to travel in pairs, either with or without under 16's. So taking those factors into account DOES affect people's thinking about how much it will cost them to travel, because it potentially adds £20 onto their flights of £10+taxes (or whatver, potentially 2p+ taxes, in which case £20 extra is signficant and influencing).

Unfortunately catchment areas do not work as simply as you phrase them either, there are a number of factors which must be taken into account other than just population size and catchment area. I produce forecasts for a number of major airports and wish it was so simple as my life would be a lot easier, but you have to look at factors such as the economy and underlying income/wealth, because one resident earning £60k per annum is likely to have a much higher propensity to fly than three residents earning £20k per annum because of the proportion of their income which is likely to be disposable; and the catchment of Blackpool is not the strongest of economic areas. In temrs of pure industry (and therefore demand for business flights) the region does not consist of large traunches of air intensive sectors.

The problem is for Blackpool that there is demand, but much of this is stimulated because it is at the right price, and therefore the market is highly price sensitive. The shear scale of operations at Manchester for leisure points means that seats as cheap, or cheaper may be available from there, and humans are funny people and would drive for an extra 30mins because they don't think about the cost of petrol and wear&tear on their cars. Whilst cheap flights to a limited number of places would influence people from the catchment area to choose those points, if it comes down to cost and the difference between BLK and MAN is not huge, then they wil choose to go from MAN because they at least have a wider range of destinations to choose from. It would be impossible to match all of these from BLK because you really would be spreading the market too thinly.

I'm not bashing BLK, don't get me wrong. And I agree, it has a role for leisure ops, but for a number of reasons it is important not to over-egg this. I am however a bit of a geek in these matters so apologise for my long reply :8:8.

..airman
 

Some interesting points and very well expressed.

However, I am sure you will agree that predicting demand for air travel is not an exact science for the reasons you state. One thing that rather surprised me about Blackpool, when comparing the routes last summer which were duplicated with Manchester, was the healthy load factors given that the fact that the fares out of Blackpool are generally higher than out of Manchester.

This would seem to suggest that there is a pretty good demand for air travel from Blackpool to the various holiday destinations irrespective of what is available from Manchester, therefore the £10 ADF may not be such a significant factor and particularly as NONE of the ultra cheap fares are available.

Unfortunately, there can be no guarantee that the performance during summer 08 will be repeated in 09 given higher overall fares, the general economic climate, employment uncertainty and the poor exchange rate.

Who knows if these factors will affect Blackpool any differently than any other airport.

For many people price will allways be the key point - with distance and other facilities being additional pluses or minuses.
We live halfway beetween BLK & Man so that makes no difference,parking DID cost roughly the same at either (pre recent changes),facilities - we dont treat the wait in departures like a trip to the Trafford centre so BLK's lack of choice was fine by us However compare the following-,as a creature of habit and being dictated too by school half term breaks ,prices for the same flights with Jet2 from Blackpool to Tenerife & return on the same weeks in Feb. All for 3 people + 1 suitcase each, 2007 approx £530,in 2008 approx £560 ,in 2009 approx £830,i know that there have been changes in fuel costs etc but on the previous 2 years BLK was way cheaper than Man with Jet2 or anyone else.All holidays were booked in the September of the previous year so should bear comparison.For 2009 Thomson from MAN were around £80 less than Jet2 from BLK.
I have spoken to a number of people who have travelled this route in the past and all are commenting on the way Jet2 prices have become less competitive from BLK.Jet 2 flights i have been on are invariably well patronised as borne out by the load figures given on these pages,so why downgrade from a 757 to a 737? This is not knocking Jet2 or BLK,everything else being equal i would chose Jet2 & BLK anyday for the ease of parking on the bombsite carpark outside the door,the freindly staff (esp Jet2),the free big dipper ride on landing on the lovely smooth runway & the pleasure of queing on the freezing cold apron outside to get through passport control on return...;)

Dave

Ernst
While you may be correct Girona was performing well MOL will no doubt see this as a valuable exercise to send a stark message to all the other airports around Europe especially the ones where they rely so heavily on Ryanair. It will also make airport look to find new income streams to help subsidise the Ryanair operation. Eg Look at Liverpool, I dont know what the aiport charges Ryanair or Easyjet but things like fast track £3 per departing passenger and last summer quite a few were using it!

There are so many instances where we hear of Mol pushing airports for cuts, look what has happened at BLK and a base at Valencia.
We will await an update on Hahn next week.

Hahn is owned by Fraport, who also run the main Frankfurt airport as well. Fraport do not need to go begging to MOL !

davidjohnson

you are correct they dont, none the less, their presence at Hahn has been the cause of the growth in passenger number to the current level (the arrival of passengers at all). In these current times when passenger numbers are down Fraport wont want to lose any traffic through either airport.

Back on the Fylde coast

Blackpool Airport surcharge will fund £2m revamp - Blackpool Today