Stansted overtakes Manchester !

[Ian Farquharson]

CAA figures released today show that Stansted has now overtaken Manchester on annual pax total.

Heathrow - 67,784,236 up 2.7%
Gatwick - 32,286,394 up 5.9%
Stansted - 21,580,666 UP 7.2%
Manchester - 21,559,786 up 5.3%
Birmingham - 8,894,703 down 1.5%
Glasgow - 8,668,460 up 5.3%
Luton - 8,457,422 up 21.6%
Edinburgh - 8,219,287 up 6.6%
Newcastle - 4,971,115 up 14.3%
Bristol - 4,825,330 up 14.1%
East Mids - 4,332,600 up 1.8%

Ian

[LGS6753]

Will Luton be 5th by year end?

[spud]

Anyone that can get a bag onto the conveyor within 30 minutes can overtake Manchester.

[Buster the Bear]

Add the proximity and the interaction of their airspace, Luton and Stansted will combined, overtake Gatwick!

http://static.zsl.org/images/width150/bear-04-web-305.jpg

[Caslance]

And Manchester's total pax fell by how much?

Oh, look. It rose by 5.3%.

You know, some airports would be quite happy with that degree of "failure"......

[Jet2]

A few facts that seem relevant to this topic:

Department for Transport studies have said that regional airports like Manchester are set to grow more rapidly than the major London hubs where the air travel market is "more mature". Latest CAA figures support this with Manchester growing more rapidly than Heathrow and Gatwick and it is predicted that by 2015 the number of pax flying from Manchester will double to around 40 million every year - nine million more pax than Gatwick currently handles.

[Centre cities]

The original poster was only quoting CAA stats but appears to have hit a few exposed nerves.

Centre cities

[WATABENCH]

I'm loving the NCL/BRS battle going on for 9th and 10th, c'mon BRS - Do em!:} were cathching on last months figs

[piston pete]

Belfast Intl should be in the top 10 but the CAA don't have the stats in for June 04-June 05 yet. From May 04-May 05 though it was 4,622,016 (up 14%).

[GrahamK]

WATABENCH, a pathetic airport like BRS won't overtake NCL :cool:

[mmeteesside]

I see DurhamTeesValleyAirport managed 92449 pax in June 05 ;) Way to go MME!!

mmeteesside

[WATABENCH]

Watch out everybody, Grahams willy waving again:rolleyes:

[GrahamK]

WATABENCH, couldnt resist it :E , but it's good to see the UK regional airports doing well :ok:

[WATABENCH]

Couldnt agree more mate, now lets both group together and take the pee out of CWLs dismal performance!! that should get Windsheers back up ha ha
Only joking windypops!:}

[RobT100]

Back to the thread title - STANSTED will never take over MANCHESTER.
What has STN got ? A lot of FR rubbish and european traffic and little else to offer.
MAN has 3 terminals, and is a major international airport, with a major BA base.
Never heard anything so ridiculous.

[Mark Lewis]

STANSTED will never take over MANCHESTER

No, but it has overtaken it in terms of passenger numbers. Cold hard fact.

[TheOddOne]

Latest CAA figures support this with Manchester growing more rapidly than Heathrow and Gatwick and it is predicted that by 2015 the number of pax flying from Manchester will double to around 40 million every year - nine million more pax than Gatwick currently handles.

...and I reckon we'll be doing 40 million by 2010, off ONE runway with TWO terminal buildings.

Things could get a little tight after that, have to start thinking about a second runway and maybe a 3rd building...

Cheers,
TheOddOne

[nickmanl]

Robt100 - what does having more terminals show?

JFK has more terminals than Heathrow, but who handles more traffic?

Simply put, STN is going to be bigger than MAN - face facts.

[Curious Pax]

Am I not right in thinking that Stansted is getting a bit tight at certain times of the day, particularly with nightstoppers? That would suggest that the number of based EZY/FR aircraft will not increase by much, which may affect the figures, although STN do seem to be doing well bringing in foreign airlines these days, so the effect may be masked.

It will also be interesting to see how the figures look at the end of October. Although it isn't as pronounced as it used to be, Manchester has much more of a summer peak than Stansted, and so they may catch up over the next 3 months.

Either way they are both doing pretty well. I remember my first visit to Stansted as a teenage spotter 20 years ago when literally nothing moved during our 2 hour visit!

[maxell]

RobT100
So Manchester has 3 terminals but where do you get the major BA base? From BA mainline as such pulled out of Manchester some years ago. The major long haul out of Manchester must be PIA, and looking around the Airport Jet2 seems to have more aircraft about than BA these days even BA citiexpress are cutting back aircraft at Manchester

[Manchester Exile]

>>It will also be interesting to see how the figures look at the end of October. Although it isn't as pronounced as it used to be, Manchester has much more of a summer peak than Stansted, and so they may catch up over the next 3 months.


Actually, I think Manchester will still be behind STN at the end of October. STN has just overtaken MAN on the 12-month rolling figure. Which means that figures from June 2004 have dropped out of the equation. In summer 2004, Manchester had significantly more monthly passengers that STN, which is why Manchester has, until now, been ahead.

Although MAN still has higher summer figures than STN this year, the gap is not as big as last year, which has allowed STN to overtake on the 12-month rolling total. STN will move further ahead this summer, even though during these months it will handle fewer passengers than MAN.

I know what I mean, but I'm not sure anyone else will!

I also remember visiting STN about 15 or 20 years ago, and absolutely nothing moved on the field. Manchester was probably pumping through 12 million passengers a year then - STN would have been doing about a million, so it's a remarkable achievement.

[LGS6753]

Stansted's growth is to do with collusion between Government and BAA.

If passengers had wanted to fly from Stansted, they would have done so in the seventies and eighties. But they didn't.

What changed was a political decision to build a huge terminal there, which BAA then bribed airlines to fill. Lots of the ones they bribed transferred flights from Luton (TNT, Ryanair, plus Tour Operators operating charter flights).

Government then ensured that the playing field remained tilted in BAA's favour in a number of ways, which inhibited growth at Luton, thereby creating traffic growth at Stansted. Without Government-sponsored BAA bribes and Stansted's consequential terminal capacity Go would have launched at Luton.

It's time for the BAA to be broken up, and stripped of its planning powers. With fair competition, the winner will be the travelling public.

[RobT100]

Ok, here goes, I will try and reason with some of you guys:

what does having more terminals show?
________________________________

It shows that it is a major airport, with investment and many international routes and more importantly CAPACITY. Outside LHR it is the only airport with 3 terminals. It also has 2 runways. The place has the "feel" of a major airport (only my opinion).

============================

No, but it has overtaken it in terms of passenger numbers. Cold hard fact.
________________________________

Agree, cold hard fact. Although as Curious Pax says MAN have a much higher summer peak.

============================

The major long haul out of Manchester must be PIA, and looking around the Airport Jet2 seems to have more aircraft about than BA these days even BA citiexpress are cutting back aircraft at Manchester.
_______________________________

BA have made cutbacks everywhere, dont just apply to MAN.

============================

Agree very much with LGS6753 and his "Not an achievement - bribery!" post.

STN is not even in the same ball park as MAN, so whatever figures say about pax, I would refrain from such crass comparisons.

Cheers,
Rob:p

[evansthetimp]

the CAA figures are only provisional and do NOT include transit passengers.
Manchester handles considerably more transits than Stansted because of interlining traffic. At Stansted the lo-co airlines only offer point to point booking, so any pax transiting there has to check in again, therefore does count as transit.

In 2004 Manchester handled over 275,000 more transits than Stansted.

[ebenezer]

What LGS6753 says about Stansted is 100% correct.

20 years ago it was a rustic rural retreat in Essex with a tinpot terminal that was even more tinpot that that of it's neighbour, Luton.

Then came cross-subsidisation from BAA's profotable Heathrow and Gatwick operations, Government collusion in terms of airport, airspace and planning policy (hardly surprising as it had a golden share in BAA), and actions by BAA that led some of its nearby rivals to claim anti-competitive behaviour.

By contrast, Manchester has developed as a stand-alone business (unlikely that it is subsidised by MAG's airports at Bournemouth, Humberside and East Midlands) and has become arguably, the only truly 'inter-continental' airport hub in the UK apart from the BAA monoply operations (no offence to Birmingham which is doing a great job in following Manchester's example).

As LGS says "It's time for the BAA to be broken up, and stripped of its planning powers. With fair competition, the winner will be the travelling public".

Unfortunately, neither this Government nor a Tory administration has the bottle to do it so the status quo won't change unless the BAA's rivals join forces and take the issue to the European Court.

:*

[King Pong]

I can well remember Luton building a nice shiny new cargo terminal together with a cargo apron designed with the 146 in mind for TNT only to find that they were given sweeteners to move to Stansted and never got to use the new facilities.

[atco-matic]

"STN is not even in the same ball park as MAN, so whatever figures say about pax, I would refrain from such crass comparisons."

Ummm STN is an airport. Lots of people fly from there on planes. Oh look so is MAN... never heard such rubbish. :p :p :p

[7006 fan]

Are not the big carriers taking BAA to the Competition Commision or EU court for bumping up fees at LHR & LGW to fund growth at STN, or has that all been settled now?

[bozzy]

dont forget manchester airport is going to expand even more now to cope with all the pax!! with more aircraft gates, more facilities etc, but i do think stansted has done very well and all the over airports in the uk.it proves that the aviation industry is growing and keeping people in jobs nationwide.

i do think manchester in years to come will be the second busiest airport in the uk

[Buster the Bear]

One must assume that growth at Stansted will probably be a single percent figure quite soon as the availability of key arrival and departure slots are used up. MOL has virtually said so within the text of his recent interviews.

What does amaze me is not only the number, but the complexity of flights being handled by ESSEX radar within a very small area of thier own designated airspace, surrounded by FIR and an ultra busy TMA.

Oh and Luton (9 million pax) is 20 odd miles next door and ESSEX vector about 30-50% of thier flights depending upon the runway in use etc!

MANIC!

http://static.zsl.org/images/width150/bear-04-web-305.jpg

[RobT100]

You say:
==============================================

"Ummm STN is an airport. Lots of people fly from there on planes. Oh look so is MAN... never heard such rubbish. "

==============================================

I'll correct that for you shall I - it should say:

"Umm STN is a cheap tin pot airport. Lots of people fly from there on what are sometimes known as sardine tins but we will call them planes. Oh look MAN is leagues ahead ... never heard such a good statement " hehe
:ok:

[Ian Farquharson]

12 month totals (term pax)

Heathrow - 67,744,436 up 1.9%
Gatwick - 32,399,161 up 5.6%
Stansted - 21,704,443 up 6.8%
Manchester - 21,685,741 up 5.4%
Birmingham - 8,964,746 down 0.4%
Glasgow - 8,717,959 up 4.8%
Luton - 8,619,477 up 22.7%
Edinburgh - 8,269,376 up 6.3%
Newcastle - 5,015,519 up 12.8%
Bristol - 4,885,571 up 13.2%
East Mids - 4,295,359 up 0.7%
Liverpool - 3,875,386 up 20.2%
Aberdeen - 2,755,374 up 7.7%
Leeds - 2,550,099 up 14.2%
Prestwick - 2,316,153 up 9.2%
Belfast City - 2,206,342 up 10.0%
London City - 1,875,551 up 20.0%
Cardiff - 1,778,188 down 6.8%
Southampton - 1,700,248 up 16.7%
Teeside - 870,790 up 16.5%
Exeter - 744,706 up 49.7%
Coventry - 733,950 up 290.6%

[david_wilding]

does it really matter??

they are both great airports that serve different ends of the country and both have good points. STN has modern facilities and really is the home to Low-Cos only! But provides good services to local people and those who can be bothered to travel up from London.

I dont know a great deal about Manchester, but it serves more destinations with more full service airlines. Obvioulsy both airports and airlines are serving their markets well.

STN's passenger numbers may be explained by the number of people who take advantage of the low-fares!

[jongeman]

I don't get all this stuff about "my airport's bigger than yours, so there"

Is it a geeky spotter thing? Has it got something to do with how many 737NGs touch down within any given 24 hour period?

BIG W**K

Stansted primarily serves the south east. So do LHR and LGW. I don't care if between them they handle 400 million passengers. Good luck to 'em.

It's the same market, and it's irrelevant whether Ethiopian for example fly from Gatwick, Heathrow, or Lydd. Who cares?

Manchester, however, is a different market, shared with Liverpool, Leeds and now Doncaster. All are growing, so what's the big deal?