COVENTRY

[Fried_Chicken]

http://iccoventry.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/tm_objectid=16250247&method=full&siteid=50003&headline=coventry-airport--up-for-sale-for--pound-40m--name_page.html

The Manchester Airport group have also apparently expressed an interest

FC

[jabird]

And we all know the real reasons why Birmingham didn't want to buy.

I love their logic about not being sure about getting a return on a possible £30m investment, whilst still pretending that they will get positive ROI on a £2.5bn second runway.

[niknak]

Good ol' Bill.

Although, £30million my arse!! Unless the airport can be sold for building land, which is very unlikely, it's not worth a tenth of that.

He's probably got a number of suiter's queing up, if the deal isn't in the bag already...:p

[phil_2405]

Would Manchester Airport Group really be interested in Coventry?

[jabird]

Phil / Niknak,

If I was a certain other Midlands airport looking for a new runway, then £30m would be a steal. I would imagine you could even connect the two airports using a Maglev, taking advantage of the disused line between Kenilworth and Berskwell for much of the duration.

That might be a pie in the sky suggestion, but I'm sure they'd still get change from £2.5billion this way round.

We don't need a multi-runway facility in the Midlands, and I'm yet to come across an airline who would want to set up the kind of intercontinental hub which would require it.

Remember that BA are in retreat from Brum, and BMI and Virgin are primarily interested in Heathrow, with a bit of overspill to Manchester, never Birmingham.

Considering that Brum recently spent £11m on re-instating a link to International Station, which was at one time very innovative and is now just a pulley system, it really is very rich of them to go round expecting to pick up a whole airport for just £4m more.

Don't see why MAG wouldn't be interested in CVT, they've learnt their lessons from competition with LPL, and are doing pretty well down at BOH.

[almost professional]

operations wise using cov-23/05 instead of building a parallel at Bimingham-33/15 is a non starter, even if the operation all happened inside controlled airspace the routings would still conflict to the extent that you could not maximise the movement rate-the only reason for adding a second runway!
in fact to take it to its logical conclusion you should close cov and then put in the second runway at brum

[Fried_Chicken]

I love their logic about not being sure about getting a return on a possible £30m investment, whilst still pretending that they will get positive ROI on a £2.5bn second runway

Birmingham already has TWO runways. They're just closing one of them (which is a shame as it was quite handy during strong X-winds on 15/33) & replacing it with a newly built one :}

Getting back to Coventry, does anybody know how many movements there were at Coventry in the twelve months since the beginning of Thomsonfly plus a breakdown of them (ie. passenger, freight, Corporate [jets/props] & GA/Helis)

Fried Chicken

[52 North]

FC,

The figures for 2004 can be found here (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/80/airport_data/2004Annual/Table_03_1_Aircraft_Movements_2004.pdf)

52N

[Centre cities]

How much did TUI pay for the Coventry lease, if memory serves correct 10 million I think.

Errect a potacabin and get involved in a prolonged planning permision wrangle and sell for 30 million.

Now if that happens TUI will be happy I should think

Centre cities

[African Tech Rep]

Did anyone notice the headline give 40M and the first paragraph 30M
Maybe they offered Birmingham a 10M “discount”.

Worked there pre Electra time – never thought the place would be worth this amount – if the museums are still there (both flying and not) hope they don’t get too many problems.
BA buying into Cardiff effectively killed the museum there – not long after I joined the flying one in CVT.

[jabird]

CC,

I believe the original figure is confidential, not sure if a FOIA request would reveal much here, but IIRC, it was "under €10m".

Either way, TUI will certainly get a good ROI, and questions were certainly asked at the time about whether the original deal was properly scrutinised.

IMHO, AA / CCC were backed into a corner, and TUI had the cash to bail them out. If it was a fire sale, then I would point the finger, as usual, at Warwick District Council. They have cost their own tax payers a fortune, and indirectly cost us here in Coventry too, not tot mention having the cheek of now trying to ask central government to bail them out.

AP, to take your argument further, you could also say that BHX will always have stringent noise restrictions, and limited use of said second (parallel) runway, not to mention the taxiing times.

So to take it to its ultimate conclusion, why not spend just another £5bn or so more, and close both Brum and Cov to build a new airport near Rugby?

[jmc757]

Worked there pre Electra time – never thought the place would be worth this amount – if the museums are still there (both flying and not) hope they don’t get too many problems.

The Midland Air Museum is on private land outside the airport boundary so I'm sure they'll be fine.

[twostroke]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but birmingham's proposed second 'short' runway is proposed at 2000m, a practical versatile length to achieve european destinations. From memory, Coventry is restricted to 1600 odd metres take off in one direction, a restricting handicap, surely?

And JA, nobody in their right mind would spend several hundred million pounds connecting the 12 miles between the airports with a maglev, when in true coventry airport stye, a few busses could do the trick quite adequately.

The cost to wdc fighting cov airport may well be approaching £1m, but that was caused by the airport not applying for planning permission, and wdc (in their eyes at least) having to enforce the law.

Anyway compared to the money that Cov city council pumped into the place year on year, (including building a cross runway that was promplty closed again) it's peanuts. How much do you estimate cov city lost at the airport when it owned it, before selling it to AA for next to nothing? Wasnt it losing '£1m a year' for 10 years or more?

[airac]

Two stroke , thank you for giving us the benefit of your obviously extensive knowledge re the subject of Coventry and Birmingham airport. Now put the crayons down Matrons coming
:mad: