What makes an airport successful.

[wawkrk]

When I saw the impressive passenger figures for DSA, I started to wonder why. Humberside has been close by for a few years and now is second to DSA. Please, DSA fans do not say some rubbish about runway length.
So, the question is, is it the ownership of the airport that is important. Liverpool was a no hoper for many years and was always below LBA for example and now is flying high.
LBA totters along because of the massive catchment area but otherwise,it would be a dead duck in the hands of local councils.
So, is it simply good commercial forward thinking management. Or high profile agressive private companies with lots of cash?

wawkrk

[TheOddOne]

Gatwick started life as a strip for jockeys and owners visiting the racecourse and developed from that to a flying club, then an airport as an alternate for Croydon, but became popular before WW2, partly because of its excellent connections (the A23 and a dedicated railway station on the main London-Brighton line). It even had the world's first purpose-built terminal building directly linked by tunnel to the station - the Beehive.

After the War, it languished as a grass strip, until 1956, when visionaries saw the expansion at Heathrow and other sites and decided that a major development, taking advantage of the links above, would be successful. The site closed for 2 years while a new east-west runway was laid and a Terminal building, new railway station and improved road links were laid out. There was little or no traffic at the time to justify the expense, just the vision of those capable of persuading the Ministry of Aviation to take the leap. It was 10 years before traffic figures hit 2 million but since then the growth has been inexorable.

We're now doing 32 million pax - by far and away the busiest single runway airport in the world. As far as we're concerned on the airfield, we manage to do this because we have a terrific team spirit between Airfield Ops, Air Traffic Control, Engineering, Fire Service, Handling Agents, everyone who can make a contribution to getting the most out of what we've got.

I believe we're popular with our Airline customers because we consistently deliver what they want of us, economically.

Of course, our colleagues within the Terminals have a similar role to deliver check-in, baggage facilities and an experience for passengers that they are content to repeat time and again.

So, it's a combination of factors, not just one or two isolated things, that make us so successful. Perhaps it's not good to analyse it too much, in case the magic goes away!

Cheers,
The Odd One

[airhumberside]

So, the question is, is it the ownership of the airport that is important.
In the case of DSA and HUY quite possibly. DSA have gone out to attract new airlines while HUY doesnt seem to have done that and it might be related to the fact MAN own most of HUY's shares.....

[AndyHUY]

I think the success of DSA is down to the fact it has a lo-co, airports like LPL grew as fast as DSA has in recent years.

HUY has no lo-co as yet and a fairly limited catchment area although i understand they are working on a few things at the moment which hopefuly will work out their way, still i thinhk HUY will only handle around one million pax p/a if their lucky.

In the case of DSA and LPL, both owned by Peel who have built up excellent relationships with nearly all of the major lo-co airlines in the UK which i suppose can only be a good thing.