Peel Airports to buy Humberside?

[12 Scoops]

Has anyone else heard that Peel Airports (operators of Liverpool, Sheffield and Finningly), are making a serious bid to buy Humberside Airport?
Apparently, MAN PLC, after buying it as a political sop to get planning approval for runway 2 at Manchester, and are willing to off load it, as it has served its purpose and HUY is struggling to pay its way in MAN PLC terms.
This would make Peel the obvious bidder, as, on the same basis, it would smooth the political waters to enable Peel to get planning approval for the development at Finningly.

[RickPhucked]

Well it would be the sensible option, because Finningly needs to go ahead, it would mean that instead of having '2 planes a day sheffield' and 'in the middle of nowhere humberside' saying one day our passanger numbers will pick up and we will suddenly become massive international airports, whereas finnigley has everything made for it.

[MEVERTSGB]

Humberside has all of two (yes 2 !! scheduled services, one to Amsterdam (KLMuk) and one to Aberdeen (Eastern Airways). No doubt you can all envisage what will happen to those routes, if Finningley goes ahead. Finningley = Peel Airports = Easyjet. For those who have a fast internet connection or loads of patience, have a look at the Flash site of Finningley Airport.
http://www.doncasterfinningleyairport.co.uk/

Looks like cybersquatters got their first, leaving travellers to type themselves to death, entering the URL above !

[tightturnaround]

charterguy, yes, humberside has two routes. Three carriers, UK, T3 and GMA. Teesside has three routes, BD, UK and T3 to LHR, AMS and ABZ, totalling I think 10 flights. Humberside has 13 daily...what is your point? Yes, a very limited number of scheduled destinations, but HUY is primarily a charter airport with 30+ charters weekly.

Quite why people class finningley as 'neccessary' is beyond me. SZD proved very well we didnt need another airport. HUY is 40 mins away from Doncaster...motorway all the way. LHR is longer from central London...LBA from Leeds, MAN about the same from central Manch.

Creating yet another airport that is not at all neccessary, but which just seems a 'good idea' will simply just shift jobs from the Humberside/Sheffield areas to the new development...there just arent enough people wanting air travel in this region to warrant ANOTHER airport...even MAN is not doing too brilliantly lately. Would it seem such a good idea if the existing runway was not in place (actually the only useful bit of Finningley)? Could Peel justify the millions required to build a completely new airfield in this spot...would they even consider it...i think not.

[chiglet]

TTR
I see [I think] your point about those foreign [Yorkshire] grass strips, but the "Jewel of'tNorth" aka Manchester is 25 mins from the city centre. 15 mins is all [as the girlfriend says :D ]
As to traffic, I think that we are 1% down on last Oct. [This AM, we [ATC] handled 98+ between 7-9AM local.......a bit quiet perhaps? :eek:
we aim to please, it keeps the cleaners happy

[ 23 October 2001: Message edited by: chiglet ]

[682ft AMSL]

I find it hard to believe that Manchester would sell HUY to Finningley nor that Peel would be interested in buying the place.

Manchester stepped into to buy HUY a couple of years ago when the then owners, the local authorities of the area, were unwilling to fund the ongoing losses. Ostensibly, MAN purchased HUY to expand its regional airport portfolio. A more cynical view is that it gave MAN a platform to officially object to Peel's proposal at Finningley. For whilst I doubt MAPLC are loosing any sleep over Peel's exagerated claims of inter-continental services being developed out of Finningley, they will certainly be concerned about the prospect of a low-cost hub being developed there. Peel's success at LPL has certainly affected trafic at MAN, particularly on routes to Belfast, Geneva, and BA's Amsterdam service. The prospect of something similar in east of their catchment area is no doubt a concern. For MAPLC to sell HUY to Peel with the full knowledge that they may well develop a low cost hub, seems unlikely.

Similarly, I'm sure Peel will wait to see how the planning enquiry develops before they make any bids for the other airports in the region. Yorkshire is claarly a fantastic opportunity for the low cost business model, and I'm sure if the Finningley application is rejected they will look at HUY and LBA as alternatives. However, with a great deal of money sunk into the Finningley project already, I'm sure they'll see how things develop first.

As for the old "do we need another airport in Yorkshire" debate, my view is no. What we do need is a change of management at LBA, one which will actually accept the commercial reality of the regional aviation market and adapt an appropraite strategy. The current management are not prepared to offer discounted rates to low cost operators (hence the drastic cutbacks by Ryanair) and are not prepared to incentivise tour operators to switch a few B757s out of MAN each summer (hence no JMC, Air2K services at all and a pittiful BY programme).

Peel will succeed at Finningley, not because of the long runway etc but because they are better airport managers than those in charge of the existing Yorkshire airports.