LPL expansion announcement!

[AOG-YYZ]

In todays (27/01/03) on-line edition, a Liverpool newspaper (Daily Post) is reporting that the owners of Liverpool John Lennon Airport is seeking planning permission to extend the airports capacity to accommodate 6 million passengers a year. This is on top of the extension which will take the airports capacity to 4.5 million. The extension work to take the airport to 4.5 million pax will commence in a few weeks time and should be completed by the autumn of next year.

[dwlpl]

The capacity ceiling of the new terminal at Liverpool has just been raised from 3million annual pax throughput to 4.5million annual pax throughput.

The raising of the capacity ceiling also includes;

* the expansion of the apron
* air bridges
* more improved cargo handling facilities
* more car parking
* more retail space

the work is due to start soon and will take 18 months to complete and is expected to create 1365 jobs.

This next phase of expansion, even before the construction work on the above has started, is currently in the early design stage and is said to include terminal expansion up to 6million annual pax throughput and more freight. The airport is also to get a light rail link to the main line rail network.

[dwlpl]

Is the reason for the expansion to 6 million pax at LPL due to the rumour of a new airline base opening up in 2003?

Rumour has it that the airport will be vibrating to the sound of a new airline base leading to a adrenalin rush in pax numbers!

[682ft AMSL]

"vibrating" = buzz
adrenalin rush = buzz

I take it you're talking about Buzz then?

682

[Rob_L]

BASE might be the impportant word here, rumours have been circulating for some time about Ryan Air opening a base at LPL and tranferring flights from Manchester.

[captain ochre]

Seems that all other low cost operators are running scared from ezy at LPL - already ezy have 7 based aircraft and 2million pax compared to zero from anyone else!

[saddles]

dwlpl do you know who it will be, if not any suggestions, Buzz,Flybe,Baby,MYTLite or maybe not low-cost.

[LTNman]

Liverpool should take a leaf out of Luton’s book. When Luton council sort planning permission from itself to build a new terminal at Luton they told everyone that the terminal would have a capacity of 5 million which was only 1.5 million higher than the old terminal. The plans went through with no public enquiry while the surrounding anti-Luton Airport councils just muttered but did nothing. After the terminal was finished they found out it actually had a capacity of 10 million. It seems that Luton was just being very generous on the amount of space each passenger was allocated at the time of the application. :D :D :D

[saddles]

Lpl does not have problem with planning permission,the City council is falling over its self to help Peel with its development to 6 million punters.

[dwlpl]

LTNman

The terminal (incidentally designated Terminal1 in the planning applications) is designed to handle approx 5 million pax annually comfortably, but it had a ceiling of 3 million pax set by agreement between the airport and council. The annual total for pax in 2002 was 2.84 million so it will not take too much longer to get to the 3 million.

The airport went back to the council to raise the ceiling to 4.5 million, which received council approval. The expected pax total for 2003 shows an increase to 3.2 million, a 13% increase.




saddles

The design work for a increase up to 6 million pax has yet to be done let alone get council approval.

[babydoc]

The new terminal at LPL is great. But the public transport links are still very poor compared to MAN.

Are there still plans to create some sort of link to a proposed transport interchange at nearby Allerton? Will this ever happen?

And if not - why doesn't the airport encourage and subsidise a direct coach service with Manchester.

With MAN rumoured to be getting its own low-cost carrier and airlines there fighting back, LPL might not need a bigger terminal unless these access issues are sorted.

[dwlpl]

I do not think that LPL would sponsor a coach to MAN and take away some of its pax.

I do not know about MAN fighting back because the last figures (Jan to Nov) I had seen they were down by more than 3%. As for LCC at MAN, the rumour has been around for some time now and has still to materialise. Plus the more settled carriers at MAN, such as BA, will not be too happy if a LCC does base itself there and they get special rates for the purpose.

[Ringwayman]

Just to confirm the MAN stats, the quoted item forms part of this story (http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/business/general/stories/Detail_LinkStory=48906.html) from the Manchester Evening News:

The number of people who flew in and out of Manchester, the UK's third largest airport, grew almost eight per cent in December.

A total of 1.08 million travelled through the airport, a rise of more than 80,000 on December 2001 when the effects of the September 11 attacks were having a major impact.

Domestic services enjoyed the biggest rise - up 22.4 per cent, from 190,378 to 233,112. December's growth followed a similarly strong performance in November, when 1.16 million passengers used the airport, a rise of 7.8 per cent on the corresponding month a year earlier.

In 2002, overall, a total of 18.6 million people used the airport, a fall of 2.5 per cent on 2001, but about 500,000 more than expected.

My own take on the last statement is that the airport seemed to have made an overly pessimistic forecast, so that when the final figures announced were revealed to be not as bad as the "official" forecast, bouts of self-congratulation could take place.

[babydoc]

I mean a coach service to Manchester city centre (coach station) - much the same as the regular coach service that links Luton with London. Surely this would only encourage more people to use LPL over MAN - not the other way round.

If you are flying into the north-west and want to go to the Manchester area (as a lot of people do), and are not being picked up at the other end you either have to go into Liverpool and get the train (west then east - very time consuming) or hire a taxi, which can negate the saving of flying to LPL in the first place.

It seems obvious to an outsider, like myself, who flies into LPL a lot and almost always uses public transport to get where I have to at the other end.

[dwlpl]

As I said that the stats for MAN are up to November 2002 and are official figures released by the CAA.

The CAA have released provisional figures that includes December 2002 and that is gives the annual total for 2002 at 18619751. The total for the year ending December 2001 was 19307261.

Re coaches to Manchester coach station. I think I am right in saying that easyJet and Ryanair, in the past, have provided coach links.

You can also get the train to Manchester via Allerton, about ten mins from LPL, rather than go into the city centre.

[Caslance]

"As for LCC at MAN, the rumour has been around for some time now and has still to materialise."

Errr......what about Hapag Lloyd Express, then?

They're selling tickets like hot cakes and the prices they're quoting for Ringway to Cologne most definitely place them in the "low-cost" bracket.

Also we should remember that, despite their protestations, Ryanair continue to serve the Ringway - Dublin route albeit at a reduced frequency but with larger aircraft (737-800 vs 737-200) on peak flights.