Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
Exeter Airport sold to Rigby Group while its resident airline, Flybe, reported a huge loss
Exeter's airport has been sold by Balfour Beatty for an undisclosed sum to Patriot Aerospace, the aviation division of Rigby Group PLC. Balfour Beatty bought the airport in January 2007 from Devon County Council for £60m. It employs 305 staff. There are currently flights to about 40 destinations. Rigby Group said the future of the airport's staff was secure and it hoped to add more routes. Rigby Group owns Coventry Airport, British International Helicopters, based at Newquay, and a string of hotels. Sir Peter Rigby, Chairman of Rigby Group, said he wanted to work with Exeter's main carrier Flybe and also wanted to encourage other airlines to fly from the airport. Flybe sad it "welcomed" the purchase. A few days earlier, Flybe (based at Exeter) reported a a pre-tax loss of £40.7m for the year to 31 March, against a loss of £6.2m the year before (a 7-fold rise). It has had falling numbers of passengers, blaming the cost of jet fuel and the price of APD for domestic flights. With Flybe in trouble, the airport's future might become dependent on other developments.
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Robert Peston on the CAA and airport charges: Heathrow warns of investment threat
Robert Peston explains the rows about Heathrow's charges. The CAA has calculated how much Heathrow should charge airlines, based on how much profit it should be allowed to make over the next 5 years. Heathrow wants high charges, and predictably, the airlines want low charges. Heathrow has invested £11bn in improving its airport terminals and facilities over the past decade and is telling the CAA that not allowing an increase in its fees would make its future plans to invest £3bn "economically irrational". Heathrow says its shareholders won't put up the money for future necessary investment if the charges are too low - their owners would have no interest in financing new runways on the proposed level of allowable return. Robert Peston says the dispute is not likely to be settled quickly and there may be an appeal to the competition authorities. At the heart of the dispute between Heathrow and the CAA is the extent to which Heathrow is subject to risk and competition. In recent years, Heathrow's owners, led by Ferrovial, have made no money at all, largely because of regulatory intervention.
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Transport Secretary launches £80 million Stansted terminal redevelopment
The Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has launched the start of an £80 million project to re-develop Stansted’s terminal building. Stansted says the way passengers travel by air has changed over the last decade, as now the overwhelming majority of passengers check-in online and over half travel without checked-in baggage. The airport aims to "improve the passenger journey." There will be new security facilities and an enlarged departure lounge. Stansted, now owned by MAG, says it has "used research by psychologists to understand the points when passengers feel confused, stressed and relaxed during their time at the airport." MAG is investing £40 million in the project with a further £40 million invested by commercial partners.
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Newcastle Airport in Court of Appeal over blame for earlier excessive bonus payments
Newcastle Airport has been at the Court of Appeal battling to convince top judges to overrule a previous decision not to punish a law firm (Eversheds) which the airport said was to blame for under-the-radar awards to its former chief executive and finance director. The airport says contracts which handed airport bosses a controversial multi-million pound pay package were “dramatically inconsistent with the principle of fair and responsible remuneration”, a judge has heard. The airport’s leadership group NIAL suffered a stinging defeat last year when a High Court judge ruled that responsibility for the debacle lay not with Eversheds LLP but with non-executive directors sitting on the company’s remuneration committee. They had inadvertently permitted the executives to “dictate” the terms of their contracts and had not read them properly before signing them." Newcastle airport is majority-owned by 7 North East councils, who did not know about contract negotiations & bonus deals in 2005 & 2006.
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GACC submits response to Airports Commission discussion on airport operational models
The Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign (GACC) has submitted a response to the Airports Commission's discussion document on Airport Operational models - on the rival merits of hub airports vs. point-to-point airports. GACC suggests that, if the number of passengers per plane continues to increase, there will be no need for any new runway. In 2011 the average number of passengers per flight at Heathrow was 146 compared to 138 at Gatwick. But if - with ever larger planes - over the next 20 years the average number of passengers per aircraft were to increase to 200 that would be roughly equivalent to two new runways in the South East. GACC suggests estimates of greatly increased demand for runway capacity may be exaggerated. At London’s airports the number of flights was exactly the same in 2012 as in 2002. The total number of aircraft movements at Gatwick has only increased by 2% in the past 10 years. And the number of business flights abroad by UK residents has fallen by 20% in the past 10 years. GACC gives examples of where the creation of over-optimistic 'models' have resulted in 'castles in the air' - desolate and empty airports.
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Heathrow report backing its case to grow as UK hub – but would need public funding for expansion
Heathrow, which is currently enjoying 4 nights of BBC programmes this week on "Airport Live" giving hours of free publicity, has had a new report published. This is called "Heathrow: Best placed for Britain" (by AECOM and Quod) and its purpose is to set out Heathrow's case that it is far better value to the UK economy and the UK taxpayer to expand Heathrow rather than to build a brand new airport in the Thames Estuary, or expand Stansted. Also that the UK must have one huge hub airport, and no other solution will do, as the airlines will only make enough profit by using the hub. Heathrow does admit that the taxpayer will have to contribute funds for expansion plans involving at least one new runway. However, it is coy on the matter and gives no indication of how much. The report says: "Financing additional capacity at Heathrow entirely from the private sector will be challenging and will need an appropriate investment framework. The recent difficulties in securing investment for new UK nuclear power stations are a reminder of the difficulty in securing commercial finance for major infrastructure projects without an attractive and stable return." Heathrow makes out that rejection of its proposals could consign a generation to economic stagnation.
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Nantes campaigners say: Let’s bury the Notre Dame des Landes airport project for good ! 3rd & 4th August – huge summer gathering.
Over the weekend of 3rd and 4th August, at Nantes, there will be a weekend gathering of all those who have worked over the past years to oppose a new airport at Notre-Dame-des-Landes. This is part of a series of protests against Imposed Useless Major Projects (les Grands Projets Inutiles et Imposés) across and outside France. There will be music, forums and debates, on a range of subjects such as threats to agricultural land, environmental and energy transition, urbanization, spatial planning, transport, water and biodiversity. Thecampaigners say this will be "The essential rally this summer to defend the land and agricultural jobs that are threatened, for better use of public money, and to stop projects as useless as destructive, here as elsewhere!" It will also be THE place to invent and create, in solidarity, essential alternatives on the fight against global warming and the return to solid citizen representation, which they feel has been removed from local people during the process of forcing through the new airport plans.confiscated. They say: "No giving up ! Neither here, nor anywhere else!"
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Speculation that Maplin might be looked at again as an airport – ruled out for very good reasons in 1974
ABy 19th July, all outline proposals airport plans need to be submitted to the Airports Commission (see below). There will be a great many, some more serious contenders than others. At this stage, the Commission does not require detailed design and assessment materials and limits submissions to 40 pages. Unsurprisingly, there is speculation that schemes like Maplin could be dug up and submitted. Maplin Sands was considered as a possible airport in the early 1970s, under Edward Heath. The plan was abandoned in June 1974, after the oil price rose and the it was decided that the Maplin Development Authority should not spend any more money. Maplin was mentioned, in passing, in a reply to a question in the Lords - which did not rule it out. In reality, it is inaccessible and in the wrong place. It would be unworkable and hugely expensive, as well as the problem of needing to move the military firing range from Shoeburyness, and clearing the site of projectiles. Not a likely runner.
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EasyJet signs deal to double its annual number of passengers at Stansted
EasyJet is planning to increase its annual passenger numbers at Stansted from 2.8m now to 6m per year, over the next 5 years. EasyJet has announced a framework agreement with MAG, which now owns Stansted. Stansted wants to be seen as a key part of the current debate on South East's airport capacity and hopes that EasyJet will help with that - and halt its steady decline. EasyJet currently flies 8 planes on up to 27 routes from Stansted. It has around twice as many planes and routes at Luton and about 6 times as many at Gatwick as at Stansted. Stansted had around 18 million passengers in 2012, which is about 26.5% lower than its peak in 2007. It could cater for 35 million per year, on its one runway. EasyJet has also struck similar deals with Edinburgh and Gatwick airports since they were sold off by BAA.
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Greg Hands MP: Why do we fly 1,000 planes a day over London?
Greg Hands, MP for Fulham & Hammersmith, asks why Heathrow is one of the very few cities which have so many planes flying over hundreds of thousands of people, on their way to the country's largest airports. There was a recent interview, in the BA in-flight magazine, in which a pilot said: ‘I always enjoy flying over London, because there are so few approaches over cities’. Greg Hands questions not only the noise implications, but also safety - everyone was recently reminded of the problem when the BA jet with one of its engines in flames was routed directly over London - including Chelsea, Fulham and Hammersmith. Greg says: "Thankfully, it made it back to the airport and nobody was hurt, but it again begs the question: why do we fly more than 1,000 planes a day over London?"