Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
Bmibaby to be grounded – jobs of nearly 500 staff may be lost
IAG has announced that Bmibaby will be grounded on 10th September, with some routes being stopped as early as next month. This will affect almost 500 staff. BMI Baby employs 497 staff in the UK, including 83 people at its Castle Donington headquarters, as well as 98 pilots, 117 cabin crew and 76 operations staff based at East Midlands Airport. IAG said it was still willing to sell airline, but it didn't expect to find a buyer for the carrier which is losing £25m a year. BA said it is more optimistic of being able to sell Aberdeen-based Regional. They will be making reductions to bmibaby's flying programme from June with many flights ending on 11th. Monarch has announced it is launching a new base at East Midlands Airport to plug the gap left by the grounding of bmibaby. It will also offer additional flights from Birmingham.
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May 8th. The 28th day of the Nantes airport hunger strike – 5 hunger strikers are still continuing.
The campaigners against the proposed airport outside Nantes in South West France have today occupied the centre of Nantes with a convoy of tractors and 1,000 people - and 15 young cows. They are supporting the peasant farmers who have moved into their 4th week of a hunger strike and are making their voices heard before Sunday’s Presidential Election. Already the campaigners have forced Hollande, who has supported Nantes Airport, to agree it will not go ahead until all the legal cases have been heard but Sarkozy, when questioned, said the area is just a wasteland without the airport! That is an insult to the beautiful farming area and especially to the farmers on hunger strike.
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Gatwick Airport aims to rival Heathrow after signing Air China deal
Air China is the latest long-haul carrier to sign up to Gatwick, which is trying to build a reputation as an alternative gateway between the UK and emerging markets. Air China will operate 4 direct flights a week between Gatwick and Beijing. [Heathrow has perhaps 90 flights to China per week, and Gatwick will have 4. So it has a long way to catch up ...] A Gatwick spokesman said Gatwick could serve London "just as effectively" as Heathrow, where take-off and landing slots are in short supply. Gatwick has "the capacity to grow to serve 40m passengers by 2020 but also has the ability to serve London just as effectively as Heathrow - and do so for less than half the cost." Gatwick has lower landing fees than Heathrow (in 2009 they were up to £12.80 per passenger at Heathrow, and £6.79 per passenger at Gatwick. Bit higher now).
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Airlines oppose higher landing fee to cut immigration queues at Heathrow
BA, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines and Virgin are - unsurprisingly - totally against landing fees being used to pay for government border agency staff. An increase in landing fees, which are now £19.30 per passenger at Heathrow, must be approved by the CAA. A % is already used by BAA to pay for immigration control infrastructure, such as the new e-passport gates, but the money has not been used before to pay immigration staff. UK Border Force staff numbers have been cut by 800 in the past 2 years and a further 700 jobs will be lost by 2014-15. More than 550 volunteers (many retired and those recently redunded) are reportedly going to be drafted in to help man UK borders during the Olympics. Meanwhile Willie Walsh tried to make out some of the money from APD could be used for this. APD is not for that - it is to compensate for lack of VAT and fuel duty on air travel.
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Growing opposition to Luton Airport plans
A large number of groups and organisations opposed to the further expansion of Luton Airport met to confirm and co-ordinate their opposition to proposals to significantly increase airport capacity. They discussed key areas of opposition including increasing noise affecting households and schools, the problems of unregulated night flights, the plans to add 100 extra flights and 16,000 passenger journeys a day, and key concerns over safety and pollution. Their joint statement reaffirms the strength of opposition: "Far from having received a positive reaction from local people as is claimed by the airport operator, the expansion plans are meeting growing opposition from local communities already blighted by noise, pollution and congestion caused by Luton Airport. Community groups and campaign groups are united in their determination to oppose these ill thought out expansion plans until they are once again defeated".
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Birmingham Airport calls for Government backing. Claims 36 million passengers by 2030?
Paul Kehoe is lobbying for his airport again. He is calling on the Government to endorse the ational status of Birmingham Airport, and dismissed claims from BAA that Heathrow is the only answer to forging new air links with the country. He says, after a trip to China, that Chinese airlines are now considering Birmingham as a new destination once the runway extension is completed in 2014. He says there is a partnership between Birmingham airport and MG Motors, owned by Shanghai Automotive. There is a large Chinese community in Birmingham, and thousands of Chinese students come to Birmingham each year. Kehoe says since 2003, after London, Birmingham has attracted more Chinese investment projects than any other UK city. And he claims the number of passengers using Birmingham airport will rise from 9 million per year now to 36 million by 2030. !? 36 million ??
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Airlines could be asked to pay through higher landing fees for quicker Border Control checks
The FT reports that airlines using London’s Heathrow airport would pay higher landing fees to help sort out Britain’s border chaos under a plan backed by David Cameron. They say BAA is studying the proposal, which foresees airlines funding extra Border Force staff through the charges they pay BAA. The Government believes airlines should meet a share of the cost of cutting the immigration queues. “The real answer is to get the airlines to pay for more security – that’s the long-term answer.” BAA levies annual landing charges worth more than £1bn on airlines at Heathrow to pay for infrastructure investment, including some equipment at the border, such as e-passport gates. The landing fees could help to pay for additional Border Force staff. Willie Walsh has said airlines would be prepared to pay for the right service but not if the government was wasting money. Meanwhile some Border Agency staff were flown from Manchester to Heathrow, to cope with delays.
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Birmingham sets sights on China flights
Paul Kehoe, the CEO of Birmingham airport, is planning to start direct flights to China as an alternative to services from the south-east. He visited the Chinese city of Chengdu for the Routes Asia aviation conference last week and met with airlines to discuss possible direct flights between Birmingham and China. Birmingham is hoping to attract long-haul services from the airport once its runway extension is completed in 2014, and said feedback from the airlines had been positive. Kehoe says direct China flights from Birmingham will bring investment to the region, and giving airlines and passengers an alternative to battling with London’s congestion problems.
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EasyJet chief Carolyn McCall urges Government to look at second runway at Gatwick or Stansted airports
Carolyn McCall wants a new runway at Gatwick or Stansted and says this makes the most economic sense - in terms of solving what airlines make out is a lack of south east runway capacity. The airlines were upset when Theresa Villiers last week repeated the government's complete rejection of a 3rd Heathrow runway. This easyJet publicity is just another part of aviation industry's attempt to brainwash the UK public that economic recovery depends on air travel expansion - which is in fact largely a myth. Most air travellers are on leisure trips and take money out of the country. But airport expansion benefits the airlines and the airport operators - hence their continual pressure for expansion and attempts to distort the real situation. Ms McCall said it was critical that the UK remains an "important gateway" but argued there was an "overemphasis" on the hub airport idea - because easyJet deals with short haul leisure passengers, and is not contemplating flights to China etc. Self interest.
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Nantes: 20th day of the hunger strike against the airport plan, 4 strikers.
On the 15th day of the Nantes airport hunger strike, one of the farmers has lost 11 kilos and the other 12 kilos. They are determined to continue, and have been joined by two other hunger strikers. They have also been visited by José Bové, the famous campaigner and now an MEP, who will keep them company overnight. He says the presidential contenders, Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, must end their silence on the airport protest now the hunger strike is entering its 3rd week. They can no longer ignore it and they need to find a way to suspend the compulsory purchase of land and resume talks. Bové says the politicians have all the means they need to find a way out without losing face.