White Heather
Elite Pro-Member
The problem with Norwich is that whilst they have no loco based operator and quite a few well off folk roundabout, the general population in Norfolk is quite sparce, and anywhere South of the Norwich area might just as well go to Stansted. It would be quicker too as there is the A14, which is dual carriageway. Heading up into Norwich and across to the airport North of the City, takes forever.
The owners of Norwich have also been applying a tax on passengers aimed at collecting money to aid the airports development, but all it has done is drive their main operator, Flybe, to cut many of their flights and as a result their pax figures are well down. Flybe are nowhere near as aggressive as Ryanair and I can't imagine Mr O'Leary going into an airport that applies its own tax on top of those enforced by the Government. Even Flybe have admitted that Norwich is suffering at the hands of Stansted. If Ryanair were to go in there, they would inevitably lose some of their own passengers who currently fly with them from Stansted, so its hard to see how it would be worth the investment or risk.
Given the inability of DSA to hold on to what they had, obviously due to the poor location, again it would seem a rather odd choice if they opened a base. They have pulled their Dublin route which is hardly the sort of thing to do if you are considering opening a base there although they have a 'relationship' with Peel Holdings via Liverpool, so both DSA and MME could be options based purely on doing a 'deal'. I am certain though that they would far prefer LBA which has proved that it can pull in the passengers and keep them - DSA and MME have proved they are struggling to do so as both were losing airlines and passengers even before the economic downturn.
Perhaps it will turn out to be somewhere completely different that nobody thought of - somewhere like Glasgow perhaps. They said UK, so it may not be in England.
The owners of Norwich have also been applying a tax on passengers aimed at collecting money to aid the airports development, but all it has done is drive their main operator, Flybe, to cut many of their flights and as a result their pax figures are well down. Flybe are nowhere near as aggressive as Ryanair and I can't imagine Mr O'Leary going into an airport that applies its own tax on top of those enforced by the Government. Even Flybe have admitted that Norwich is suffering at the hands of Stansted. If Ryanair were to go in there, they would inevitably lose some of their own passengers who currently fly with them from Stansted, so its hard to see how it would be worth the investment or risk.
Given the inability of DSA to hold on to what they had, obviously due to the poor location, again it would seem a rather odd choice if they opened a base. They have pulled their Dublin route which is hardly the sort of thing to do if you are considering opening a base there although they have a 'relationship' with Peel Holdings via Liverpool, so both DSA and MME could be options based purely on doing a 'deal'. I am certain though that they would far prefer LBA which has proved that it can pull in the passengers and keep them - DSA and MME have proved they are struggling to do so as both were losing airlines and passengers even before the economic downturn.
Perhaps it will turn out to be somewhere completely different that nobody thought of - somewhere like Glasgow perhaps. They said UK, so it may not be in England.
