CAA Provisional Statistics Update

[pug]

Re: Passenger Figures

Well the one time double daily, then 6xweekly Belfast route is now four weekly... It realy is struggling to retain even the smallest of routes for an airport which was to be the major Yorkshire airport.

Much of the fraternity site are resting on a new investor to buy the 49% stake and turn things around.... Its been up for sale for some time though.

 

[White Heather]

Re: Passenger Figures

The failure of DSA is nothing to do with the owners. It won't matter who buys the 49% stake, and frankly who would want to buy almost half an airport that is losing flights, passengers and more importantly credibility and money at an alarming rate. Any buyers are just as likely to be interested in all that land for building on as they are for developing aviation. Past talk about DSA becoming Yorkshire's major airport was simply posturing by Peel Holdings in order to justify their plans and to try and ensure that the airport was approved by the planners.

It is undoubtedly its location that is preventing it from being the run(a)way success Peel said it would. Having an airport out in the countryside is fine from an environmental point of view, but lets face it, passengers don't want to have to travel further than necessary. Look at the busier City airports around the country, and the vast majority are within a few miles of the City they serve and have a sizeable conurbation around them. DSA is 25 miles from Sheffield and Doncaster isn't big enough as a City to keep an airport running. To a degree, HUY has the same problem, but there, the management don't make wild claims about what they are or can become. They concentrate on providing a service that the airport can sustain and any charters they can attract are a bonus. The absence of decent transport links and the presence of LBA, HUY, MAN and EMA in a neat circle around the DSA catchment area, ensure it is always going to be an uphill struggle. In my view, the ONLY reason the airport succeeded at all over the first few years, was the ill advised decision by TUi to move all its operations there. After the first couple of years, even that has been a slow but sure reduction. It really is difficult to see any major airline taking any significant risk at DSA, given the inability of other airlines to make it work there over the past few years.

 

[backtrack]

Re: Passenger Figures

So with that in mind, how do you see DSA ever making a profit again? If they are reporting loss after loss each year and as we can see from the passenger figures they do not seem to be improving, how is anyone going to want to operate to DSA, let alone establish a base?

I have never used DSA, so im unfamiliar with the site size and its catchment, but is it really viable as an commercial profit making airport any longer? Anyone in business and the owners of the airport at present must look at this and think along similar lines.

Forgive me again with little (but increasing) knowledge of the airport, but is that 49% still up for sale? Who is selling that stake? And how long has it been up for sale to today? As you quite rightly say White Heather, i cannot see the attraction for any new investor to come in, just think...if you had the money, would you?

 

[Aviador]

Re: Passenger Figures

Excellent post Heather.

I read your comments above with interest, particularly your reference to City airports. Only a couple of weeks ago one of the bosses of Aer Lingus was venting his anger at passengers choosing Belfast City airport over the International one where his aircraft are. The fact is that airlines can't choose where passengers decide to fly from. It's up to the passenger to do that.

It's really no surprise that Doncaster airport isn't successful. I remember explaining in great detail why the airport wouldn't be successful on the Fruit message board in the run-up to Peel gaining permission to open the airport. Numerous posters hit back saying that I was anti Doncaster and that I wanted the airport to fail anyway. I explained to them that the airport was too far from the main conurbation that it was meant to serve (Sheffield). When the airport opened Peel even tried to sell it to the people of Leeds as "your local airport". I explained to them the fact that although LBA has relatively poor transport connections and although it is sat on a hill, it is still the easiest airport to get to for the majority of people in Leeds & Bradford and much of West Yorkshire.

Market forces will always be the deciding factor with any airport, and Doncaster airport is no different. Sooner or later the bosses of Peel will have to make some difficult choices.

 

[pug]

Re: Passenger Figures

I was in a way hoping DSA could manage to get Easyjet after they pulled out of EMA, simply because i fly with them regularly(though if Jet2 ever came to HUY i would switch to them) but looking at it, even Geneva (which even works from BOH) failed. The easyjet MD even said in a press release that it was unprofitable and was not returning the following season. Its starting to make me laugh when i go onto the fraternity site now, certain posters clutching at straws. Somehow they believe they know that there is demand for more flights. How they come to that conclusion i dont know, its hardly pulled up any trees since it opened. They blame the recession yet the problem is much deeper than that, 1 million pax p/a was unsustainable.

I agree with whiteheather, the only reason DSA has had the numbers it did is because TOM centred its Yorkshire ops in DSA and neglected HUY and LBA. If you book a Thomson holiday you are funnelled into DSA most of the time. Hence the airport attracting pax from further away. How long that can continue is questionable, i would argue that it gave Jet2 the oportunity to grow to the size that it is today, winning the battle for pax.

Its almost comical that the masterplan still talks of the 1.4 million long-haul pax by 2016 crap. They actualy say they will be handling around 6 million pax by 2016 in total! Though i susect this is just a ploy to scare people into pushing for the proposed link road (another waste of public money)

I would think any new investor will go through the books and start pulling out assets, if they find out that Classic flight were actively turned away i suspect they would not be happy. I would have though that a struggling operation would take any business they can get, or is it that they dont want to be seen as small players by letting such an organisation in.

In a kind of twisted way i want DSA to shut (though jobs are important particularly at this time) as HUY would then benefit from probable expansion from TOM and Wizz as would have happened had DSA not opened. Basicaly some of us knew that DSA would saturate the market before it even opened. HUY could have grown sustainable and probably bigger than what DSA has, and SZD could have still played to a niche market had Peel given it a real go rather than shutting it down to make way for their intercontinental spaceport.

In the end, though, the only winner will be Peel. They will probably get the link road, then they will profit from an increase in land value, even if the airport closes they will be able to extract any possible value from it!

 

[rmac]

Re: Passenger Figures

When DSA was first discussed I thought that HUY might be the big loser, which would be a shame as it was already fulfilling a need for Humberside and Lincs however several years on this is not the case. The arguments for opening another airport are a bit like deciding whether another supermarket is viable in a certain area. Sometimes a local authority turns down a request on the grounds that another supermarket is not in the best interests of the community at large. I think that DSA should not have been given the go ahead on the grounds of too many airports chasing too few passengers. Now that it has been open and proving to be an expensive failure so far anyway what has been achieved? Sheffield city airport has closed. Given a chance this could have been an excellent business and city airport for Sheffield , a large city with no air links. HUY has been damaged in that a number of potential customers have used DSA therefore confidence in new operators and services into HUY is undermined knowing that another airport is just down the road. The same would apply to LBA but to a much lessor degree and this despite the longer runway at DSA. As with most things in the commercial world people vote with their feet and so far LBA, EMA and MAN are winning the battle, and it would seem this will continue. For DSA the battle may not last much longer, is it just 3 flights to<day?

 

[backtrack]

Re: Passenger Figures

Thats interesting rmac, i checked their website earlier to look at their arrivals/departures, and i only saw five flights, i think it was 3 x TOM to ALC, PFO and SSH and there were 2 x WIZZ to two of their destinations. I was unable to believe this is their daily flight listing...was i looking at the wrong thing here?

 

[White Heather]

Re: Passenger Figures

Only Stansted Airport (that I can think of) in the UK is located 'in the middle of nowhere' but is successful, and many will remember that when that first opened, it was like a ghost airport. Look at the departure boards and you will find that if you get rid of all the EZY and FR flight codes, there is very little left. Easyjet and Ryanair have turned it into a busy airport. The national carriers have continued to shun it in favour of LHR and LGW. The latter is well outside London and also struggled in its early years, but it is still within a heavily populated area. As Heathrow filled up, Gatwick became the overspill so had to be a success in the end.

Elsewhere, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, London City, East Midlands, Cardiff and Belfast City are all located very close to the cities they serve. They are all relatively busy airports. Belfast International was for many years the only option so was inevitably busy by Irish standards, but since the City airport opened, it is losing passengers (ask Jet2!) as passengers don't like having to travel out to Aldergrove.

Look around the UK and find the airports that are some distance from the main cities they serve and you find Glasgow Prestwick, which has generally been a failure, and Doncaster Sheffield, which so far is following the same path. Funnily enough Prestwick also has a long runway but operators continued to go to Glasgow. The fact is that DSA is too far from Sheffield. Being 25 miles by road, passengers in West Sheffield are closer to Manchester. Those in South Sheffield might as well go to East Midlands, and a fair few in the North will also go to Manchester or possibly Leeds. As Aviador states, only the funnelling of passengers flying with Thomson through DSA has led to the passenger figures already achieved and even that little artificial 'bubble' of success has now apparently burst. I still expect that post 2011, Thomson will re-open a base at LBA and re-commence battle with Thomas Cook who now have the upper hand at Yorkshire's No 1 airport!

RMac / Type Rated 767 - today is a relatively busy day in the winter life of DSA. There was indeed a day last week when they had just 3 arrivals shown as it was a day where there was no Wizz flights, One of the three was the Flybe to Belfast and the other two were TOM.

 

[backtrack]

Re: Passenger Figures

I honestly had no idea it was THAT quiet! I hope TOM do re-open a base at LBA, the competition with TCX can only be good and it might make them look to offer different destinations, hence increasing our number offered.

 

[wawkrk]

Re: Passenger Figures

As I said many times, people make airports not runways. Look at Bristol, 6,600ft runway and bursting with pax plus flights to New York.

 

[pug]

Re: Passenger Figures

In my 'Aviation News' magazine for December, it says that an announcement is expected in December of this new shareholder. It suggests that there are three interested parties? Perhaps theres an aggregate company knocking their door down? Whoever buys it, assuming they are an expert in the airport industry, i would think that big changes will have to be made! It only matters who you are with airlines if you've got a good product to sell, as Peel have found out when they expected EMA to be drained of EZY and FR, so any new partner would likely not bring much to the table in terms of airlines.

 

[Aviador]

Re: Passenger Figures

It has been reported by the Co-op that wintersun bookings are up 46% this winter from Doncaster airport, neighbouring Leeds Bradford airport has also seen an increase of 28% over last winter.

Supposedly bookings from the northern airports are fairing substantially better than those in the South.

 

[Aviador]

Re: Passenger Figures

December passenger stats.

Passenger figures for December stand at 37,890 down -21.5% on the same month last year. Rolling year passenger numbers stand at 834,644 down -13.8% year on year.

Source: CAA

 

[Aviador]

Re: Passenger Figures

January passenger stats.

Passengers during January stood at 36,284 down -29.7% on the same month last year. Rolling passenger numbers stood at 819,326 down -14.4% on the previous 12 months.


February passenger stats.

Passengers for February were just 35,891 down -28.2% on the same month last year. Rolling passenger numbers stand at 805,217 down -14.6 on the previous 12 months.

Source CAA

 

[jason1-11]

Re: Passenger Figures

Ouch. I bet they can't wait for Easyjet to arrive.

 

[White Heather]

Re: Passenger Figures

Imagine what those figures would have been without the numerous diverts from LBA last winter!

 

[Aviador]

Re: Passenger Figures

Do they actually count those passengers off diverted flights?

 

[eastcoaster]

Re: Passenger Figures

Do they actually count those passengers off diverted flights?

If they get off the aircraft at DSA then they are counted as their pax. If the aircraft refuels and goes on to where it was intended, then they are not. Although they may be added as transit pax only, which they can not claim any revenue from.

 

[Aviador]

A total of 94,492 passed through the doors of DSA during May, 13.6% up on the same month last year. Rolling year passenger numbers stand at 779,503 down -14.3%

At last an improvement due to the new routes provided by Easyjet.

 

[Aviador]

[textarea]Robin Hood Airport passengers up 16%

Robin Hood Airport passenger numbers increased for the second month running in June, new figures show. Summer sun destinations were the most popular, with Palma, Alicante, Dalaman, Faro and Katowice the top five routes.

Some 109,000 passengers used the airport last month, a 16 percent year-on-year increase. Mike Morton, airport director, said: ‘We are now looking ahead to our winter routes for 2010/11 and should be announcing these in the coming months. Thomson Airways recently announced extra capacity for summer 2011 which is thanks to strong forward sales.’

Source[/textarea]

Excellent news and at last something positive. Lets hope they can sustain the growth.