East Midlands - General Thread

[lysander]

Monarch has announced a commercial agreement with MAG that will underpin their plans for growth at MAN and EMA.

 

[Aviador]

Flights diverted around UK after mystery power failure at East Midlands Airport

ELEVEN flights were diverted to other airports around the UK and there was one cancellation after East Midlands Airport suffered a five-hour power cut.

The power went off in the main terminal at 8.30am on Saturday morning leaving hundreds of holidaymakers uncertain about when they would be able to fly.

Initial estimates suggested that the airport would be operational again by 3pm but things were up an running at 1.20pm.

Read more: http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Flights ... z3TEo0PF3F

That's a bit of an embarrassing fiasco for the airport.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Apparently after the power went down the back up generator failed.

 

[Aviador]

Apparently after the power went down the back up generator failed.

I bet heads are rolling! What's with the wind turbine then, is that for show?

 

[Ray Finkle]

Happy Birthday EMA, 50 today

http://www.burtonmail.co.uk/Airport-cel ... story.html

There's some nice pictures from the 1960's in this article.

http://www.loughboroughecho.net/news/lo ... st-8956983

 

[Aviador]

Happy Birthday EMA!

The airport has seen some amazing growth over the years and aerial pictures of the airport show the true scale of the airport and it's immense cargo operation.

 

[Seasider]

I was at EMA Thu afternoon, didn't realise it was 50 on that day. My first visit was in August 1970.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Happy Birthday EMA!

The airport has seen some amazing growth over the years and aerial pictures of the airport show the true scale of the airport and it's immense cargo operation.

It really is impressive, I hadn't realised how much so until I first visited a couple of years ago. It'll be even better in a few years when DHL have completed their expansion.

I was at EMA Thu afternoon, didn't realise it was 50 on that day. My first visit was in August 1970.

I've only ever been once but am hoping to do so again this year. I went to the viewing area which offered some good views although it's facing the sun making photography difficult.

 

[Aviador]

Just wondering, has there been any kind impact on passenger routes from East Midlands Airport since the opening of the BHX runway extension and subsequent expansion there?

 

[Ray Finkle]

EMA saw quite a few months of decreases in the passenger numbers, most likely as a result of Monarch closing their base in early 2015. As that has now worked it's way out of the system the airport has seen growth again, albeit lower than that seen at many other UK airports. The CAA provisional stats for May actually show a 1.4% decrease.

As far as routes are concerned Aer Lingus are ending their Dublin service this October but EMA has secured a 6x weekly Eurowings service to DUS. One of the biggest losses was the withdrawal of CDG leaving EMA without a link to Paris, Jet2 will begin the route in March 2017 but they will lack a connection onto the long haul network of Air France. Another route that many seem to think deserves more is Amsterdam. It is currently only offered by Flybe, with a very small amount of passenger numbers and there is wide belief that KLM could make a go of it offering connections onto their network. Of course KLM are well established at BHX so may see any EMA operation as a dilution of their services there.

There is no doubt that EMA is heavily geared towards the loco and holiday market, with many believing that the dominance of the likes of Ryanair make it difficult for full service airlines to now become established. It is, however, a very successful base for Ryanair who have long had a larger network out of EMA than they do at neighbouring Birmingham. They have 35 routes from EMA compared to 28 at BHX, although EMA is a lot more seasonal.

It's not only Birmingham that puts pressure on EMA. When Flybe commenced operations there was hope that it may grow into something substantial, as it stands they are now down to only five routes, possibly affected by their opening of a base at DSA.

As for the future, at the moment growth looks heavily dependant on Ryanair and Jet2. As it stands there are no new FR routes planned for 2017 and comments from the CEO about cutting UK expansion may well have resonated loudly through the halls of EMA. Jet2 have a number of new services planned along with an extra based aircraft, whether their arrival into Birmingham next March will be detrimental to their EMA operation remains to be seen.

Growth should still be there but it will most likely be slow and steady rather than spectacular.

 

[thunderchild]

I'm not sure if it is directly related to BHX but EMA has certainly stagnated in recent years - in fact the situation at EMA is quite similar to how BHX was a few years ago with route development coming from just a few token routes from the likes of FR, TOM and TCX.

MON came and went, Flybe haven't expanded any further, the return of scheduled long haul in the form of Shaheen never happened and Aer Lingus's new route to Dublin ends soon. Fortunately Jet2 remain committed with some decent new routes launching next summer.

 

[a300boy]

Whats been going on tonight ? Lots of aircraft have been holding for some time.

 

[LeedsPilot]

I believe it was due to the runway re-opening late due to the resurfacing work that is taking place between 20:00 Saturdays and 20:00 Mondays at the moment.

 

[Sixchannel]

Anyone got practical recent experience of EMAs Meet & Greet car parking?

 

[JF57]

Anyone got practical recent experience of EMAs Meet & Greet car parking?

No. Seen a mix of reports good and bad. Using it in late October so will know more then.

 

[User1007]

Passenger traffic at East Midlands airport in May was down 3.1%. This is the fourth consecutive month with a decrease. Any idea what's going on here?

 

[JF57]

Passenger traffic at East Midlands airport in May was down 3.1%. This is the fourth consecutive month with a decrease. Any idea what's going on here?

Does not sound good. I assume that growing Jet2 base at BHX will not be helping. Jet2 not reduced any flights at EMA but perhaps load factor suffering? Not checked on DSA lately as their catchment area encroaches on that for EMA.

 

[58terminus]

Does not sound good. I assume that growing Jet2 base at BHX will not be helping. Jet2 not reduced any flights at EMA but perhaps load factor suffering?

What goes around comes around.

 

[Ray Finkle]

I assume that growing Jet2 base at BHX will not be helping. Jet2 not reduced any flights at EMA but perhaps load factor suffering?

I think since Jet2 arrived at BHX the growth at EMA may have slowed but it's not all bad with an extra based aircraft arriving next year. Only anecdotal evidence but I've spoken to several people in the Birmingham area who love Jet2 and used to use them from EMA, since the BHX based opened they now use them from Birmingham.

With Ryanair looking as if they are in with MAG maybe there is more that they could do at EMA as they are pretty much stagnant at BHX.

These words from Mr Heapy probably sum up the Jet2 situation.

"It's one of our big bases with a massive catchment area and, if we are going to try new routes, Birmingham Airport is one of the key places we would try that from," he said.

"We have seven aircraft at East Midlands Airport - it's a good operation for us but Birmingham has proved to be a little more robust than East Midlands.

"It has been very good, particularly given the unfortunate demise of Monarch.

"There is a reasonable business case for growing all of our nine UK bases but three in particular - Birmingham, Manchester and Stansted - have seen particular growth.

"And I think there's more we can do at those."

 

[nbdm]

I have used EMA twice this year, once this month and once at new year and both times the airport was noticeably busy but security was very efficient (border force, not so much - but there is improvement with more e-gates coming!)
The lack of choice and seating at food & drink outlets is however disappointing as always but that's life.

Ironically the flights taken were available from Birmingham which is closer, more frequent and at a more reasonable time of day but more than double the price even when factoring in parking at East Mids