UK CAA - General Thread

[TheLocalYokel]

Using CAA statistics I've compiled the average load from each of the top 20 UK airports (by total passengers handled) for the 12-month period ending 31 July 2010.

Although the percentage of seats occupied would have been a more valid exercise, this information is not readily available and loads don't necessarily indicate the level of profitability, I still thought it might be an amusing diversion and of some interest.

There are one or two surprises that I will highlight at the end of the list.

The list shows the airports in descending order of load levels with the total passengers handled (in millions per annum) in the 12 months under review in the fourth column and each airport's ranking by passenger numbers in the fifth column.

1. Heathrow 145 65.03 1st

2. Gatwick 133 31.62 2nd

3. Stansted 128 19.08 3rd

4. Luton 125 8.74 5th

5.Prestwick 122 1.68 19th

6. Manchester 118 17.69 4th

7. Liverpool 115 5.03 10th

8. Bristol 106 5.74 9th

9. Belfast Int 102 4.15 13th

10. Birmingham 100 8.71 6th

11. Glasgow 97 6.75 8th

12. Newcastle 92 4.41 11th

13. Edinburgh 85 8.68 7th

14= East Midlands 80 4.24 12th

14= Leeds-Bradford 80 2.69 17th

14= Cardiff 80 1.47 20th

17. Belfast City 72 2.78 16th

18. London City 45 2.80 15th

19. Southampton 44 1.76 19th

20. Aberdeen 31 2.82 14th

I am surprised that the average load at Heathrow is not higher and that the average load at Prestwick is so high given its annual passenger numbers.

I presume Aberdeen is as low as it is relative to its annual passenger numbers because of so many commercial helicopter flights.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The CAA has just opened a new website.

It has retained the previous URL but the pages are accessible via a different route.

Furthermore, the provisional airport, international and domestic route analysis page details for the October2015 section are now showing just the first releases, ie only those airports that were included in the first batch although on the previous site the later issues that included the later batches of airports were shown.

So LBA, for example, is not shown in the airports section, nor are its figures shown in the international and domestic routes analysis pages as it did not appear in the first batch of airports released.

I hope this is a gremlin that will be eliminated in future, otherwise it will be difficult to establish the monthly details of some airports until the final figures are published a month or two later, but these do not include the full breakdown found in the provisional airport list without a lot more research on the part of the reader.

 

[Aviador]

I haven't had chance to look yet but it doesn't sound very good. Not all airports release there own passenger figures either so it's going to be some task working it all out if that's the case?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I'm hoping that this is just a glitch and for some reason the first release for October rather than the last one has been left on the new website. I can't see why they would do this deliberately when they had already published later releases on their previous website.

If I'm right the same provisional information as before will be available each month in future (ie released in batches) although the website route to finding it is different. Once the route has been found (it's not difficult to find, even for someone like me who does not profess to be a computer junky) it will become as straightforward a task as it was before.

 

[Seasider]

I had a look a couple of hours ago just in case the November figures are out, but they aren't. I agree, not as user friendly (or is it because it's different) and very unprofessional to have deleted important information that was available on the old site.

Not entirely relevant, but I find that when other organisations "revamp" their websites, I find them not as "user friendly" (or is it an age thing).

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Not entirely relevant, but I find that when other organisations "revamp" their websites, I find them not as "user friendly" (or is it an age thing).

I had exactly the same thought and I don't think that it is necessarily an age thing. Digital tvs seem to take longer to change channels than the old analogue variety where it was instant at the touch of a button. Now it can take two or three seconds after the button has been touched.

Red Button, the digital successor to Ceefax, is dreadful (I'm probably one of the few people who looks at it but I do find it useful for a snapshot of current events, business updates and the latest sports scores) being not only slower than the old analogue but at times it freezes for ten seconds or more after several pages have been visited. It's not just my tv sets either as I get the same thing on hotel tv sets.

I've drifted into the long grass but only to show examples of newer is not always better.

 

[Aviador]

I think the BBC have just announced they are ending "your" red button service to save money. I agree though, the old Ceefax or whatever it was was far better and quicker. The weather forecast on Ceefax used to annoy me though with the maximum of three colours throughout the entire UK to describe the weather. It's no wonder it was always wrong.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The provisional CAA stats for January are still not out. Furthermore, the page that shows the monthly 'release dates' for the provisional stats has not been updated with December 2015 the last month for which the release date is shown.

In the past provisional stats for a month usually appeared around the 14th/15th of the following month. Yet more evidence of a revamped website being less efficient than its predecessor?

 

[Aviador]

They've replaced what was a useful "does what it says on the tin" website with a posh looking website that's hopelessly unusable. Basically it's gone much the same way as what teletext went when it switched from analog to digital.

 

[Seasider]

They've replaced what was a useful "does what it says on the tin" website with a posh looking website that's hopelessly unusable. Basically it's gone much the same way as what teletext went when it switched from analog to digital.

or is it a sign we don't like change. :s_dunno

 

[TheLocalYokel]

In this case I don't think it is a case of not liking change. I've been interrogating the CAA website regularly for many years and it's true that it took me probably half an hour to familiarise myself with the new site. That was irksome but would have been well worth the time spent if, as I was expecting or at least hoping, the new site was more streamlined and provided additional and more easily accessible information.

From my perspective I can't say that's the case. The first month was slow off the mark with the provisional stats and eventually regressed to the first batch of stats (the ones that don't include every airport) for that month having in the meantime published the later batches which then disappeared from the site.

Usually the release date for the first batch of provisional airport stats has been the 14/15th of each month. January's first batch did not appear until the 18th of this month and there is nowhere on the site that shows the release dates for the coming year, only the year that's passed and even then they are the release dates for the full airport monthly stats which always come a month or two after the provisional ones. The old website always showed the release dates for the provisional stats for the year ahead.

I could go on but I hope this gives a flavour of why I don't believe that the new website is an improvement.

Of course, there may still be glitches to be ironed out but it's been running now for a couple of months and it may be that this is what will be on offer in the future. It's not a major problem for those of us who like to play with stats but it's certainly not an improvement as one would hope a new website ought to be.

 

[Aviador]

Well it's the 18th today and still no provisional airport stats. It may be so they can release the full data without missing airports as in the past.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Well it's the 18th today and still no provisional airport stats. It may be so they can release the full data without missing airports as in the past.

The February 2016 figures were first published on 15 March. The last release for February as currently shown on the CAA website is dated 21 March which suggests that not all airports were included in the first draft on 15 March.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

April 2016 provisional stats

Still not published, now 9 days later than the usual publication date in the past, ie when the previous CAA website was in use.

Even the dried plum aficionados are beginning to be concerned.

 

[Seasider]

Plenty of airports have announced their own figures, I wonder if the CAA don't believe them?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Plenty of airports have announced their own figures, I wonder if the CAA don't believe them?

Could be - still nothing from CAA. Bristol Airport figures are always different to those from the CAA about the same airport because Bristol has a different methodology. For example it doesn't count under 2s but the CAA does, hence BRS monthly and annual figures are usually less than the CAA's. It's even dafter given that the CAA gets its BRS numbers from the airport.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

We're now into June and are still awaiting the April provisional airport statistics. Until the new CAA website commenced a few months ago the figures were usually published around 14-15th of the following month, so April's would have been published in mid May. Since the new website went live monthly release of the provisional stats has fallen back a bit by up to a week - until now!!

A poster on another forum is suggesting that the CAA has encountered problems with a new data collection system. If this is so it is probably the reason for the delay this time.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Still no April stats releases so it's no use expecting May's yet. The CAA has now put this message on its website.

Estimated release dates
With the launch of AvStats, the system that processes airport and airline data, there is a delay to the release of published reports. We will update this page as soon as further information is available.

No indication when April's stats will be out, let alone May's. Yet another example of an organisation introducing a new IT system that clearly was not tested properly.

Addendum

There is considerable discussion about this on another website.

One suggestion is that the airports now provide figures to a third party that verifies them before they are published by the CAA. This is due to a new EU edict (yes, I know but I can't verify that this is true) and leads to airports being fined if the figures are not produced in a certain way.

Another suggestion is that figures are fed to an automated system that verifies them against a CAA-held data base. It is alleged that the CAA systems are incompatible with accepting the figures from the automated reader and, anyway, because so many of the criteria held in the CAA data base are either wrong or incomplete airports are continually being told their figures cannot be correct although they may well be.

It appears matters were much more efficient when people sat down with calculators, pens and pieces of paper.

 

[jfy1999]

I was looking forward to calculating the loads on some important BHX routes - especially Dubai now that it has the A380, Islamabad since it returned to 4 weekly, and JFK since American haven't been doing too brilliant.

The airport press release only gives a few route growth statistics and surprisingly Dubai wasn't among them which was surprising given that we only had 2 daily 77W this time last year.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

April 2016

The full stats for this month have now been published by the CAA, having published the three provisional tables for the month a few weeks ago and a couple of months late. They can be seen at

http://www.caa.co.uk/Data-and-analy...atasets/UK-Airport-data/Airport-data-2016-04/

We are still waiting for May and June's provisional figures to be published, both well overdue.