CAA Provisional Statistics Update

[TheLocalYokel]

Bigman, you are basing this on percentage increases I suspect? We may have had a smaller percentage increase that some airports but in terms of actual passengers that can translate into more than other airports showing larger percentages. Surely it is the actual number of people that matters, not a percentage. 1% of the LHR throughput would be considerably more than 5% at most other airports.

Heather. That's something I often argue with people who have little interest in aviation. They see a headline, 'fastest growing airport in the country', and don't or can't think through what it might really mean. I'm always sceptical of percentage anything especially when used as comparators because you need to know the various base figures to make any sense of it.

The proponents of re-opening Plymouth Airport constantly say their airport was the fastest growing UK airport in 2008 and 2009, which it was in percentage terms. But its 26.6% growth in 2008 amounted only to an additional 21,000 annual passengers and its 16.5% growth in 2009 saw just 16,000 more, giving an annual total of over 115,000. Atms in both years were up considerably more in percentage terms which some PLH aficionados thought was a plus, especially when taken in tandem with the percentage passenger rises. As Air Southwest was the only carrier - they used Dash 8-300s - it was obvious that average loads had fallen significantly but could I make some people understand this? Nope.

Air Southwest realised it though because in 2010 annual passenger throughput dropped by 16% with a corresponding fall in atms.

Sorry to go off to Devon but I think it illustrates the point that you are making.

I add the caveat that I don't put Bigman, someone with a great interest in and an understanding of the industry, in the category of the people I describe above in case anyone thought I was alluding to him.

 

[Bigman]

Yes I am basing on % growth. Given that EMA were up 4.4%, NCL were up 3.3%, LPL were up 10.3% and MAN were up 7.2%, their actual passenger numbers would have gone up quite substantially compared to ours. And as we speak, the June figures have just come out and we were up only 2% to 402,470. Again, EMA up 8%, NCL up 5%, LPL up 11% and MAN up 9%, so we are still lagging behind.

 

[White Heather]

Yes I am basing on % growth. Given that EMA were up 4.4%, NCL were up 3.3%, LPL were up 10.3% and MAN were up 7.2%, their actual passenger numbers would have gone up quite substantially compared to ours. And as we speak, the June figures have just come out and we were up only 2% to 402,470. Again, EMA up 8%, NCL up 5%, LPL up 11% and MAN up 9%, so we are still lagging behind.

Yes but EMA suffered some significant losses at a time when LBA was still going upward, so as is often the case, they are simply getting back to where they were as the impact of losing Monarch wears off. NCL also had a bad time of things as did LPL. LBA has generally been seeing small but safe increases month on month for some time, which is actually how growth should be - not a sudden surge upward followed by a nose-dive downward. In that scenario it is difficult to plan for anything. As for MAN growth, we really shouldn't be comparing LBA with MAN. We might as well compare MAN with LHR. MAN is in a different league to LBA. I wish it wasn't so, but it is a fact of life.

There is no doubt that LBA growth is currently constrained by the airport facilities, a fact that LBA are fully aware of - and why they are trying to secure more non based a/c operations in the shorter term - but they are planning for more rapid growth which will entail airport developments, a subject close to all our hearts. That would remove the shackles and enable more growth and dare I say it, higher percentages for a while - but the more pax we have, the harder it becomes to secure higher percentage increases.

 

[Bigman]

Hi White Heather. I do fully agree with you that sustained growth (albeit seemingly small) is far better than some of the 'Pepsi Max' type fluctuations experienced by other airports of the size that we aspire to be like. As has been said elsewhere on these threads on many occasions, some serious investment is needed if we ever expect to grow the figures by way of additional based aircraft.

 

[Seasider]

Discovering that the CAA pax figures were out, I decided to check for myself before reading the forum after my weekend away. As TLY has said, they are presented slightly different nowadays. Also, Aa Bigman has said 402470 pax used the Terminal in June. If you read the table for "Air pax by Type & Nationality of operator" (table 8), 406387 pax used the Terminal. Which is correct?
I wish the airport would reply to my request to publish their own figures.

 

[Tarn Spotter]

Good point Seasider, as Tesco says "every little helps" and this represents 1% of traffic

 

[White Heather]

Discovering that the CAA pax figures were out, I decided to check for myself before reading the forum after my weekend away. As TLY has said, they are presented slightly different nowadays. Also, Aa Bigman has said 402470 pax used the Terminal in June. If you read the table for "Air pax by Type & Nationality of operator" (table 8), 406387 pax used the Terminal. Which is correct?
I wish the airport would reply to my request to publish their own figures.

Seasider, I would recommend you phone the airport and ask to speak to the MDs secretary and ask for the reply, quoting that the MD has previously said that all such enquiries will be answered. I fully intend to ask this question again at the next consultative meeting I attend - as a follow up to what I raised at the last meeting. I haven't see the minutes of that meeting yet, so it will be interesting to see if what I asked is noted. Unfortunately, the secretary who has been there for some years and who was very helpful to me, has recently and moved on to further her career, so I think that might not have helped matters.

 

[Seasider]

Thank you for that WH, I will ring tomorrow and post their reply .

 

[Seasider]

I have contacted the airport on the Information number to be told it does not accept incoming calls and you have to ring an 0871..... number. I don't agree with the premium rate lines to contact a "public company" so will wait for a reply to my email.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Discovering that the CAA pax figures were out, I decided to check for myself before reading the forum after my weekend away. As TLY has said, they are presented slightly different nowadays. Also, Aa Bigman has said 402470 pax used the Terminal in June. If you read the table for "Air pax by Type & Nationality of operator" (table 8), 406387 pax used the Terminal. Which is correct?
I wish the airport would reply to my request to publish their own figures.

This is a frequent occurrence, and is not a recent phenomenon.

I've noticed conflicting figures for the same routes from various airports down the years. Not that I do it often - it's too time consuming - but I have compared the final totals for airports taken at random in Table 12.1 (International Traffic Analysis) with the now discontinued Table 2 (Size of UK Airports) which sets out (or did before it was discontinued) the same information but in a more detailed form. A comparison of the two threw up the same sort of anomalies as you describe.

I regard CAA stats like the weather forecast: basically accurate overall but sometimes dodgy on local detail.

On the BRS stats, the CAA has shown Verona as nil in May and June despite two weekly flights. They did this in these two months last year before getting it right from July onwards. The mistake was never put right in the final tables for last year. This is just one example of many I could give.

 

[Tarn Spotter]

I have to say I instructed all my staff to complete government statistical returns (with exceptions of vat, tax etc) with the bear minimum of time and from any immediatley available in house source.
I pay them not the state, any crossing checking would have been disastrous and led to having to investigate the type of difference TheLocalYokel spotted.
Any published results for our sector we viewed for trends not actual results.

 

[leedslad]

Interesting to note that Doncaster has now reached I believe 1m? How long ago was Leeds at 1m doesn't seem that long to me? With some of the handy business routes from there eg Paris, plus easy Road access and parking it's becoming a real alternative... Wouldn't take much for them to step up in a big way (ie attracting one major airline)...

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Interesting to note that Doncaster has now reached I believe 1m? How long ago was Leeds at 1m doesn't seem that long to me? With some of the handy business routes from there eg Paris, plus easy Road access and parking it's becoming a real alternative... Wouldn't take much for them to step up in a big way (ie attracting one major airline)...

LBA was at 1.051 million in 1996. It's been growing most years since.

DSA carried 1.074 million in 2007 but it suffered from the recession, like many airports, and has taken nine years to get back to the million.

 

[Seasider]

Although the CAA have published (66 days after end of month) the July figures, LBA are not included in total monthly pax figures. What I did manage to glean, was that LHR was about 30 pax up on July 2015.
I have given up on expecting a reply from the Airport.

 

[leedsman]

An initial release of the CAA stats for September has been posted. Not much released for LBA, however the LHR route is there and looks very positive:

LHR 16,928 compared to 15,590 last September (up 9%). Is 16,928 a record month ?

 

[Seasider]

An initial release of the CAA stats for September has been posted. Not much released for LBA, however the LHR route is there and looks very positive:

LHR 16,928 compared to 15,590 last September (up 9%). Is 16,928 a record month ?

Unless it was higher in August (which I doubt)

 

[GolfFox]

Very positive indeed considering the timings fail to capture many potential connecting flights without a very long transfer time at LHR which I am sure deters many people. I know it has been done to death but an early departure and late evening arrival at LBA is likely to offer a whole raft of new potential connections. There is no connection to LBA for most of the European flights arriving into LHR late afternoon/early evening.
If my memory serves me correctly, BM used to do around 25,000 pax a month with 4 rotations until it became a point to point service. There must be great potential to increase that.

 

[White Heather]

Definitely not right. The airport stats I have seen are all in the positive - something they have recently publicised. For the period April to August 2016, total pax was 1,927, 509. For the same period in 2015 the total was 1,891,521 which shows the general upward trend - small increases on a steady basis

 

[Tarn Spotter]

There seems to be a huge error in the year to date figure. In april we were showing 3.49m passengers ytd at LBA, now 3.16m. I think we are up around 75k on the last 3 months compared with last year making our YTD figures just under 3.5m

 

[Bigman]

These CAA stats are just getting worse. The September stats now show 409,998 for the month (up 3.8), but the rolling year total now shows 2,724,632 (down 20.6%).