For sale: MSE & PIK!

Looks like Infratil, the New Zealand based venture capital company, has put both Manston (MSE) and Glasgow-Prestwick (PIK) airports up for sale:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-17301447

The airport is to lose all scheduled services from budget carrier Flybe this month after the airline were reported in December saying it didn’t consider the routes it operated out of Manston to be economically viable.

Source: http://www.localrags.co.uk/index.php/News/2012/3/8/Manston-and-Prestwick-airports-up-for-sale/

Now, I have to take Flybe to task here regarding their comment about the route/s that they used fly to/from Manston not being “economically viabile”…the only real reason they were not “economically viable” is because they [Flybe] chose not to make them viable enough!

Flights to/from Manston could/would have really only worked if they had chosen to base an aircraft at MSE and operated a twice daily (morning and evening) flight to the destinations.

Operating a once daily flight using an aircraft that is based in EDI, which departs from MSE at 12.35pm (arrives EDI at 14.10pm!) is totally and utterly useless for attracting key local business travellers as it forces them into staying overnight in either location and cuts down on valuable work time whilst they are away because most of the day is lost due to travelling at such ridiculous times!

This results in the route only being suitable enough for leisure-related travel, and even then the timings of the flight are not that helpful for people, and so they are “put-off” from using them because there are better alternative flight options available from other airports such as LGW/LCY!

The true fact is the aircraft that operates/ed this flight will have usually already covered its operating margins from the other routes that it flies to/from EDI for the day, so the EDI-MSE-EDI flights were just a “gap-filler”, and all Flybe chose to do was to operate the flight because it was a cheaper option for them, instead of having the aircraft sit on the ground at EDI for the duration.

Don’t get me wrong though, I am not putting the blame of the failure of MSE airport solely at the door of Flybe, as I personally think that Infratil did not really do enough to encourage other airlines to start-up operations from there.

I still think that MSE has potential and do hope that a buyer is soon found for both airports (MSE has already attracted “interest”, apparently!:)), as I would not like to see all those people that are currently employed at either location to loose their jobs.:(