Air Southwest to cease operations!

Cannot see Newquay lasting another two years in this climate.:(

I quite agree, the rate that the Emmetts & chavs are tearing up the town this year it’ll be lucky to survive until September 😀

As for the airport, I’m waiting in the wings, ready to turn the place into a centre of excellence of motor sport, I’m sure the Nimbys will love the drag racing & jet cars at the weekends :diablo: They will be pleading to have the place rightfully re-instated as an RAF Airfield F35’s & all 😉

Newquay is in the same position except that Cornwall Council are prepared to spend millions of pounds per year (every year) to keep it going.

Cannot see Newquay lasting another two years in this climate.:(

Air South West—-Flybe

Interesting post Chitts,but if Flybe are so keen on the “deep west” why did they not simply absorb ASW rather that promote a price cutting exercise.
I would have thought the slots would have made it worthwhile !!
(how was the Rans with the glass !!)
It appears that ASW was virtually given away without any guarantees; a sad end considering its asssociation with Plymouth (Brymon) and the pioneering work done at London City and the original St Mawgan-Heathrow (Herald) operation.
On a commercial basis the Plymouth area itself has seen a substantial down-turn in employment and the University does not generate enough traffic to make up the difference.
Newquay is in the same position except that Cornwall Council are prepared to spend millions of pounds per year (every year) to keep it going.

Good post chitts

The first problem was a “turf war” with Flybe on the Newquay to Gatwick route. This route was the most popular of Air Southwest’s routes but Flybe persistently operated its aeroplanes over that route at very low fares. The effect of this was to force Air Southwest to offer similar fares or come off the route.

I worked there for over eleven years and was made redundant two years ago,(one of the first) I had a unique insight into the running of the airport as one of my various jobs was to chauffeur the top brass around the airfield prior to meetings involving expansion, etc. I did notice how the feel good factor dissolved when Flybe jumped on the Gatwick route, they didn’t know how to deal with it. Flybe knew this of course and ran this route cheaper to deliberately push ASW out of the competition.

More here

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=106077

Once John Humphreys left as Airport Director, management became totally inept and the fate of the airport was sealed. Questioning obvious poor descisions opened people up to bullying and staff feared for their jobs.

Throughout 2010 Air Southwest (and the airport) was starved of investment by the owners. The airline had plans for a sixth aeroplane, new routes (the London City route was one) and to bring the maintenance of the aeroplanes into Air Southwest (it had previously been contracted to British International at Plymouth). All these were abandoned by Sutton Harbour Group.

you could add to that 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009…….

I remember the radar topic some years ago and watched that swept under the carpet (down to money)

It was a great little airport to work on, I enjoyed it very much, I feel sorry for the staff who are about to join the job hunting queue. I hope the guy at the top retires and stays retired. Once the airport has shut down, we will hear more of the reasons why.

Baz

This was in the Plymouth Herald newspaper.

Air Southwest has been widely criticised for leaving Plymouth without an airlink. Yet the company’s former compliance and safety manager, Keith Boxall, believes the blame lies elsewhere.

It’s about time that somebody told the truth about the demise of the airline that served Plymouth. For weeks now Air Southwest has been blamed for “pulling out” of Plymouth, when actually it was forced out and also forced into closure.

Airport Sutton Harbour Group lost staff after its announcement that the airport would close in December

Sutton Harbour Group lost staff after its announcement that the airport would close in December

The first problem was a “turf war” with Flybe on the Newquay to Gatwick route. This route was the most popular of Air Southwest’s routes but Flybe persistently operated its aeroplanes over that route at very low fares. The effect of this was to force Air Southwest to offer similar fares or come off the route.

Air Southwest took Flybe to court in 2010 alleging unfair trading but lost and as there was no possibility of charging a realistic fare (which would still have been cheaper than the train), the route to Gatwick from Plymouth via Newquay by Air Southwest was closed.

Another nail in the coffin was hammered in by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and UK National Air Traffic Services (NATS). In early 2009 the UK airspace rules were aligned with those in Europe. Plymouth (and Newquay) is outside of what is known as “controlled airspace”. Both airports have Air Traffic Control (ATC) but this is only for aircraft taking off and landing at the airports. There is no ATC for aircraft flying into and out of the South West, west of a line from Exeter to Bristol.

Until 2009, the UK had rules that provided a degree of ATC in areas outside of controlled airspace, but under the European rules this was no longer permitted and as such, discontinued.

The CAA was concerned about the safety of aircraft carrying passengers flying outside of controlled airspace, and demanded that all airlines flying in this airspace carried out a safety risk assessment concerning the probability of a mid-air collision.

Air Southwest carried out this risk assessment and determined that the risk was unacceptably high during times when Plymouth Military radar (run by the Royal Navy and which provided an ATC radar service to Plymouth airport) was closed. Newquay, on the other hand was less affected as it had its own radar which operated all the time the airport was open.

The owner of Plymouth Airport, Sutton Harbour Group, was asked by Air Southwest (which it also owned at that time) to put in a radar service at Plymouth. The most cost effective way of achieving this would have been to have paid the Royal Navy to provide radar information from the radar set at Wembury into the ATC tower at Plymouth. At the same time Air Southwest asked the CAA and NATS to establish controlled airspace in the form of an air corridor from Exeter to Plymouth and on to Newquay. This was refused.

Air Southwest then asked that special procedures should be applied to aircraft flying near Plymouth, but this was also refused. Air Southwest then asked for a note to be put on air navigation charts warning other pilots of the possibility of encountering their aircraft near Plymouth, but even this simple safety measure was also refused.

Having exhausted every avenue through the CAA and NATS, it was left to Sutton Harbour to make a decision and spend a relatively small amount of money on the radar link to Wembury. This too was finally refused last year, despite the sale of a large portion of the airport by Sutton Harbour, for housing development.

Throughout 2010 Air Southwest (and the airport) was starved of investment by the owners. The airline had plans for a sixth aeroplane, new routes (the London City route was one) and to bring the maintenance of the aeroplanes into Air Southwest (it had previously been contracted to British International at Plymouth). All these were abandoned by Sutton Harbour Group.

Eventually, Air Southwest was put up for sale and was finally “given away” to Eastern Airlines in December 2010. Eastern sold the three Dash-8 aeroplanes that Air Southwest owned outright, to an aeroplane leasing company and then leased them back. Two of these were subsequently returned to the lease company, leaving just three. One of these was also planned to be returned later in 2011. It seemed to me that Eastern had no intention of continuing the air service into Plymouth and Newquay, but instead effectively based the aeroplanes at Aberdeen to service their oil company contracts. Redundancies followed.

Coupled to this, Sutton Harbour Group had rather unwisely announced that the airport would close in December. All this did was to encourage the airport staff to look for other work. As most of them were highly qualified ATC, fire and security staff, they left in droves. This effectively has reduced the airport manning to a level that is unacceptable for passenger flights out of Plymouth.

Both Sutton Harbour Group and Eastern Airways have been aware that the RN radar unit shuts down for the whole of August. It has done so every year for donkey’s years. But with the airspace rule change, the adverse safety risk assessment and the refusal of the authorities and Sutton Harbour Group to do anything about the situation, suspension of the flights in and out of Plymouth throughout August was inevitable.

This will now hasten the demise of the airport. Likewise, the loss of income (albeit much reduced by route closures and insufficient aeroplanes) to Air Southwest, has given Eastern the excuse to pull out of the South West altogether.

It is now inevitable that the airport will be turned into more housing that Devonians will not be able to afford and more industrial estates and office blocks that nobody will want to rent. The uncomfortable fact is that Air Southwest went under primarily because Plymothians didn’t want it. Who in their right mind will invest in Plymouth now?

Last PLH Service

Answering my own question, yes the last airline service into PLH did take place today – very sad.
Good luck to all seeking work from PLH and NQY…

Last ASW flight into PLH.

I’m told that the last ASW flight into PLH (rather than a bus from NQY) is this Thursday 28th. As ASW flights were set to be transferred to NQY during the period when Mil Radar isn’t available, does anyone know for sure if the BRS-PLH sectors will return to landing at PLH when the radar is available again (at least up until Sep 13th) or is this Thursday the very last ASW arrival?

Hello all, I’m new to the forum.

Can someone who understands these things please explain to me what Eastern get from buying Air Southwest apart from 3 Dash 8s that don’t fit their fleet. I don’t think there was much overlap on the routes and I don’t think they have gained many slots at airports they fly to.

Could it have been a big tax write-off or is it possible that the bosses at Eastern really didn’t see what was coming.

Thanks.

It is such a shame to see another British carrier go to the wall.

I suppose Sutton Harbour are the real people to blame seeing as they forced the withdrawl of the routes from Plymouth by closing down and selling off the airport.:mad:

That said though…surely an airline such as Eastern Airways could have made at least some of the routes work, even if they put on some of their smaller aircraft (JS41?) and used the Dash 8 Q300’s from Air Southwest on some of their other routes?

It’s ok, last week I was mourning the twice weekly D.H.84 Dragon service between Trebelzue big Field and Barnstable Aerodrome!:eek:

hehehe, that made me laugh 😀

It would probably be the one that stopped on the 31st January of this year!:o
News ain’t my strong point!:D

pagen01

Which service to LGW would that be? ASW stopped their LGW service from NQY & Plymouth on the 31st January this year

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12154501

I was expecting the withdrawal of the Plymouth operations for obvious reasons but pulling out of Newquay seems a bit odd, the service to Gatwick was still a very useful one.
I’ve even flown to Manchester and Cardiff from Newquay using ASW.
Looks like it is going to be left to Ryanair etc now.

Here’s the last BA (note crew doing Mexican wave!) and first Air Southwest Dash 8 services from Newquay to Gatwick, trying to remember date, April 04?

This will be the final link gone that started with BRYMON who put Plymouth Airport on the map and also started the original St Mawgan-Heathrow service with a HP Herald (not theirs).
Cornwall still had some substantial engineering companies back then which not only still employed thousands of staff but attracted a steady flow of sub contractors representatives who needed to visit on a regular basis, plus St Mawgan itself was a provider of customers when it was a main NATO (anti sub) base.
Plymouth had its dockyard and Navy base plus associated engineering companies, but this too has been reduced considerably over the years.
This has meant that the “two-way” traffic flow that our business’s provided faded away over the years to be replaced by outgoing leisure and business customers wishing to access Heathrow and Gatwick.
With the cost and lack of slots at these major airports a “non subsidised” service becomes untenable.
When you add on the security factor and check in times the business model for internal travel is difficult to see, but the trouble is the alternative train/drive situation is not much fun nowadays.

Big loss for South West of England passengers……looks like the area will be pretty cut off from the rest of the UK, unless someone like Flybe steps in

Such ashame.
I had a feeling they were gonna do that though.
Air Southwest seemed really promising too when they started out! I remember the days when I was flying light planes around cornwall and would often see their Dash 8’s at Plymouth and Newquay.
One of the instructors at my previous flying school is a pilot with air southwest too, hopefully he will find a new job soon.