New Route Manston to Schiphol

No recent news. Didn’t realise it is owned by a New Zealand company! 😮

Manston wins hands-down over Lydd…just on runway length alone.

Having visited Manston on several occasions I can honestly say that it is a great little airport that is really under-rated and under-valued.

Although I am currently more in favour of an airport in the Thames Estuary to meet our future needs, if that doesn’t get the go-ahead, I would strongly argue that Manston should play a big part in whatever plans that Government eventually publish in order to help sort out the problems of air capacity in this country.

Does anyone have any news/updates on the sale of Manston though, as the current owners Infratil had put it (and Prestwick!) on the market earlier in the year, but I havent heard anything about it since…:confused:

Indeed – little infrastructure and poor links.

Plus its quite a remote location

Exactly right and there are other local and environmental objections as well. I didn’t get the impression that it was likely to happen…..

I can understand that, there is an importand bird reserve nearby

Yes, you are right about a better rail link.

As far as Lydd is concerned, the Arabian owners of the airport and golf course have a huge investment plan involving runway lengthening and other developments, which is meeting strong opposition. I am not sure what the latest news is, though.

Can’t see it there, but thanks anyway, it was along ago, and maybe it was an operation that didnt run for long. What would benefit Manston would be a station link, think the railway line is not too far. Im also interested what is happening at Lydd, but this airport is really out in the wilds, its quite far from Ashford.

Newforest suggested this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Ferry_Limited

no it wasnt Invicta I knew of them, they were mainly involved with freight I think , although i think they may have done passenger charter flights, seem to recall they even had a Boeing 720 towars then end of their operations.

I think the Air Kent service, had the Kent Messager newspaer behind it ?

Hah! Without giving notice, you mean?!:dev2:

Just been looking, we used to have a frequent Manston news reporter, but he seems to have deserted us about eighteen months ago. Wonder what the charge for desertion of forum is? :diablo:

Yes it could – I’ve just been having a read about it! Interesting but short-lived!

Was there a small airline years back called Air Kent which operated from Manston across the channel, maybe to Amsterdam ?

Could have been Air Ferry? 😀

Are you thinking of this:

http://www.invicta-airways.com/

I am a relative newcomer to the area anyway so very keen on a successful outcome.

Was there a small airline years back called Air Kent which operated from Manston across the channel, maybe to Amsterdam ? Im from Kent originally , so always interested in whats going on at Manston and Lydd, never much when I was a kid unfortunately, although I did fly on Janus Airways from Lydd to Ostend for a day trip !

Well, at least, there is no competition from Manston!! So it will stand or fall on its own merits.

Hopefully, it will be a success, and save people from East Kent having to back track up to London. KLM most recent new UK route was Liverpool-Amsterdam, in competion with Easyjet. They appeared tobe building the route quite well going from 3 to 4 per day, but then suddenly dropped the connection as part of a route rationalisation.

There’s definitely some growth potential for mainland European flag carriers in Britain’s outer-city areas.

As Charlie points out; 750,000 people now have a connection to one of Europe’s busiest hubs. Kent is just one of many under-served areas to tap into, look at the South West.

The questionnaire was completed by just over 9,000 people of which over 90% said they would use the service – either for leisure weekend trips or the majority for business to take advantage of the Schiphol hub to fly on to their chosen destinations.

The potential population catchment area is about 750,000 to save the hassle of the drive, the parking and long check-in times to Gatwick or worse Heathrow.

So it will be interesting to see if their hopes are justified.