SUPERB…nothing more can be said!

What’s so wrong with the name Squire’s Gate?

Come to think of it, what was wrong with Bagington, Castle Donington, Elmdon, Ringway, Speke, Yeadon, etc., etc.! 😉

Andy

Whats wrong with them? They’re not very marketable thats what. If you ask an American to name a place in the East Midlands, they may JUST ABOUT (and I say that with some scepticism!!) name Nottingham , but one place they’re never likely to come up with is Castle Donnington, hence they’ll walk into their travel agent in some small backwater and ask to fly to Nottingham. Now to some extent that may be ok, because IF (and again I am sceptical!) the travel agent is any use she (very sexist here suggesting it is a she…I know!!!) will know that the nearest airport is Castle Donnington, or more likely East Midlands, as it was known, if she did not know that then she may have been able to look up the nearest airport to Nottingham. HOWEVER, now that it has been renamed she can more easily look up Nottingham and be given the code EMA (remember, codes quite often bear no resemblance to the city…see ORD, IAD, MCO and MANY more). So all great, even when called East Midlands she was likely to find it and suggest a connection in BRU. HOWEVER, just to throw a spanner in the works, the same tourist decides not to visit the travel agent, but to hop online. He goes straight to the american version of Expedia or similar and looks for Nottingham, but it doesn’t show up, so he thinks “oh well no airport there, I’ll fly to LHR”. and in that simple move EMA has lost a passenger or two. ADD to that the fact that EMA’s traffic is dominated by LCCs then you can see why it is a problem to be called Castle Donnington or East Midlands, passengers in Spain will see that, and just skip over it, even if they are fancying a trip to the East Mids……BUT, by seeing Nottingham they can identify where it is and EMA doesn’t loose any passengers. The former model of airline would have shown up to those same passengers had they enquired in a travel agent 10 years ago, but today they would risk missing it all together.

Now take Speke, WHY oh WHY rename it Liverpool John Lennon? The answer is simple, although the name is cumbersome it is HIGHLY recognisable to certain markets, such as the USA…..they are using a well known figure to promote the city.

why aint it in service i would have thought it would work well for jet 2

😮 :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

and more..

Ryanair flight lands at wrong airfield in Northern Ireland
Kieran Daly, London (29Mar06, 16:43 GMT, 232 words)

An aircraft operating a Ryanair flight has landed by mistake at a virtually disused army airfield in Northern Ireland.

Ryanair refuses to comment, but a Police Service of Northern Ireland spokesman says the aircraft landed at Ballykelly airfield, known locally as Shackleton Barracks, at 14:47 today instead of its intended destination of nearby Derry/Londonderry.

The exact flight is not known, but unconfirmed suggestions are that it had come from Liverpool in England, which is consistent with it being Ryanair flight 9884 due at Derry at 14:25.

The police spokesman at nearby Limavady says: “They are trying to find steps to get the passengers off and then they are going to bus the passengers to Derry. Apparently it’s too heavy to take off again while it’s loaded so they are going to fly it out when the passengers are off.”

The spokesman was unable to confirm the identity of the aircraft, although another unconfirmed report suggests it is an Airbus A320 of Irish carrier Eirjet operating on behalf of Ryanair, which has an all-Boeing 737 fleet of its own.

Ballykelly is lightly used by UK Army Air Corps and RAF helicopters and as a sport airfield.

Derry charts warn pilots against the risk of confusion between the two airfields. Derry has a 5,480ft (1,670m) runway, 08/26, with precision approach path indicators (PAPI) on 26, and an ILS/DME. Ballykelly details were not immediately available.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news

It does my head in, all this naming of Airports after people. I have to admit it did wonders for Liverpool, but thats because they were trying to aim at foreign markets, and in particular the US market, where John Lennon and the Beatles were very well known. The Airport operators claim that it has increased their exposure no end. So great..BUT, George Best…which foreigners are really going to know him?? He may have been talented, and I know this is going to be controversial, but he also wasted much of his life!!! Theres a good thing to name an airport after, to inspire the kids!!

Condor > Thomas Cook > Condor (and yet we get left with TC!)
Crossair > SWISS (well prety much LOL, with a splattering of Swissair!)
Suckling Airways > Scot Airways
Canadian pacific > CP Air > Canadian/Canadien (depending which side of the a/c you looked at!)

In all honesty it depends how far back in time you want to go, you could do thousands really.

There is more to this story. Although the 400D didn’t come with winglets as standard (the winglets only offer fuel benefits in cruise, and the japanese domestic flights only lasted upto an hour, so more up and down than up, across and down), this model was designed to be converted to normal configuration at a certain point in their life, and so the winglets would be added subsequently. I know ANA had a 400D upgraded back to normal standard, I’m not sure if JAL has done any yet. The basis of this was that it would increase the revenue earning life of the aircraft by reducing the number of cycles (which through pressurisation and take-off/landings reduce the life of the airframe).