Airport.

[asitis]

2 hours ago, IOM said:

Its got nothing to do with people wanting to go shopping. Its about ensuring the Isle of Man can encourage business and investment right now a lot of that will likely be going to Jersey and Guernsey.  Also £100m is a ridiculous number to pluck out of the air the subsidy to maintain services over the pandemic was a fraction of that. 

And if the route was carefully managed with say light regulation then a subsidy might not be required. Pre pandemic there were two Easyjets a day and three Loganair into London City I would contest one Easyjet plus two smaller airline rotations ( early morning/evening) would do the trick! 

I was referring to the Liverpool Landing Stage and inferring the flights subsidised were a much better and cheaper investment !

[IOM]

13 minutes ago, asitis said:

I was referring to the Liverpool Landing Stage and inferring the flights subsidised were a much better and cheaper investment !

Apologies I understand your point now. The whole situation really is ridiculous I appreciate the point Ringy Rose makes but it really is coming to something when the gateway to London is via Birmingham airport that itself only has a once a day service! 

The specific comment from the DOI a short while ago was  "Whilst there has been an increase in services since the relaxation of some of the border controls at the end of June 2021 there currently remains only one daily service to London Gatwick as passenger numbers have not yet returned to the levels that they were prior to the pandemic."  Whilst the statement may in effect be true it fails to recognise that supply is currently circa 35% what it was pre pandemic and other routes are near enough 100%. Something does not add up and I think its time someone resolved it for the good of the island. 

[asitis]

Just now, IOM said:

Apologies I understand your point now. The whole situation really is ridiculous I appreciate the point Ringy Rose makes but it really is coming to something when the gateway to London is via Birmingham airport that itself only has a once a day service! 

The specific comment from the DOI a short while ago was  "Whilst there has been an increase in services since the relaxation of some of the border controls at the end of June 2021 there currently remains only one daily service to London Gatwick as passenger numbers have not yet returned to the levels that they were prior to the pandemic."  Whilst the statement may in effect be true it fails to recognise that supply is currently circa 35% what it was pre pandemic and other routes are near enough 100%. Something does not add up and I think its time someone resolved it for the good of the island. 

Yup the airport needs competent commercial management, something sadly lacking in all areas at the moment !

 

[James Blonde]

6 minutes ago, asitis said:

Yup the airport needs competent commercial management, something sadly lacking in all areas at the moment !

 

The day to day operation of it needs privatising. 

But I wouldn't trust the current clowns to negotiate it, we would end up with a Manx Gas situation. 

[Roger Mexico]

7 hours ago, asitis said:

We are Okay all is well !

https://www.flightglobal.com/flight-international/boosting-performance-at-the-isle-of-man-airport/138038.article

FFS.

Even a quick look at Wiki will give figures for 2019 (the Airport's best ever year) of passengers being 865,617 and aircraft movements 21,242, rather lower than what Spake is claiming.  Though he does seem to have bought into the typical Manx Civil Service fantasy of "I've bought a bit of software and it will do my job for me".  So maybe that's why he was recruited - no trace of any competence that might provide a threat.

Edited December 14, 2021 by Roger Mexico
Add link

[James Blonde]

7 hours ago, asitis said:

We are Okay all is well !

https://www.flightglobal.com/flight-international/boosting-performance-at-the-isle-of-man-airport/138038.article

FFS.

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.flightglobal.com%2Fflight-international%2Fboosting-performance-at-the-isle-of-man-airport%2F138038.article (paywall removed) 

[Ringy Rose]

2 hours ago, James Blonde said:

The day to day operation of it needs privatising. 

It doesn't need privatising at all, that just adds a layer of price-gouging we don't need. As we see in the UK where Liverpool Airport will charge you a tenner just to drop someone off or pick them up. There's only one airport, it's an automatic monopoly, just like Manx Gas.

Peel Holdings- who, let's face it, would be at the top of any privatisation- are the last people you'd want running a small regional airport. Just look at Teesside Airport, they ran it so badly the Tory Mayor had to nationalise it.

Decisions about subsidy shouldn't have anything to do with the airport, which is the issue here.

Edited December 14, 2021 by Ringy Rose

[WTF]

3 hours ago, asitis said:

I was referring to the Liverpool Landing Stage and inferring the flights subsidised were a much better and cheaper investment !

they way the costs are going at Ronaldsway and Liverpool that tunnel Boris was on about is starting to seem like a good investment.

[James Blonde]

1 hour ago, Ringy Rose said:

It doesn't need privatising at all, that just adds a layer of price-gouging we don't need. As we see in the UK where Liverpool Airport will charge you a tenner just to drop someone off or pick them up. There's only one airport, it's an automatic monopoly, just like Manx Gas.

Peel Holdings- who, let's face it, would be at the top of any privatisation- are the last people you'd want running a small regional airport. Just look at Teesside Airport, they ran it so badly the Tory Mayor had to nationalise it.

Decisions about subsidy shouldn't have anything to do with the airport, which is the issue here.

It needs privatising to free it from the current public sector waste. 

 

As I've said (in the part of my post you forget to quote) the current shower would negotiate a Manx Gas scenario. 

A small private company could make a real good go of running Ronaldsway. 

[Ringy Rose]

7 minutes ago, James Blonde said:

It needs privatising to free it from the current public sector waste. 

Ah yes, that old chestnut "public sector waste". Which, even if it exists, is simply swapped to become the profit margin of the operator instead. Net benefit: bugger all.

Of course the reality is that a Manx Gas scenario would inevitably happen. As I said, it's a monopoly. Just like Manx Gas is. The same issues apply, no matter how good or how bad a negotiator you are. You can't negotiate away a monopoly.

So either a private operator gets carte blanche to price gouge to their heart's content, free from any competition, or any contract has to be so prescriptive as to make it pointless to outsource.

As for a "small private company", they wouldn't have access to the funding or the economies of scale required to do anything a publicly owned airport couldn't do better and cheaper.

Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[James Blonde]

1 minute ago, Ringy Rose said:

Ah yes, that old chestnut "public sector waste". Which, even if it exists, is simply swapped to become the profit margin of the operator instead. Net benefit: bugger all.

Of course the reality is that a Manx Gas scenario would inevitably happen. As I said, it's a monopoly. Just like Manx Gas is. The same issues apply, no matter how good or how bad a negotiator you are. You can't negotiate away a monopoly.

So either a private operator gets carte blanche to price gouge to their heart's content, free from any competition, or any contract has to be so prescriptive as to make it pointless to outsource.

As for a "small private company", they wouldn't have access to the funding or the economies of scale required to do anything a publicly owned airport couldn't do better and cheaper.

Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Haha are you Jezza Spake in disguise?! 

They need the expensive management salaries off the Government pay role ASAP and reduce the pension liability accordingly.

[asitis]

1 hour ago, Ringy Rose said:

are the last people you'd want running a small regional airport.

Here is the crux of the matter in your sentence, the last farcical management have never considered Ronaldsway as a "small regional airport", it has always been, and still is, an empire builders dream, where costs are completely out of control in respect of our airports size and function. The incompetence of management is legendary, in fact worse than that, subject of great humour, which unfortunately the taxpayers pay for !

It's another part of DOI which needs root and branch overhaul. Where we find some of the clowns to run these shit shows is amazing.

[IOM]

I think the more important issue to address is a decent and sensible level of service options to London . I doubt privatisation will sort that and it’s a major priority. 

[Giggleberrys]

13 minutes ago, James Blonde said:

Haha are you Jezza Spake in disguise?! 

They need the expensive management salaries off the Government pay role ASAP and reduce the pension liability accordingly.

Our comparable islands in the Channel both have Airports which are government owned. The Steam Packet has just been brought back into Government control as it is considered a lifeline and in the national interest. Do you really think that selling the Airport off to a private entity which would then have the Island by the balls would be of benefit? That's not to say that things down there can't be improved, I just think giving up control over one of the two main ways on and off the island would be political suicide

[Ringy Rose]

32 minutes ago, James Blonde said:

They need the expensive management salaries off the Government pay role ASAP and reduce the pension liability accordingly.

Why? You want decent management, they cost decent money. Take them off the DOI payroll, fine. But they're still on the airport payroll. So what's the difference?

Privatising a monopoly either means a) they've got you by the short and curlies (see Manx Gas) or b) you have to be so prescriptive on *everything* that you may as well run the gaff yourself.

25 minutes ago, asitis said:

the last farcical management have never considered Ronaldsway as a "small regional airport"

And that, it turn, goes back to politicians who don't want to admit that. The crazy projected tourism figures, that comes from the politicians, nobody else.

But then the aviation industry is full of bullshitters with crazy passenger predictions. Carlisle Airport was going to serve millions of passengers. There are five commercial airports serving the area between Nottingham and Middlesbrough and all were or are going to serve millions of passengers too. Aye, right.

Ongoing maintenance isn't exciting to politicians so they don't seek it. That's why the airport and Sea Terminal are both shitholes. That's also why the Liverpool landing stage and the Prom went the way they did; doing a simple job well isn't sexy, everything has to be rolled in glitter.

That all said, the longer runway really was needed, as was the resurfacing this year (and the end needed to be widened to allow an A320 to turn at the end whilst the taxiways were out of use). And for all the whining, Lagan came in during a pandemic, did the job to budget and then left again. 

 

Edited December 14, 2021 by Ringy Rose