EYFanatic
Member
To be fair, there was a small news article buried deep in The Times that Kazakhstan was looking into renaming itself Kazerbaijan... Maybe getting ahead of themselves though or a simple misspeak
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Doncaster Sheffield Airport to reopen?
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And in probably unsurprising news, Fly Doncaster have revised passenger projections by 2037 down to less than half of what they'd originally said. Their original projections were 2.5m (clearly a fantasy plucked out of thin air number) down to 1.1 mn.
The council's own figures for break even were 1.9 million a year, so they've now basically admitted that the airport has no chance of being profitable for probably nearly 20yrs, if ever. Never mind, it's only council taxpayers' money...
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
The council's own figures for break even were 1.9 million a year, so they've now basically admitted that the airport has no chance of being profitable for probably nearly 20yrs, if ever. Never mind, it's only council taxpayers' money...
Doncaster Sheffield Airport: Major change to passenger number estimates revealed
Passenger number estimates for a reopened Doncaster Sheffield Airport have been more than halved in revised technical plans submitted to aviation industry bosses, The Yorkshire Post can reveal.
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
Just to add, article is paywalled but if you haven't looked at YP for a while it may let you look at the full text, it did for me.
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They’re also advertising for Air Traffic Controllers via Job Centre Plus. Truly bizarre, as is the refusal to even interview around 5 former DSA ATCOs who applied to return to work for FlyDoncaster.And in probably unsurprising news, Fly Doncaster have revised passenger projections by 2037 down to less than half of what they'd originally said. Their original projections were 2.5m (clearly a fantasy plucked out of thin air number) down to 1.1 mn. The council's own figures for break even were 1.9 million a year, so they've now basically admitted that the airport has no chance of being profitable for probably nearly 20yrs, if ever. Never mind, it's only council taxpayers' money...
Doncaster Sheffield Airport: Major change to passenger number estimates revealed
Passenger number estimates for a reopened Doncaster Sheffield Airport have been more than halved in revised technical plans submitted to aviation industry bosses, The Yorkshire Post can reveal.
Just to add, article is paywalled but if you haven't looked at YP for a while it may let you look at the full text, it did for me.
It’s ok though, they’re going to increase revenue in the terminal by 30% and will ‘focus on local business’ opening shops in there. Not sure if it’s dawned on them yet, but to get footfall you kinda need airlines to fly from there.
Just madness, and like you say it’s pretty much guaranteed that if this is allowed to continue it will burn a hole in the pockets of those who pay council tax in Doncaster! The SYMCA CFO has reservations about signing off the Gainshare funding to service the loan that they appear to have taken on to ‘front load’ the reopening costs. I can’t imagine this revision of passenger figures (much lower than the ‘optimistic projections’ SYMCA own due diligence discovered is vital for financial viability), is going to help inspire confidence in the SYMCA HQ. Don’t Green Book rules make the unelected financial officers responsible for any high risk spending?
Re Green Book rules, yes they do. Not surprised if he’s wary about signing it off under the circumstances.
Also worthy of note from the article Coppard said that the airport would be unaffordable if passenger numbers were lower than 1.5 million by 2037. Doesn’t take a genius to work out that 1.1 is significantly lower than 1.5… Going ahead on these revised predictions would be grossly irresponsible.
I’ve a feeling they know that the deadlock may remain, even if the lease terms can be renegotiated. What they’ll do is borrow against the tax payer rather than the Gainshare pot.
There have been a number of news articles in the last couple of weeks spinning everything as a positive and having local business leaders say stuff. Makes me wonder whether they’re being told behind the schemes that it’s not as certain to go ahead as they’ve been saying at face value.
Ah yes, the boss of Doncaster racecourse explaining how the airport would be great for them. I wonder what proportion of the average 4500 attendees a day would choose to attend by air if they could....
The racecourse can and does already handle rotary airframes on some racedays so not sure why an airport is necessary.
How many days is that? Hardly a great target market! Anyone taking bets?
Normally about 34 days racing a year as it's both flat and jumps. Still not exactly a huge market given the average attendance though, it's not known for attracting widespread oversea interest unlike the large meetings at Ascot, Cheltenham, Epsom, York, Aintree etc.
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Perhaps the racecourse 'authorities' will 'contribute't o the costs of the airport , and a station ... dreaming of a 250th Anniversary St Leger win- maybe Lord Betfred or Sir William Hill will payout:
Arena Leisure; https://www.doncaster-racecourse.co.uk/
John Magnier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Magnier
They do occasionally fly horses in for races, but they currently do so through Humberside usually on ASL 737’s. It’s still such a rarity that it’s insignificant. It’s not exactly a great hardship adding an extra 45 minute road journey either side is it.
Like with everything else in this project it’s the tail attempting to wag the dog.
Indeed
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Perhaps rather then horses (or dogs) they should think about flying pigs.
EYFanatic
Member
I dont think the Police Air Ops fly from there now
Killingworth
Established Member
A soon to be realised effect of the little shindig in the Persian Gulf will be reduced air traffic due to the likely recession and higher fuel prices. Existing smaller airports will struggle.
DSA may be able to quietly fade away blaming the Trump/Netanyahu inspired conflict rather than their own over optimistic predictions.
DSA may be able to quietly fade away blaming the Trump/Netanyahu inspired conflict rather than their own over optimistic predictions.
It’s already taking a hold on demand for flights to certain popular destinations. Bookings for Turkey and Cyprus have dropped off a cliff, this pushes demand to places like Spain and Italy that are safer bets. This will mean slots at destination airports will be even more tightly squeezed and therefore airlines will be even more careful as U.K. how they allocate them. This also won’t go unnoticed by hoteliers who will be keen to capitalise on this increase in demand. It’s not a good time to reopen an airport that failed to capture the market last time around, running on the runway is in my view a blatant attempt to distract from what’s really going on, particularly as they were running on the critical part which suggests licensing is a long way off!
weeklycommuter
Member
- Joined
- 2 Feb 2019
- Messages
- 1,039
The latest news is that Reform UK wants to reverse the November 2025 approval of a £57 million loan which was needed to support the reopening of Doncaster Sheffield Airport. I assume Reform UK has now concluded that reopening the airport is not financially viable, perhaps due to the big increase in the cost of aviation fuel and the resulting cutbacks in aviation due to the latest Iran War.
Whole project at risk, says Save DSA campaigner as Reform UK looks to reverse loan
The whole project to re-open Doncaster Sheffield Airport has been put at risk by Reform UK’s plan to reverse its approval of a £57 million loan, says the businessman man leading the fight for its return, adding: “DSA was finally moving forward - we should be building on that, not dragging it...www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk
It’s never been viable, current events have just made it even less so.
Mayors Coppard and Jones have gone to the Yorkshire Post to tell them they are putting on the government to invest some £1bn into a rail link from the ECML to the airport. This appeared in the Yorkshire post online today. Not only do I think this is a distraction, but I also think it’s a tacit acceptance that the airport will not be able to generate the business sufficient to make it financially viable. Is this a way of passing the blame whilst they agree to take the off-ramp?
Given the current financial circumstances of the government I have more chance of becoming the next Pope than that being agreed to, so I suspect you’re right.
Well as might have been expected the two mayors (Coppard and Jones) have gone on the assault of Reform and the other opposition councillors who are forming a motion to revoke approval of the loan. Problem is Coppard appears to be avoiding the difficult fact that it is his own Section 151 officer who has reservations and as such has not approved the £159million Gainshare with which tbf £57million loan is apparently to be serviced. It leads me to believe that the plan has been all along to ignore the external auditors advice for off-ramps to avoid escalation of cost, and actually push on with spending the £57million with no guarantor apart from the tax payers in Doncaster! I see that one councillor who, in protest to Refirm voting in favour of the £57million loan left Reform to join ‘Advance U.K.’ and is today saying that she backs the loan! The whole thing stinks.
Not really, advertising for firefighters now using a photo of a standard fire engine and Ros Jones trying to herald the airport by showing some small plane action (experience flights for disabled people) that could easily be done, and normally is, from one of the many GA airfields around south and east Yorkshire. Oh, and an interview on social media with the CEO fantasising about hubs and not being able to name a single airline, either freight or passenger thats shown an interest.
pitdiver
Established Member
As a regular user of East Midlands Airport I was interested to see if any airlines had shown interest. So I looked at Jet2 for 2028. No mention of DSA and their timetable goes up to the end of March of that year
Twingo37175
Member
- Joined
- 24 Mar 2019
- Messages
- 246
Any athletes out there, there is a (second) chance to run the runway of DSA. 10K on the evening of 31/10/2026 and a 5k in mid May 2027. This to me confirms previous comments that nothing (regular) prior to the VERY least summer of 2027. Oh and as a local, yes I will b doing both having done it earlier this year.
Perhaps the King of the North, the King of Devolution will show some enthusiasm ...?
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
There’s lots of political enthusiasm for the airport.
Sadly not quite so much commercial aviation enthusiasm…
No. Reform u-turned on their u-turn where they were poised to rescind their support for the £57million loan guaranteed against the tax payer of Doncaster - not because they changed their minds but because they were told to get back in line by Tice. Since then there’s been some small ‘positive news’ articles and statements like mentioned by others, the purchase of a domestic fire engine which cannot be used for aviation purposes so is not news. Also Coppard on the one hand staying talks to renegotiate the absolutely terrible lease agreement are progressing ‘positively’ (despite the original lease having been signed over 2 years ago and nobody seemingly batting an eyelid til the terms were leaked) and we are to believe that this is progress in spite of the fact the renegotiation has apparently been ongoing since September 25 at least! Because of this we’re told that the Gainshare funding is deadlocked as the S151 officer at SYMCA has reservations, however Grant Thornton continue to flag the project with a red high risk rating, so whether the lease terms are suitably renegotiated it remains to be seen whether S151 will ever sign off on it, a massive misleading narrative which the Doncaster tax payer will have to pick up the pieces on.
He’s also gone on trade missions to desperately try to attract private investors, such as the Chinese, but also claiming the site is ripe for defence project investment. Not sure he has considered the national security implications there.
As for airlines, absolutely none have publicly stated an intention to return. TUI said they’re watching ‘with interest’. All the rest is the usual nonsense from people like Christian Foster - project director - who with the best will in the world hasn’t got a clue what he’s talking about and is way out of his depth.
One suspects further financial issues down the road. Indeed there are questions marks as to whether they even have enough money to open let alone sustain the many years of heavy losses.
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Jet2 have always said they've got no interest in it.
Killingworth
Established Member
The art of the deal - keep on saying that until the other party makes an offer you can't refuse. Who pays? Not Jet2 or similar who'd walk away as soon as that offer was back off the table.
As we've been through before, DSA offers them nothing but increased costs as the catchment population is entirely covered by MAN, EMA and LBA. There isn't a 'new' or untapped population/market. All flying from DSA would do would be to reduce loads on flights from the other three airports at the cost of extra fuel, fees, staff, airframes etc.
That's why they've never been interested.