Infratil complaints

Some of our readers have been asking who they should complain to about Infratil, the owners of Manston airport. And some of our readers have been telling us about who they have complained to about Infratil.

As a public service, we shall be helping the first group by telling them about the second group's efforts. First up: the New Zealand High Commission in London.

The New Zealand High Commission is an overseas post of the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The focus of the High Commission's work is managing New Zealand's political, economic and trade relations with the United Kingdom and Ireland. They have now been told that "Infratil is as welcome in Thanet as a nasty rash", which probably came as a surprise to them.

More suggestions welcome.

Glasgow kiss-off

Prestwick Airport passenger numbers fall

Prestwick Airport saw a drop of nearly 20% in passenger numbers in July, compared with the same month last year. Infratil, the Ayrshire airport's owners said there were 37,800 fewer passengers during the crucial first month of the school summer holidays.

New Zealand-based Infratil said the July passenger numbers fell from 194,500 last year to 156,700 this year. In recent years, the number of passengers at Prestwick topped 230,000 during the month in both 2007 and 2008.

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What about the hundreds of indirect jobs the airport will create?

Indirect employment is just a way of double-counting people who are already employed in other industries. If every industry counted its indirect employment the way airports do, the number of people employed in British industry would far exceed the total UK population!

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Is it true that every 1 million passengers creates 1,000 jobs?

Far from it. You’ve only got to look at airports that have the kind of passenger business that Manston hopes for to see the truth:

Bristol – 439 jobs per million passengers.

Bournemouth – 408 jobs per million passengers now, and expected to fall to 247 by 2015

Prestwick (another Infratil airport) – 248 jobs per million passengers, and that was before the last two rounds of redundancies.

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Surely we can trust Infratil’s numbers?

Infratil (who own Manston) also own Prestwick Airport near Glasgow. In autumn 2008 Infratil’s forecast for passenger numbers at Prestwick was 5.7 million by 2018 and 12 million by 2033...

Almost immediately, freight and passenger business plummeted, and Prestwick ran at a loss for the rest of the year. Shortly after that, 50 staff lost their job. By autumn 2010, passenger business had fallen so much that another 120 staff had been made redundant... so much for Infratil’s forecasts.

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Over 2,000 airport jobs if Manston gets night flights - isn't that great?

It would be if it were true. However, their promises rely on everything in Manston’s Master Plan coming good.

The Master Plan relies on a lot of other things happening, but doesn’t mention the need for scheduled night flights.

These 2,000 promised jobs won’t be created by scheduled night flights.

Infratil has never said how many jobs would be created just by the introduction of night flights.

Needle and threat

Charles Buchanan, CEO of Manston Tumbleweed Airport, has launched the next round of his campaign to make the airport more sellable. By his own admission, the airport is losing £5m a year, and the Kiwi overlords (Infratil) are desperate to rid themselves of this continual drain on resources.

Infratil are up-market barrow boys, buying companies to asset-strip or invest in, and then selling them on or milking them for all they're worth. Manston was one of their rare bad calls and is, quite frankly, an embarrassment - it always gets the very last (single) paragraph in their lengthy monthly reports to investors.

They have decided that the only way to get anyone else to swallow this bitter pill is to sweeten it with a sprinkling of night flights, making Manston the only 24 hour freight airport in the south east. Of course, this isn't how they're selling the night flights bid to Thanet District Council, far from it.

The yarn they're spinning for TDC is that their fairy tale Master Plan requires "based" airlines and aircraft, i.e. Manston is their "home" airport. And that based airlines and aircraft require longer flying days. And that means night flights.

This dubious logical chain leads Mr Buchanan to tell the world at large, and TDC in particular, that if he doesn't get his way over night flights, Manston will shut. Clearly the hope is that TDC will buckle under this shameless blackmail, grant the night flights, and Infratil will then stand a slightly better chance of finding a buyer for their least successful investment.

See how the threat to shut this basket case of an airport has been covered: Open & Shut Basket Case 1; and Open & Shut Basket Case 2.

Update on Aug 18, 2011 at 23:34 by HBM

See the coverage on ITV Meridian's pm news from 18th August: http://itv.co/nQqdR7 and keep your eyes peeled for the guy in the red shirt - he talks a lot of sense!

Sticky numbers

It's been a long time coming, but the wait is nearly over. York Aviation will be publishing the second half of their report tomorrow, supporting Manston's hare-brained notion that night flights will be the saving of the airport, and Thanet, and probably most of Kent.

The first part of York Aviation's report (supposedly) dealt with the economic and employment benefits of Manston getting busy - that was the carrot. The second part will cover the threat to Manston if it doesn't get the go-ahead for night flights - this is the stick.

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Job losses at Manston Airport

Four jobs are to go at Manston Airport in a cost-cutting programme amid speculation that a new service to New York is poised for take-off. The airport, owned by New Zealand company Infratil, has been losing money on its operations and needed to cut costs to give it a more secure future.

Airport chiefs recently examined working patterns to see where cost savings could be made. This process and staff consultation has identified savings of more than £350,000 and the loss of four roles. Charles Buchanan, airport chief executive, said:

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MAG quits KIACC as noise worries are 'ignored'

"The consultative committee has been treated with contempt and, in consequence, has failed to exert any influence over the legitimate environmental concerns of local residents. We have no time to waste on pointless meetings, and we no longer want our membership of the committee to constrain us in countering the pro-night-flight propaganda campaign which is being conducted through the local media."

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Infratil Annual Results 2011

Infratil's results are out, and they don't make happy reading for Manston, or Prestwick. I'm not an accountant, but the table of numbers doesn't look pretty - click it to big it.

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INFRATIL AIRPORTS EUROPE

Infratil's two remaining European airports continued to experience very difficult trading conditions. Notwithstanding excellent cost control, losses grew as traffic continued to weaken.

The airports in Glasgow and Kent represent 4% of Infratil's assets and contributed an EBITDAF loss of £5 million (NZ$10 million) for the year.

Management is very aware of this disproportionate value/contribution aspect and the situation is receiving the urgent attention it warrants.

There are several solutions possible, but regrettably the preferred one, an improving European aviation scene lifting activity and hence income, seems the least likely.

Increasing interest in Southend Airport

It seems that Stobart Group (owners of Southend Airport) are now starting to reap the benefits of their substantial investment in the airport. Unlike Infratil (owners of Manston Airport) they invested their own money, rather than seeking public subsidies.

While Infratil scrimped on monitoring equipment, and belatedly installed new radar only when co-funded by Vattenfall (the windfarm people), Stobart Group put their money where their mouth is and forked out for a new control tower, railway station, etc to the tune of £60m.

The upshot is that they have managed to snatch easyJet from Manston's jaws, and this may be a tipping point for both airports.

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Council reveals unsuccessful bid to develop Manston services

It's like pulling teeth

Kent County Council has been forced to reveal details of its unsuccessful £10.8 million bid for Government money to develop services for Manston airport.  Campaigners, No Night Flights, challenged KCC's refusal to release details of the Regional Growth Fund (RGF) application.

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Manston boss claims it wasn't a "sweetener"

Bitter-sweetener

Manston's boss has defended efforts to persuade the government to underwrite the costs of a new service out of the Kent airport. Chief executive Charles Buchanan said subsidies from the public purse were commonplace and it was unfair to describe them as sweeteners.

His comments follow our disclosure that KCC and Infratil, which operates the airport, had sought to persuade ministers to provide £600,000 to underwrite a twice-daily service out of Manston for the first three years of its operation.

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A closer look at that bid

The once-secret KCC funding bid

Bureaucracy being what it is, KCC and Infratil were obliged to spell out in detail the brazen cheek of their cash plea. Do please remember that Infratil is a New Zealand-based investment company, and that whatever profits it can (finally) squeeze out of this lemon of an airport will be going straight back to their antipodean investors, still smarting from years of multi-million pound losses.

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Yet another job forecast

From the once-secret KCC funding bid

What a wondrous thing is the Freedom of Information Act. Without it, we wouldn't know what KCC had said to the money-bags at BIS in their plea for free money. They have repeatedly tried to dodge FOI requests, until finally cornered by our tireless truth-seekers.

It will come as no surprise to the more cynical of our international readership that it's not just the tone and emphasis of what KCC and Infratil say in their bid that differs from what they've been saying publicly, it's the numbers too.

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KCC's empty begging bowl

In the middle of last year, the Government (in the form of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills - BIS) launched the Regional Growth Fund (RGF). The RGF aims to "support projects and programmes that lever private sector investment creating economic growth and sustainable employment. It aims particularly to help those areas and communities currently dependent on the public sector to make the transition to sustainable private sector-led growth and prosperity".

Across the length and breadth of our proud nation, there was a cacophony of snorts and oinks as snouts were pressed to the trough, greedy for their share of the £1.4 billion on offer. KCC was there, looking for a handout to support their crackpot proposal for a Parkway station at Manston, and some free money for the airport. Here's why they failed:

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Manston's job forecasts

Optimism or Deceit?

Bless 'em, they've got to spin the best yarn they can to persuade TDC to play ball over night flights, so Manston commissioned York Aviation to spin it for them. Cruelly dubbed by some as "the porkies from the Yorkies", the report from the independent aviation consultants has plucked some enticingly large numbers out of thin air.

They state, with what is intended as reassuring confidence, that by 2018 Manston will have created 2,070 direct jobs by handling 2,286,000 passengers a year - that's 1,104 jobs per million passengers. Let's see how that stacks up against reality:

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Airport expansion could bring 3,500 jobs

New research for Manston airport owners Infratil shows that the airport could create 3,500 jobs in the local economy, but only if more flexibility is allowed for night flights. The study by aviation consultants York Aviation into the economic impact of Manston suggests it would contribute nearly £65 million a year to the local economy by 2018, if its masterplan development is realised.

The research indicates the airport would provide direct employment for 2,070 people and a further 1,035 jobs in the wider economy by 2018, on the basis of the masterplan. The findings reinforce the claims in the airport's masterplan and Infratil's vision of developing a South East regional airport that would offer scheduled passenger services, chartered flights and handling international freight.

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Prestwick: Coming to the end of the runway?

Prestwick Airport in Scotland (some way outside Glasgow) is owned by Infratil, the company that owns Manston. Infratil's "vision" for Manston's future is pretty much where Prestwick is now - some freight, and a lot of passengers travelling on budget airlines. Some people just don't learn...

Prestwick Airport has always stuck with its "Pure Dead Brilliant" moniker, despite the outcry from squirming west coasters when it was adopted five years ago. But if you were asked to come up with an accurate description of the airport at present, those of a cruel disposition might be tempted just to omit the last word.

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