Reality hits home, Infratil leave town
Delusion has finally been swept away by the onslaught of reality and Infratil are throwing in the towel. This has been a long time coming, and Nostrildamus predicted it in November 2010.
Manston Airport has been put up for sale. Bosses at Kent International Airport told staff at 10.30am yesterday (Friday) morning. The shock decision was made by owners Infratil. The New Zealand-based company also plans to sell its airport at Prestwick near Glasgow.
IoT Gazette 8th March 2012
This is obviously bad news for all those employed at the airport. Manston was clearly one of Infratil's rare bad investments, and the workforce at the airport did their best to make a silk purse out of a flying pig's ear, but to no avail. After having been strung along for so long, I hope that they get decent redundancy packages from Infratil. Except Charles Buchanan, and whoever runs their complaints department, obviously.
One excellent aspect of this is that TDC now have an unmissable opportunity to start with a clean slate. If Manston is sold as an airport, the Council can enter into fresh negotiations with the new owners and arrive at a planning permission that satisfies the owner's need for a stable long-term framework within which to develop their business plans, and the Council can write a new S106 agreement that is effective in protecting the interests of the residents of north-east Kent.
Have a look at these posts for a positive take on how we could get a win-win result.
Charles Buchanan, Complaints, Planning, S106, Sale Infratil, Manston, Night flights, TDC
Reader Comments (72)
http://www.hernebaymatters.com/nonightflights-blog/psst-want-to-buy-an-airport.html
Come on big man!
I'm interested that you think that only the comment that I put in brackets "is a complete fabrication and is a piece of blatant disinformation." I assume that means that you accept my other remarks to be correct.
As for your accusation, I can assure you that the investor grapevine is saying just that. Moreover, the first part of that comment is an undeniable fact - Manston has no track record of success.
Secondly, many serious investors are saying that Manston has no future as an airport. Are they right? Well, if someone buys it as an airport, we'll find out in time. However, regardless of what you think of Manston's future, the people I talk to won't put their money in it as an airport. I don't see how you can accuse me of "complete fabrication" and "blatant disinformation" when I'm reporting what I hear in the market.
Have you not read http://www.flybe.com/corporate/investors/presentations/2011-12-half-year-09112011.pdf. Doesn't look like an airline with a dodgy financial position. Looks more like a well run airline recognising that a passenger service on a peninsula is always going to be a loser.
You are clearly unprepared to reveal your identity or your information sources. You are either delusional or a corporate lackey. Either way you still offer nothing of value or factual interest, and several veiled threats. So whether you are an ice-cream salesman or Mr Manston's flying juggernaut charge-hand, you have failed and are as useful as chocolate teapot of as believable as a flying boar.
Manston has never been a success story. Even the MOD got rid of it as it is of no use. Since it's sale it has been failure after failure after failure. Who would want to waste even more money in this place? It would be a much better option to use that land for housing instead of building on local farmland next to Westwood Cross.
Basic logic has always said that is the case.
Any potential passengers in West Kent are closer to Gatwick and/or London City.
Any in Sussex Surrey are closer to Gatwick & Heathrow.
Any in Essex are closer to Stanstead.
Always has been so and always will be, so this gives Manston the enormous catchment area of... North East Kent! Hmmm.
Yet poor old Roger Gale, and poor old TDC keep taking whatever bulls**t the successive owners of Manston (whoever they may be!) feed them, like a couple of old Foie Gras Geese.
Ten million passengers, ten thousand jobs...yeah, yeah, yeah.
The definition of madness? To keep doing the same thing and expect a different result! Doh! :-P
Get BRAVE TDC, Disneyland Paris, Alton Towers etc. etc. were all just bits of land until someone had some VISION!
This week's Thanet Times featured a shoddy piece of research on an airline called Skyways, which was coming to Manston 50 years ago. Shoddy, because Skyways was already in financial difficulties when the Gazette published the original article. Within six months their planes were bought by a Stansted-based company and the Manston flights never happened.
And this is the story of Manston. All hype and bluster, with the Gazette happy to print whatever was given to them. In reality Manston has simply been a long succession of failures. I don't accept that this is all because the people operating Manston have been incompetent. I think the evidence is overwhelming that it is poorly situated and not commercially viable as a passenger airport. This was all pointed out in a consultants' report, delivered to TDC in advance of the RAF departing.
So, why did TDC and KCC push ahead with trying to turn it into the next London airport? After ten wasted years and millions of wasted pounds it's time to oust the wishful thinkers in favour of hard-nosed commercial reality.
http://www.itv.com/meridian-east/manston-on-sale55669/
So are British airways going to start buying airports?
Please. The morons peddling this rubbish - Charles Manston, dave foley and roger gale - need to wake up.
The guy from cpre was even saying that if freight comes down to Manston from elsewhere it solves the London capacity issue. FREIGHT IS MOSTLY CARRIED IN THE HOLD OF PASSENGER AIRCRAFT.
How do these people manage to get themselves dressed??
[HBM: Oh Dear posted this at 3:31am]