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.

Straight from the horse's orifice...

In the interests of even-handedness and fair play, I thought I would publish Manston's statement on the importance of night flights, despite it being crap. Large chunks of this have been regurgitated by the local press.

If you can bring yourself to plough through this litany of self-serving distortions and special pleadings, do please bear a few things in mind:

• The "independent" report was produced by York Aviation, who describe themselves thus: "A specialist firm of air transport consultants providing a complete consultancy service for the airports business, including aviation policy advice, economic impact assessment, air traffic forecasting, and specialist advice on airport capacity assessment and planning."
• The airport already had a ban on regular (i.e. scheduled) night flights when Infratil bought it. The long-standing S106 agreement with Thanet District Council allows for unavoidable and unscheduled late arrivals.
• I repeat: this is what they bought. It said "No Night Flights" on the tin when they picked it off the shelf.
• The thousands of jobs referred to throughout this blurb only exist in the forecasts made in Manston's Master Plan.
• Passenger airlines don't decide which airports to use on the basis of what times of day they can fly. They decide on the basis of whether their planes will be full or not.
• Infratil want to make Manston a 24-hour freight hub, and then sell it.

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Open and Shut Basket Case 2

Night flight ban could crush Manston

Airport chiefs at Manston say restricting night flights at Manston could strike a huge blow to the recovery of the local economy - and put the site’s very existance in doubt. According to the final part of independent research into its future economic impact, imposing stringest restriction could cost an estimated 1.3 million passengers and 67,000 tonnes of freight by the 2018.

The airport wants to expand its flight times as it seeks to grow - but opponents say such a move would create more noise for residents. Thanet District Council has been split by the proposals - with the Tory group backing them and Labour opposing. The Conservatives hold a one-seat majority at the local authority.

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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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Why Steer Davies Gleave?

This is from the internal KCC document that describes how the contract (to produce the supporting report for the £10m RGF bid) was awarded.

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Outline of Project

Although KCC has previously carried out some outline feasibility work for the proposed Thanet Parkway station (most recently in July 2009), this requires significant updating and development; including more comprehensive passenger demand forecasting and a full feasibility design of the station and car park, if a robust and credible RGF bid is to be prepared. The Government is particularly interested in the job creation potential (both direct and indirect) of proposed schemes, which has not previously been a requirement of traditional transport appraisals. For these reasons, and in light of the challenging timescale for the submission of a first-round RGF bid, it was agreed with the Director of Integrated Strategy and Planning that KCC should invite three technical consultants to tender for this work.

Reasons for appointing this particular Consultant:

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Manston calls for 'congestion charge' on bigger airports

Special pleading, spineless bleating

Bosses at Manston are calling on the government to implement a "congestion charge" at London's main airports because of the "devastating impact" of Air Passenger Duty (APD) on smaller airports. The proposal is part of Manston's submission to the government's consultation on APD, which it is estimated could cost the public, visitors and businesses an extra £1bn a year.

Manston is arguing that the tax will severely hit regional economies, and in particular the tourism sector, by hindering the growth of regional airports. As a result Manston is proposing that the most effective way to deliver the government's "Better not Bigger" initiative is to set APD levels at a lower level for uncongested regional airports with significant available capacity to help alleviate congestion and improve the passenger experience at the main London airports.

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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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Protesters claim research is misleading

Campaigners against proposals for regular night flights at Manston airport have questioned research claiming growth would provide 3,000 jobs. Campaigners from the No To Night Flights group questioned the basis for the figures. They claim Bournemouth airport handles 1 million passengers with 247 jobs and Stansted estimated its jobs total will soon fall to 330 per 1 million passengers.

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Belfast route opens

New flights have started between Manston and Belfast's George Best airport. The first of the Flybe services arrived in Thanet at lunchtime on Thursday. Flights will run between Manston and Belfast three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. The route takes 90 minutes and will initially run for the summer, with plans to extend it if the service proves popular.

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Where do Manston's job forecasts come from?

Only the crumbliest, flakiest statistics...

There is an outfit called Airports Council International Europe (ACI Europe), a trade body for airport operators, whose key objective is:

"Cohesion between airports and industry partners in order to improve the public perception of civil aviation and in particular to ensure a clear understanding of the social and economic benefits of environmentally sustainable air service and the conditions necessary for the delivery of these benefits."

In 2002, they commissioned York Aviation to produce a report entitled "The social and economic impact of airports in Europe". York Aviation describe themselves as:

"A specialist firm of air transport consultants providing a complete consultancy service for the airports business, including aviation policy advice, economic impact assessment, air traffic forecasting, and specialist advice on airport capacity assessment and planning."

York Aviation is an associate member of ACI Europe.

• Their report was based on data from 2001, and was published in December 2004. Get it here.
• Less than a fifth (59 of 331, 18%) of ACI Europe's member airports were analysed to produce the report.
• At the levels of workload that apply to Manston's Master Plan (between 1 and 4 million passengers a year) they analysed 11 of 80, or 14% of the ACI Europe member airports.
• From this sample, they arrived at an "arithmetic average" of 1,034 jobs per million passengers. Compare this to the actual figures in the UK at the time in these graphs.
• York Aviation's forecast of 2,070 direct jobs at Manston in 2018 is based on applying this number to the 2 million passengers a year projected in Manston's Master Plan.

Job forecasts based on ten year old statistics, from a tiny sample, applied to an "aspirational" growth projection, seven years into the future. I think raising Thanet's hopes on the strength of this is simply cruel.

Manston's Master Plan

Science, Art, or just Crystal Balls?

Time for a bit of time travelling. Cast your mind forward, if you will, to a point in time a couple of years after the Olympics. Not the London Olympics, the next lot, in Rio de Janeiro. Whoosh... you're in the year 2018. It's hard to know what your life will be like then, or what the world around you will be like.

Any idea how much it will cost to fill up your car, or what you'll be filling it with? Or how many people will be living in your house? Or who will be running the country? As the marvellous Yogi Berra  put it: "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."

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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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BBC: Biased Broadcast Coverage?

Yesterday saw the official launch of Manston's latest bid to stuff our ears full of planes, round the clock. Charles Buchanan got favourable coverage on BBC TV, and uncritical coverage on BBC Radio Kent. Not everybody is pleased...

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I saw the news today and felt like hitting the idiot who claims 3000 jobs will be created. What about the thousands of people who will have interrupted sleep and just do not want this????? I feel so angry and helpless.

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Another bid for Night Flights

Headline Findings
By 2018, Manston, as Kent's international airport, through delivering its Master Plan would:

• Generate an additional £65m Gross Value Added (GVA) for the East Kent economy;
• Create 2,070 direct jobs, and a further 1,035 indirect and induced jobs;
• Attract 2,286,000 passengers and handle 167,500 tonnes of freight;
• Support a balanced freight and passenger customer base;
• Create a sustainable and commercially viable South East regional airport.

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Nothing to smile about

The economics of the marketplace are impartial and unforgiving, grimly scything down any business models that are weak, lame or faltering.

Plenty of people want to go to Manchester, and plenty of people want to come to East Kent. Evidently, not enough people want to travel between the two. So the Manchester route failed. Within a year, we'll find out how many people want to travel between East Kent and Belfast.

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Dont rely on Manston

"Dont rely on Manston to rescue East Kent" warn Kent Lib Dems

Liberal Democrats at Kent County Council have welcomed the joint government / Kent County Council plan for the development of East Kent, but warned of the danger of relying too much on any employment opportunities of Manston airport.

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New station 'would help airport lift off'

A proposed Thanet Parkway station would give a fantastic boost to Manston airport but the terminal would still grow without it, its boss has said. Charles Buchanan, chief executive of Kent International Airport, said rail links between Ramsgate and London were already much better, with high-speed journey times down to 75 minutes. A Parkway station close to the airport would cut this to around 64 minutes, although he would like to see it fall tobelow 60 minutes. But he insisted that the terminal would grow with or without the station.

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