Waterford Airport

sunnysoutheast

EICVD wrote: »

Have a slight fondness for WAT myself for the same reason, don't remember the FR flights though. It was BA J-41's & Suckling Airways DO-228's. Anyone remember where those flights originated from? IIRC the BA flight was from STN?

Yes the BA flight was a Manx-operated Jetstream from Stansted in 1998ish. Many of our wedding guests flew in that way, a couple of whom apparently became hysterical when they saw the size of the plane.

Euroceltic used to fly in and out with an F-50 too.

CelticRambler

MYOB wrote: »

A runway extension would allow A319 or load-limited 737-800s to operate and hence allow mainline operators to consider flying to WAT.

And why would a "mainline" operator consider sending a >150seat aircraft to Waterford when current flights struggle to attract 50 passengers?

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

BE only need around 25-30 pax to break even on Dash 8. Plenty of EIR routes have loads of 50-70% during peak summer. I think the ATR72 need 24 pax to break even.

BE is, for the time being, a loss-making airline so whatever figures they notionally need to break-even, they're not breaking even. An ATR can break even on 1 passenger if the fare is high enough!

... And that's the crux of the matter: so many people clamouring for more services from their regional airport don't want to pay realistic fares - they want a low-cost service to a high-cost destination.

BonkeyDonker wrote: »

people argue that it is only two/two and a half hours from Dublin and this counts against it. To me this is also an advantage as if marketed correctly it can make use of this. It has the potential to be a nice little base to the UK for alot of south Leinster - given the motorways I would argue as far north as South Dublin.

You're right, but again a lot of those arguing that it is (as much as) 2h30m to Dublin are using Waterford City as a starting point. In the course of my research, I've been on the north side of Waterford city and it's taken 40 minutes to get to Waterford Airport, whereas from the Waterford Road in Kilkenny, I've arrived at Dublin airport in just over an hour and a half.

Waterford on its own simply does not have the population to support a "mainline" operator and a big 'planes, so if there are to be successful services from the airport, they need to use smaller aircraft and fly to high-value destinations that are not served by the major players, and market that as a "boutique" product to the residents of south Leinster and east Munster

I won't confess a slight fondness for Waterford, but a cold-blooded commercial interest. A route to London does not make commercial sense ... but hey, if the folks here are convinced it does, then you provide the financial guarantee and I'll have a 'plane there next month.

fr336

Hey CelticRambler, weren't you the guy who said the London - Waterford services were a decade ago when they were still going less than 2 years ago?

b757

man98 wrote: »

Don't Flybe have 2 aircraft coming in today? God forbid the Coastguard S-92 gets called out.
Also, €400k is all Waterford Airport needs to extend the runway, some of which has been secured. It's nothing like a new €1bn terminal like Dublin's. Waterford has potential, 2012 LFs to London show that.

They have a grant of 400k, they need a further 700-900k I believe.

billie1b

fr336 wrote: »

Hey CelticRambler, weren't you the guy who said the London - Waterford services were a decade ago when they were still going less than 2 years ago?

Maybe he was just 'rambling'

Irish Steve

Would some of the people that are so "down" on Waterford care to explain how Knock has managed to become the success that it has, given that it's in the middle of nowhere, and has a very low catchment population.

I'm 15 minutes north of Dublin, so Waterford is not really an option for me to use, but if all other factors were equal, I'd use an airport the size of Waterford in preference to one the size of Dublin every time, simply because the smaller airports are much nicer to use.

A long time ago now, (pre 9/11, Aer Arran and the Motorway from Dublin) I spent a lot of time commuting to Galway working on a potential start up airline that was going to do what Aer Arran ended up doing, from Galway, Sligo & Waterford, to several UK destinations, and at that time, pre Celtic Tiger, there was no concerns about load factors, they were there for the taking.

It didn't happen at that time, for all sorts of reasons, and a lot of people were disappointed by that failure, a few years later Aer Arran did pretty much the same as had been planned, and they made it work for a number of years.

With the right schedule, pricing and routes, I don't see any reason why Waterford can't have a larger slice of the cake than it has at present, but the Waterford area will have to get behind that concept in other areas to make it happen, with marketing support, and all the other things that people travelling to and from the airport will expect.

I don't see people knocking the ferry services out of Rosslare, they are subsidiary to the services out of Dublin. They are not as big, don't have the sailings that are available from Dublin, but they are relevant. In the same way, Waterford is not about to get 10 738's a day to the UK, but it should be possible to operate appropriate size aircraft on routes from Waterford and make a profit doing so.

CelticRambler

fr336 wrote: »

Hey CelticRambler, weren't you the guy who said the London - Waterford services were a decade ago when they were still going less than 2 years ago?

I was, and I'll stand by my comments. The fact that the route was staggering along into this decade (after it had bankrupted the airline that previously operated it) doesn't change the commercial reality.

fr336 wrote: »

The rest of your post I can't be bothered with. This was a successful, profitable route. The reasons behind it stopping seem to amount to more wide ranging commercial interests.

Successful and profitable? So you have access to Stobart's accounts? Wide ranging commercial interests - that's exactly what it should amount to. A route has no reason to exist without them and the problem I (and others like me) have is that there are too many people in Waterford who can't be bothered with the rest of my post and what it implies.

That's a real pity, because there is no shortage of interest in flights TO Waterford as an entry point into Ireland (hey, it's only a couple of hours from there to Dublin or Cork, places foreigners have heard of) ... but it's damn near impossible to get anyone in Waterford to tie their commercial interest to that of the outside world. Their loss, because these passengers get to Dublin, Cork and Galway by other routes.

L1011

Irish Steve wrote: »

A long time ago now, (pre 9/11, Aer Arran and the Motorway from Dublin) I spent a lot of time commuting to Galway working on a potential start up airline that was going to do what Aer Arran ended up doing, from Galway, Sligo & Waterford, to several UK destinations, and at that time, pre Celtic Tiger, there was no concerns about load factors, they were there for the taking.

Aerin? I think I'd have gone insane with the cackling coming from the founder :pac:

man98

Waterford - Luton did not bankrupt Euroceltic, this did:

On to other things, I live over an hour away from Waterford and would still be willing to use it. 90% LFs have been quoted for the Luton route, so I don't see why (at an average fare of €60 maybe) an airline couldn't break even. Celtic, you can only speak for yourself as I know many people who did, and still would, use Waterford Airport should desirable services return. A 400-500k catchment area is plenty big enough for charters and scheduled flights for people from the south east, let alone people from other countries. If I had the means, I would open up an airline and fly from Waterford.

fr336

Euroceltic? This thread confuses me more and more!

man98

fr336 wrote: »

Euroceltic? This thread confuses me more and more!

Celtic Rambler said that route BK'd Euroceltic.

notharrypotter

Euroceltic Airline based in Waterford.
They had plans to serve multiple destinations from Waterford.
Following an incident in Sligo where an Aircraft had to be written off they went Bankrupt.

They were never replaced as a based operator in Waterford.

No significant services have since been provided from from Waterford.

There are multiple factors involved.

Cost and conveince are the main ones mitigating any significant services.

EICVD

fr336 wrote: »

Euroceltic? This thread confuses me more and more!

Flew 2 F-27's (G-ECAH, T) from WAT to LTN after BA/Manx & Suckling had left Waterford. They flew a LTN-LPL route too (& possibly WAT-LPL) & a few Irish domestics, DUB-WAT & SXL (which is where that aircraft in the pic ran off the end of the runway)

fr336

Sorry am I on another planet? Aer Arann / Aer Lingus Regional / Stobart were providing significant services into Waterford for years until 2012.

EICVD

fr336 wrote: »

Sorry am I on another planet? Aer Arann / Aer Lingus Regional / Stobart were providing significant services into Waterford for years until 2012.

RE really grew around the early 00's, started with a few SH-360's but I think they only flew domestic with them, the UK routes only started when the ATR's were introduced.

fr336

EICVD wrote: »

RE really grew around the early 00's, started with a few SH-360's but I think they only flew domestic with them, the UK routes only started when the ATR's were introduced.

Yeah, but this was happening for a long while I think..I'd say from 2005/2006 time?

EICVD

fr336 wrote: »

Yeah, but this was happening for a long while I think..I'd say from 2005/2006 time?

Had a look there, the Euroceltic flights operated around 2001-03

Irish Steve

And even more significant in some respects, Ryanair , quote from Wikepedia

The airline began with a 15-seat Embraer Bandeirante turboprop aircraft, flying between Waterford and Gatwick Airport[6] with the aim of breaking the duopoly on London-Ireland flights at that time, held by British Airways and Aer Lingus.[7]

They then went on to serve Waterford, Galway and Sligo with ATR42's. and they were successful routes, long before things with Aer Arran, and latterly Euroceltic and others came into play.

The Key to getting routes into Waterford is the involvement of local business, which for whatever reason seems to be lacking in the Waterford area, and for any route to be successful, it needs to be generating traffic from both ends, and ideally year round,

Where things get complicated is when you have to decide if you are providing a business service or a leisure service. For business, an early departure from Waterford to important business hubs is needed, and that also then needs a late arrival back into Waterford so that the business customer can get home again, and that's expensive, as it needs multiple crews, and requires 2 rotations a day minimum from the other end. That can't be done with minimum crewing, due to duty hours limits, and can also mean extended hours at the airport, which increases the costs involved.

Leisure can be different, one rotation covers the requirement, and it can be during "normal" hours, so as an example, and this is totally speculative in terms of destinations, one aircraft could do something like WAT-LTN-WAT early, then a leisure route to (say) Rennes, and then another rotation to LTN arriving back at WAT late in the evening. There's not likely to be enough traffic to justify Rennes on a daily basis, so now, you have to find maybe 6 other places that are interested in a once a day service, which is not as easy as providing twice a day, which covers the business traveller. The next hassle is that there's not that much large business in the South East, so maybe a twice a day service to London area can't be justified, so what do you do with the aircraft early and late, one rotation a day doesn't pay the operating bills.

That's why I say that the commitment of the business community in the South East is needed, they have to be prepared to use the services, or promote them, or both, and that's apparently a problem, if recent times are anything to go by.

me leg

CelticRambler wrote: »

BE is, for the time being, a loss-making airline so whatever figures they notionally need to break-even, they're not breaking even.

No their not...

The Guardian, Wednesday 11 June 2014 15.02 BST

Flybe back in black
Flybe's chief executive, Saad Hammad, said: 'Our business is all about time-saving travel. We're competing against road and rail.'

Flybe's finances have returned to the black, after the regional airline turned around large losses after a painful period of restructuring.

Record numbers of passengers in the UK and fuller planes boosted a more efficient business at home, while its business operating planes for Finnair drove revenues abroad. Saad Hammad, its chief executive, said the results marked "the rebirth of Flybe".

Costs dropped 3.3% and the airline turned a profit of £8.1m for the year, after losses of £41.1m in 2012-13. The Exeter-based airline was severely dented by the economic downturn and implemented a turnaround plan, including widespread redundancies and pay cuts, in January 2013.

me leg

Hi All

Sligo incident was not the main reason that Euroceltic to go bankrupt, fraud and the loss of 2 million did.

Once Euroceltic started to operate the PSO services they decided to upgrade the aircraft to Fokker 50s. Initally NewAir operated a number of services for Euroceltic, generally both F27s operated Sligo & Donegal with a NewAir based F50 at Waterford operating Luton and Liverpool.

There were rumors of a merger between NewAir and Euroceltic but nothing happened. Euroceltic then signed an agreement with Aer Lingus to purchase 4 commuter F50s but this deal saw the end Euroceltic.

Elusive SA fugitive finally busted

July 1 2006 at 09:08am

By Carine Hartman and Michael Schmidt

The manhunt for internationally wanted fugitive Jean Claude LaCote, a South African-based reality TV producer sought in connection with murder and fraud totalling millions of rands, is finally over.

Aside from two extradition orders from Belgium against the 39-year-old French-born Canadian, high-powered Irish businessman Noel Hanley finally tracked down the man he claims swindled him out of more than R10-million for a double-storey mansion in Johannesburg. Hanley is making the allegations as part of a civil court case being brought against Absa, one of the largest banks in South Africa.

Belgian authorities have also been trying in vain to extradite high-flying LaCote. He faces criminal charges, firstly for the 1996 gang-style murder in that country of British engineer Marcus Mitchell, of Dorking, near London, whom LaCote admitted owed him l500 000, and secondly for allegedly defrauding six French businessmen "of millions of euros", authorities claim.

But a hunt that crossed three continents over the past six years finally ended amid high drama on Wednesday when a private investigator tracked LaCote down to a plush mansion in the quiet Johannesburg suburb of Observatory.

It was there, at the seven-bedroomed house he shares with girlfriend Hilda van Acker, that the flamboyant LaCote, who previously was held for four months in a Belgian jail in connection with the Mitchell murder, personally signed two sheriff's summonses for the Hanley hearing.

Said private investigator Marius Booysen, who accompanied the sheriff: "We've been trying for years to personally serve LaCote, whose cronies just always deny he's living at any given address, and we had to do it before the civil case lapses on July 14."

Hanley on Friday told the Saturday Star he was "elated" the elusive LaCote had been served: "I have been looking for him for more than three years now - and the South African authorities helped nothing, although I have begged the police, South Africa's Interpol and the Scorpions to get involved. I had to employ a private investigator, who tracked LaCote down in six short months."

LaCote, best known in SA as the executive editor of the reality TV crime series Duty Calls (screened on M-Net in 2000), has been on the run since his high-profile release in 1999 for lack of evidence in the Mitchell murder.

He reportedly fled to Brazil, leaving his Learjet behind, but when Belgian police unearthed further evidence in relation to the murder, Brazil declined to hand him over, saying the evidence against him was insufficient. Ever since LaCote arrived in this country, the Belgians have tried unsuccessfully to have him extradited.

When LaCote arrived here in 1999 to begin work on Duty Calls, he had already struck an agreement-in-principle with SAPS chief communications director Assistant Commissioner Jacob Ngobeni that the police would give whatever logistical assistance they could in the filming.

When LaCote was red-flagged by a customs officer on arrival at the Wonderboom Airport in Pretoria as a suspect sought by Interpol, the officer immediately phoned the agency's head, Director Reg Taylor.

But at the time Interpol was apparently unclear about the status of the charges against LaCote and Taylor merely instructed Superintendent Marianne Botha - tasked by Ngobeni with meeting LaCote and liaising with his film crew - to keep an eye on the man.

Duty Calls director Cedric Sundström told the Saturday Star LaCote was a "very charismatic high-flyer" and that when rumours of the charges pending against him began to circulate during filming of the series, "he told me that it was a case of mistaken identity, and I believed him because, after all, he wasn't in hiding: he was holding press conferences, conducting interviews and working with the police".

LaCote, who initially settled in Lonehill, dropped out of the public eye three years ago, after the series was sold to the Reality TV channel in Europe. Police who had worked with him expressed surprise this week that he was still in the country.

His double-storey Sir Herbert Baker-designed hideout at 15 Judith Street, Observatory is currently on the market for R13-million.

It includes a personal gym, state-of-the-art security and eight garages to house his three Ferraris and a luxury German car. He runs his "financial advisory consultancy" from the 3 000m² property he bought less than three years ago in November 2003 for R2,1-million.

LaCote allegedly used one of his many aliases, Roger Wilcox, during the alleged Hanley sting in 2003. During work on Duty Calls, he went by the name John LaCote.

Hanley, a Dublin shipping magnate and founder of the Irish airline Euroceltic Airways that collapsed that same year, intended to use €2-million to fund the acquisition of four used Fokker F-50 airplanes to save his ailing airline.

"Roger Wilcox" orchestrated this transfer from SA. But when Hanley tried to access the €2-million to pay for the aircraft, he discovered his Absa bank account had been emptied.

A high-ranking Absa official, whose name is known to the Saturday Star, was involved in the transaction, but left the bank immediately after the scandal broke in 2000.

LaCote and one of his many "companies", CPCorpCan, is being sued, with Absa Bank the third defendant, based on the allegation that the bank did not do enough to prevent Hanley's money being transferred from his account.

Hanley's case, due in the High Court in Pretoria early next year, will argue his bank did not have the correct checks in place to protect his money.

Hanley's case is one of the seven fraud cases against LaCote. The latest extradition request from Brussels, in April, is built around six known cases of French businessmen who claim they had been been swindled out of millions of euros by LaCote, who in 2000 admitted he appeared in courts in France and England for "tax issues arising from his father's Swiss gold export business" and not, as was then claimed, for defrauding numerous other businessmen there.

A frustrated Hubert van Outryve, the investigating officer of the Belgian Ministry of the Home Office, confirmed Belgium's two extradition requests but claimed "we had little co-operation from the South African authorities".

"We've had no response from South Africa on the latest request up to date," he said.

The first extradition request for LaCote to stand trial for the Mitchell murder was lodged with the Department of Justice in 1999 and LaCote defended it in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court, "and six years later that order is still open".

Even the most complicated extraditions are finalised within six months.

"We've only heard from LaCote's advocate, Marius van Huysteen, who demanded certain conditions, which the Belgian authorities refused," said Van Outryve.

"We'll have to investigate these claims," was the only comment from Lesley Mashokwe, a senior spokesperson for Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Brigitte Mabandla.

SA's elite crime-busting unit, the Scorpions, have been equally uninterested. All documentation was handed over to them in February this year but they would only admit to "receiving a query and we didn't act on it. We've got bigger fish to fry," a source close to them said. SA Interpol has also been approached without any results.

And a request for help to the police's Commercial Crimes Unit in Johannesburg from the International Police Liaison Office at the South African High Commission in London in August 2003, also seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

Tummi Golding, spokesperson for National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, who is current head of Interpol, said: "The matter of LaCote's extradition has been postponed until October and it will be heard at the Pretoria Magistrate's Court then. We know he applied for voluntary extradition, but it was refused by the Belgian authorities."

She would not comment on allegations of the

b757

The crash didn't really bankrupt Euroceltic.

From a news article a few months back:

"The manhunt for internationally wanted fugitive Jean Claude LaCote, a South African-based reality TV producer sought in connection with murder and fraud totalling millions of rands, is finally over.

Aside from two extradition orders from Belgium against the 39-year-old French-born Canadian, high-powered Irish businessman Noel Hanley finally tracked down the man he claims swindled him out of more than R10-million for a double-storey mansion in Johannesburg. Hanley is making the allegations as part of a civil court case being brought against Absa, one of the largest banks in South Africa.

Belgian authorities have also been trying in vain to extradite high-flying LaCote. He faces criminal charges, firstly for the 1996 gang-style murder in that country of British engineer Marcus Mitchell, of Dorking, near London, whom LaCote admitted owed him l500 000, and secondly for allegedly defrauding six French businessmen "of millions of euros", authorities claim.

But a hunt that crossed three continents over the past six years finally ended amid high drama on Wednesday when a private investigator tracked LaCote down to a plush mansion in the quiet Johannesburg suburb of Observatory.

It was there, at the seven-bedroomed house he shares with girlfriend Hilda van Acker, that the flamboyant LaCote, who previously was held for four months in a Belgian jail in connection with the Mitchell murder, personally signed two sheriff's summonses for the Hanley hearing.

Said private investigator Marius Booysen, who accompanied the sheriff: "We've been trying for years to personally serve LaCote, whose cronies just always deny he's living at any given address, and we had to do it before the civil case lapses on July 14."

Hanley on Friday told the Saturday Star he was "elated" the elusive LaCote had been served: "I have been looking for him for more than three years now - and the South African authorities helped nothing, although I have begged the police, South Africa's Interpol and the Scorpions to get involved. I had to employ a private investigator, who tracked LaCote down in six short months."

LaCote, best known in SA as the executive editor of the reality TV crime series Duty Calls (screened on M-Net in 2000), has been on the run since his high-profile release in 1999 for lack of evidence in the Mitchell murder.

He reportedly fled to Brazil, leaving his Learjet behind, but when Belgian police unearthed further evidence in relation to the murder, Brazil declined to hand him over, saying the evidence against him was insufficient. Ever since LaCote arrived in this country, the Belgians have tried unsuccessfully to have him extradited.

When LaCote arrived here in 1999 to begin work on Duty Calls, he had already struck an agreement-in-principle with SAPS chief communications director Assistant Commissioner Jacob Ngobeni that the police would give whatever logistical assistance they could in the filming.

When LaCote was red-flagged by a customs officer on arrival at the Wonderboom Airport in Pretoria as a suspect sought by Interpol, the officer immediately phoned the agency's head, Director Reg Taylor.

But at the time Interpol was apparently unclear about the status of the charges against LaCote and Taylor merely instructed Superintendent Marianne Botha - tasked by Ngobeni with meeting LaCote and liaising with his film crew - to keep an eye on the man.

Duty Calls director Cedric Sundström told the Saturday Star LaCote was a "very charismatic high-flyer" and that when rumours of the charges pending against him began to circulate during filming of the series, "he told me that it was a case of mistaken identity, and I believed him because, after all, he wasn't in hiding: he was holding press conferences, conducting interviews and working with the police".

LaCote, who initially settled in Lonehill, dropped out of the public eye three years ago, after the series was sold to the Reality TV channel in Europe. Police who had worked with him expressed surprise this week that he was still in the country.

His double-storey Sir Herbert Baker-designed hideout at 15 Judith Street, Observatory is currently on the market for R13-million.

It includes a personal gym, state-of-the-art security and eight garages to house his three Ferraris and a luxury German car. He runs his "financial advisory consultancy" from the 3 000m² property he bought less than three years ago in November 2003 for R2,1-million.

LaCote allegedly used one of his many aliases, Roger Wilcox, during the alleged Hanley sting in 2003. During work on Duty Calls, he went by the name John LaCote.

Hanley, a Dublin shipping magnate and founder of the Irish airline Euroceltic Airways that collapsed that same year, intended to use €2-million to fund the acquisition of four used Fokker F-50 airplanes to save his ailing airline.

"Roger Wilcox" orchestrated this transfer from SA. But when Hanley tried to access the €2-million to pay for the aircraft, he discovered his Absa bank account had been emptied.

A high-ranking Absa official, whose name is known to the Saturday Star, was involved in the transaction, but left the bank immediately after the scandal broke in 2000.

LaCote and one of his many "companies", CPCorpCan, is being sued, with Absa Bank the third defendant, based on the allegation that the bank did not do enough to prevent Hanley's money being transferred from his account.

Hanley's case, due in the High Court in Pretoria early next year, will argue his bank did not have the correct checks in place to protect his money.

Hanley's case is one of the seven fraud cases against LaCote. The latest extradition request from Brussels, in April, is built around six known cases of French businessmen who claim they had been been swindled out of millions of euros by LaCote, who in 2000 admitted he appeared in courts in France and England for "tax issues arising from his father's Swiss gold export business" and not, as was then claimed, for defrauding numerous other businessmen there.

A frustrated Hubert van Outryve, the investigating officer of the Belgian Ministry of the Home Office, confirmed Belgium's two extradition requests but claimed "we had little co-operation from the South African authorities".

"We've had no response from South Africa on the latest request up to date," he said.

The first extradition request for LaCote to stand trial for the Mitchell murder was lodged with the Department of Justice in 1999 and LaCote defended it in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court, "and six years later that order is still open".

Even the most complicated extraditions are finalised within six months.

"We've only heard from LaCote's advocate, Marius van Huysteen, who demanded certain conditions, which the Belgian authorities refused," said Van Outryve.

"We'll have to investigate these claims," was the only comment from Lesley Mashokwe, a senior spokesperson for Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Brigitte Mabandla.

SA's elite crime-busting unit, the Scorpions, have been equally uninterested. All documentation was handed over to them in February this year but they would only admit to "receiving a query and we didn't act on it. We've got bigger fish to fry," a source close to them said. SA Interpol has also been approached without any results.

And a request for help to the police's Commercial Crimes Unit in Johannesburg from the International Police Liaison Office at the South African High Commission in London in August 2003, also seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

Tummi Golding, spokesperson for National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, who is current head of Interpol, said: "The matter of LaCote's extradition has been postponed until October and it will be heard at the Pretoria Magistrate's Court then. We know he applied for voluntary extradition, but it was refused by the Belgian authorities."

She would not comment on allegations of the police's "disinterest".

LaCote did not respond to calls for comment this week."

b757

me leg wrote: »

Hi All

Weird!!

Exact same article. lol

CelticRambler

man98 wrote: »

Waterford - Luton did not bankrupt Euroceltic ...

How did Euroceltic suddenly enter this discussion? The bankrupt airline I was referring to was Aer Arran, but moving on ...

man98 wrote: »

I live over an hour away from Waterford and would still be willing to use it. 90% LFs have been quoted for the Luton route, so I don't see why (at an average fare of €60 maybe) an airline couldn't break even. Celtic, you can only speak for yourself as I know many people who did, and still would, use Waterford Airport should desirable services return. A 400-500k catchment area is plenty big enough for charters and scheduled flights for people from the south east ...

I agree with you that Waterford could be an attractive departure point - I know someone from Dublin's southside who would happily drive there in preference to going to Santry - but not on the basis of a London commuter shuttle. Average fares of 60€ are LoCo territory, and the LoCos can't operate from Waterford, so you need to look at someone like Flybe. Their average one-way fare in 2013 was £79.73 = 99€66 at today's exchange rate.

Ryanair's average fare is half that, and ex-Dublin RA flies to three "London" airports, so you're going to need to convince any new operator that a huge number of people will decide that it's worth paying twice the price for less flexible flight times and a single destination airport.

Knowing a few people who used to fly the route and a few more who have an emotional fondness for it isn't enough. Local businesses have to generate demand for the service. That is (would be) considerably easier to do on a route that has no competition rather than going head-to-head with everyone else.

man98

I was using €60 as a base price which it is probably higher than. I know flights to LTN started from €46, but never checked prices.

Plane Fan

Those July figures are pretty ok I go to the airport quiet often and so far in AUG MAN & BHX loads are touching at least 80%+ most days on a DH8D
The SEN switch was the mistake in my opinion .LTN was pulling in nice load factors right up till then. Even when we got downgraded to an ATR42 LTN still preformed
There is potential at Waterford for a London route and I hope we see it soon. I feel Stobart or Flybe are our only hopes

man98

Stobart won't touch WAT with a long stick. They came before, messed up by adding flights to SEN. Now that they have a thing going in SEN, they won't get back to a nicer London airport just to fly to WAT. Flybe probably will jump on in Spring 2015, maybe Summer or Autumn, provided no one beats them to it.

b757

man98 wrote: »

Stobart won't touch WAT with a long stick. They came before, messed up by adding flights to SEN. Now that they have a thing going in SEN, they won't get back to a nicer London airport just to fly to WAT. Flybe probably will jump on in Spring 2015, maybe Summer or Autumn, provided no one beats them to it.

If flybe were going to do it they would have the flights on sale now. Only one left is Stobart really. Plus, who is going to beat them? Easyjet? :P :pac:

fr336

b757 wrote: »

If flybe were going to do it they would have the flights on sale now. Only one left is Stobart really. Plus, who is going to beat them? Easyjet? :P :pac:

Well if they took up a route to Waterford I'd be having words with them if it wasn't from their head base :mad::pac:

I guess the only unlikely event of EZY giving it a go would be to wind up FR. But I doubt they care at all sadly.

wellboytoo

b757 wrote: »

If flybe were going to do it they would have the flights on sale now. Only one left is Stobart really. Plus, who is going to beat them? Easyjet? :P :pac:

Strong rumour Stobart looking for 40 pilots for next spring, maybe they took up that option on the 4 new ATR's, hopefully WAT in the picture!

man98

wellboytoo wrote: »

Strong rumour Stobart looking for 40 pilots for next spring, maybe they took up that option on the 4 new ATR's, hopefully WAT in the picture!

I was under the impression that Stobart just wet leased planes out to other airlines now? If so, the pilots could be flying anywhere in Europe.
Anyway, FlyBe are at a difficult stage. They're transitioning between LGW and LCY and SEN. They have been hit hard by recession and thus completely restructured their companies. You can see why they're being cautious, lest everything turn out badly. If and when it turns out well, Flybe will want to expand, imo that should be on time for Summer 2015.