Plymouth airport | Page 3 | PASOTI
  • Welcome to PASOTI. Sponsored by Lang & Potter

Plymouth airport

Lundan Cabbie

⚪️ Pasoti Visitor ⚪️
Sep 3, 2008
4,474
1,418
Plymouth
Is this why we should keep the airport.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62120130
Only 19 seats isn't going to help. They need an aircraft big enough to take enough passengers to cover the huge landing fees at the London airports. Plymouth Airport closed because it wasn't economically viable without the routes to Gatwick and London City. Those had stopped because the landing fees had been hiked. The larger capacity planes needed to spread those costs amongst more passengers need a longer runway.
 

Emu

Oct 3, 2003
4,725
926
Sarf London
The ideal aircraft for the airport would be the Airbus A220-100 (100 to 125 passengers). It only requires a runway of 1463m

1658244809462.png

Currently the runway at Plymouth is 1160m in length. Wonder if an extra 303m could be squeezed out of what's there? :sneaky:
 
Last edited:

Andy S

Administrator
Staff member
🇳🇿🇳🇿🇳🇿🇳🇿🇳🇿🇳🇿
🏆 Callum Wright 23/24
✅ Evergreen
Jade Berrow 23/24
✨Pasoti Donor✨
🌟Sparksy Mural🌟
Sep 15, 2003
6,728
3,177
72
The ideal aircraft for the airport would be the Airbus A220-100 (100 to 125 passengers). It only requires a runway of 1463m

View attachment 4817

Currently the runway at Plymouth is 1160m in length. Wonder if an extra 303m could be squeezed out of what's there? :sneaky:
In a word…no! A386 ar one end and a chuffing great factory the other. 415CAC34-84DA-4228-B549-044A91F5B9B6.jpeg
 
  • Like
Reactions: Brussels Bureaucrat

Steamer

✅ Evergreen
Oct 17, 2008
1,126
677
Essex
The point I was making is that the airport will come into its own in the future when newer electric planes are built and used for small airports, when silent vertical take off planes are used and so on. A place where drones can take off and land.
 

Quinny

Cream First
Jul 15, 2006
5,839
1,235
53
Kenton, Devon
The point I was making is that the airport will come into its own in the future when newer electric planes are built and used for small airports, when silent vertical take off planes are used and so on. A place where drones can take off and land.

It "may" come into it's own if and when newer electric planes like in that article start flying. Given that the first electric planes (usually conversions of small 2/4 seaters) are a relatively new technology, I suspect that small commercial planes like the one you highlighted won't be commonplace or mainstream for a couple of decades - even if that one does start flying commercially in 2027, how many will they look to produce annually? If a Plymouth-based airline was to place an order for 5 or 10 of them when that company started to take orders, when would they likely to be in service here? If the person in that article is talking about £25 tickets from London to Manchester, if similar charges were applied for flights from Plymouth to London Docklands, how many full planes would need to fly that route alone to make it commercially viable? What about other locations around the country? Then there's still the age-old argument about whether there's enough people locally who'd use that service daily to make it commercially viable, because there was never the interest in the past.

I really like the idea of electric planes, but I think we're a good 20-30 years away from seeing 30-40 seaters (if we take the base Dash-8 as a comparison) regularly in our skies, and I really can't see the point of keeping Plymouth Airport mothballed for that length of time, especially as there's still such uncertainty as to whether, even then, it would be commercially viable.
 

Steamer

✅ Evergreen
Oct 17, 2008
1,126
677
Essex
It "may" come into it's own if and when newer electric planes like in that article start flying. Given that the first electric planes (usually conversions of small 2/4 seaters) are a relatively new technology, I suspect that small commercial planes like the one you highlighted won't be commonplace or mainstream for a couple of decades - even if that one does start flying commercially in 2027, how many will they look to produce annually? If a Plymouth-based airline was to place an order for 5 or 10 of them when that company started to take orders, when would they likely to be in service here? If the person in that article is talking about £25 tickets from London to Manchester, if similar charges were applied for flights from Plymouth to London Docklands, how many full planes would need to fly that route alone to make it commercially viable? What about other locations around the country? Then there's still the age-old argument about whether there's enough people locally who'd use that service daily to make it commercially viable, because there was never the interest in the past.

I really like the idea of electric planes, but I think we're a good 20-30 years away from seeing 30-40 seaters (if we take the base Dash-8 as a comparison) regularly in our skies, and I really can't see the point of keeping Plymouth Airport mothballed for that length of time, especially as there's still such uncertainty as to whether, even then, it would be commercially viable.
20-30 years is nothing... think about the next 200-300 years .. or don't you think Plymouth will still be around ...
 
Jan 2, 2010
1,553
227
I always hear the carbon footprint arguement when people are against reopening the airport, but if enough people to fill a plane are training, caring, or coaching their way to London, Bristol,or Cardiff then surely local travel agents could work together to schedule holidays for the same day?
When a huge percentage of my holiday is getting to the airport then I'm sure I would be more flexible with dates and locations to save the cost of moving a family to the flights.
 

Frank Butcher

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
✨Pasoti Donor✨
Oct 9, 2003
5,319
1,470
Gairloch
Well, I and my other half could be new and regular customers now. Bristol is such a bind.

So shortsighted to let it go. The city and region has so much to offer - just needs a decent marketing department.
 
Aug 30, 2006
1,732
528
Sheffield
Once again it is a case of private profits being given greater priority than the wider benefits
There’s a similar situation with Doncaster Sheffield airport where a property company has just announced that it is not viable to run it as an airport and wish to use the land for housing/ warehouses.
Despite its proximity to the major conurbations of Doncaster, Sheffield, Rotherham and Chesterfield and having Leeds, Derby and Nottingham within an hour’s drive the usage fees have scared off all airlines except TUI who have sole use of the longest runway in the land. ( The airport was previously the base for Vulcan bombers).
It’s not by any stretch of the imagination a coincidence that, not only does Peel Holdings have large stakeholdings in Manchester and Liverpool airports, but it waited patiently for a dual carriageway link road to be built linking its site to the M18 , which in turn connects with M1, A1 M62 , M180… before it decided DSA was unviable
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Emu

smudja

🏆 Callum Wright 23/24
✅ Evergreen
Jade Berrow 23/24
🎫 S.T. Donor 🎫
Auction Winner 👨‍⚖️
✨Pasoti Donor✨
🌟Sparksy Mural🌟
Dec 29, 2005
1,322
588
Glenrothes
Heathrow has the longest UK runway. Followed by Manchester and Gatwick. Doncaster/Sheffield airport uses RAF Finningley runway which is shorter than Brize Norton Fairford and a few more lesser known strips