Member Info for birddog816

The normal hope over expectation statement. So nothing aside from a handful of flights by Easyjet this summer that might produce 60,000 passengers. Now hoping for recovery in summer 2023. Pretty much every other airport is expecting recovery back to near 100% of 2019 numbers this summer. Southend set to hit around 5% of 2019 numbers. It's mid march and it seems no other airlines, including Ryanair and Wizz are interested. They would sooner put their passengers through a crowded Stansted or Luton. There must be a reason for that.

Dontgiveup - 100% with you. These poor people of Ukraine. what an awful world we live in right now.

To be entirely fair to ESKN why would they have put in their risk register in 2019 any of the events described below! Unimaginable, unprecedented, unforeseen...take your pick. However, they were already on a fairly steep downward curve before these events with only the most optimistic of projections (however unlikely they were) showing recovery. Especially on the aviation side.

The reality is that they are where they are with the events Parsnip alludes to adding to an already stressed position in early 2020. They have some easy jet flights for this year which is great, which should produce a throughput of around 50,000 passengers. Lets say this doubles, or even trebles, it is woefully short of the 2.1m of 2019. a year in which the airport still lost money. Aggregated losses for Southend Airport of around £50m for 17/18/19, with aggregate passenger numbers of around 4m. In other words a loss of £12.50 per boarded passenger before the pandemic hit.

it's difficult to see how they will trade through this and demonstrate profitability going forward. Both the aviation side and the group going forward as it currently sits.

What will bring it up? - Southend airport is possibly the quietest airport in the country, with only 10 flights a week for the high season booked up, with virtually nothing else going on outside of high summer. Wizz air have now removed Southend from their booking engine so difficult to see where any significant improvement will come from. Is the Biomass division operating well?

This is great news for the airport. 10 flights a week for the summer equals about 50,000 passengers. This is a promising start for sure, but I would think to cost of ramping up to serve these flights will be greater than the revenue generated. They will need a lot more for it to have a positive effect but this is certainly a positive start.

haha yes TF - Can't imagine that wouldn't serve as an own goal ultimately though.

Do we know what this actually means? - Amazon were running 6 flights a day, now it's just 1. If they will increase this back up to the 6 then this will indeed be a good boost. I guess it's down to what is promised in the contract and what the cancellation terms are, like any contract. Not sure the 1 flight a day will make any positive impact on either the cash position, BS or P&L. Back up to 6 would surely be positive.

It seems the logical thing to do is to keep the biomass division operating and producing and lose the aviation side somehow. Either by selling it for what they can or letting it go to the wall. They are clearly not very good at Aviation. 2 airports, 1 airline and 1 aircraft leasing company. All of which have lost staggering amounts in their time under STOB / ESKN ownership. LSA used to make a modest profit prior to STOB involvement, as did the airline when it was Aer Arann. The leasing company was set up to restructure the airline essentially. Covid certainly hasn't helped them with the Aviation side, but is certainly not the root cause of its failure either. I believe I am correct when I say that none of the Aviation companies have ever made a profit under STOB / ESKN.

The biggest issue for ESKN , certainly on the aviation side, is repairing the mistakes of the past....of which there have been a number of high profile, high cost events, most if not all started pre covid. Covid has decimated the aviation sector in the UK and unfortunately for Southend Airport they are the low hanging fruit that gets effected first and hardest. Depending on your own viewpoint, recovering from these events may have been possible without covid hitting, but the reality is that it has hit and it's effects will be long lasting and game changing. The BOD have done what they can to reduce the hit as much as possible and to at least extend the life support for a little longer. TFs assumption that further asset stripping will be required in order to get cash in the door seems the only logical path. But at what cost? They will soon be simply managing someone else's airport it seems. If the new owners (presumably Carlyle) want it as an airport that is.
Supercharger makes some valid points regarding the wider picture of airline recovery and there are certainly some positives, however it is difficult to imagine how these will manifest into a recovery for Southend Airport? They don't have any airlines, so any uptake in the industry will be for others benefit. A cut in domestic APD has zero effect to Southend for example.
For the record, I'm local to Southend and really want to see a successful airport. I'm just not sure that will come about with the current lease holders and management.

Ah bless ya there, hiding behind your username and ****ging people off that you know nothing about.
I have worked closely with Stobart / Esken over the years and know exactly what they are about. It's delusional BS in my opinion- But go ahead and keep believing what you believe. That's entirely up to you. People have differing opinions for a variety of reasons. So **** someone off because they have a differing opinion to yourself. Amazing skills. I'm guessing you must work for Esken? And who do you think you are instructing others how and what to post?

ExFlight - 100% agree with everything you say

Quick fact check here regarding Southend Airport :
Ryanair are leaving totally by Sunday...this sunday. No based planes, in fact zero flights at all. There is no commitment at all for them return for the summer 2022 season.
Wizz are NOT at Southend. There is no tangible evidence that they will go to Southend next year. In fact quite the opposite as they look to expand at Luton and Gatwick
EasyJet - Again, no tangible evidence they would come anywhere near Southend. The relationship is damaged
The airport will be closing during the afternoon from 1st Nov.
The only commercial flight is one a day for Amazon to Germany at night.
The cut in domestic APD will benefit the regional airports and airlines. Southend is neither.

Opinion.
Cargo flights Southend to Carlisle? - Simply not feasible and offers no advantage to anyone. Neither anywhere near the main cargo hubs. Totally cost prohibitive too.
Summer 22 - Will see an uptake in flying for sure, but not enough to generate anything meaningful at Southend. It will cost more to operate the airport 'normally' than simply mothball it.
If Southend Airport is the rationale for investing in ESKN then maybe hope the biomass does exceptionally well to cross fund the aviation side.

If that is true then that is a big hit. A quick look would suggest Propius certainly did own these planes and leased them to GDA.
Whether they offloaded these planes before now is more difficult to find.

The reality is that the pandemic is not the only reason Southend has lost airlines. It was losing them prior to covid and losing plenty of cash prior to covid too. TF is absolutely right - they lose less money by not operating. The justification they use is that Southend is cheaper than the other airports for the airlines - but at what expense? It's pretty clear that the prices might be cheaper, but the costs certainly aren't. Selling below cost doesn't seem a particularly good business model.

Therefore, the decision taken alongside our airline partners to delay the restart of commercial passenger operations to Spring 2022

Do we know who these airline partners are?

Seems an odd investment. Why buy a high speed baggage scanner when there are no bags to scan.

Certainly an encouraging bounce. Not sure what's caused all the confidence? - I guess it's the biomass side. Not going to be the aviation side that's for sure!

Hi SC. - I missed that announcement re EasyJet - Have the said they are considering returning to Southend?

measuredd - totally right.
It's 2 fold - The S106 only allows 10% of air traffic to be cargo. With zero passenger flying booked in from October it's only the flying clubs and other incidental air traffic making up the numbers. Nowhere near what's required though. It will be interesting to see how the local council address this.
On the passenger side, the primary attraction for Southend is that all the others are full up at peak time. We all know that this is not the case now, and won't be for a good few years yet. Unfortunately, Stobart / Esken cost base doesn't align with the overspill model, instead needing to hit 6-7m passengers PA to make it work. In order to achieve these numbers will roughly mean a landing or take off every 3 minutes from 6:30 - 23:00 all day every day, 7 days a week during the summer, and every 8 minutes during the winter. This without any of the cargo or other planes coming in. The airport itself does not have the infrastructure to support that , neither is there the local road infrastructure to support it. Add on to this that it is surrounded by housing, the rising environmental and noise issues and it's difficult to understand or comprehend the direction Esken are taking this airport.
The cargo on it's own won't be able to sustain keeping the lights on for long. It simply helps slowing the cash burn and prolonging the life support for a few extras months. The only way Southend Airport will remain Southend Airport is a massive debt write off and start again with the basics. - IMHO. Not sure that whether or how that could involve Esken.

It's difficult to imagine that Ryan Air's intentions were not known before the cash raise. The good news is that ESKN will be better off cash wise in the short term because of it. Says a lot about the business plan.
Last week I stated that anyone could sell a tenner for a fiver. - Seems Esken didn't quite manage it!