Carlisle Lake District Airport (finally) opens – but with very few flights

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• HAM76 says:

  5 Jul5 July 05:24

  How does an airport make money with just 15 flights per week?

  • Anna says:

    5 Jul5 July 06:00

    I know! It doesn’t mention pricing but there are already plenty of cheap flights to Dublin and Belfast from Manchester and Liverpool so I can’t see those of us in the NW using it much. Now if Loganair started flying to Gatwick…

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:

      5 Jul5 July 06:34

      Carlisle is over 2hrs drive from both Liverpool and Manchester. I can envisage people in the NW using it, specifically those that live closer to Carlisle than Manchester or Liverpool.

      Carlisle has a large catchment not limited to the NW. There are people to the east and a whole country to the north. Infrequent flights is liable to be a bigger issue.

      • Anna says:

        5 Jul5 July 06:49

        That was my point – I doubt it can compete with £35 Ryanair flights. But Carlisle is 90 mins from us so would definitely use it if there were more flights to southern England or northern Scotland.

        • Mr(s) Entitled says:

          5 Jul5 July 06:58

          My point was that you can’t make comments such as “I cant see those of us in the NW using it” just based on your proximity to Manchester. Much in the same way London does not equal the UK, Manchester does not equal the NW.

          Basically anything from Lancaster north, including all of the Lake District, is closer to Carlisle.

        • Pgw says:

          5 Jul5 July 07:33

          Because Carlisle is on the West Coast main line there is little difference in journey time and cost for most Lancashire residents between it and Manchester/Liverpool.

        • Anna says:

          5 Jul5 July 11:05

          I can make an observation if I see fit and based on my personal experience. I did mention Liverpool as well. I would hazard a guess that the number of people living within an hour of MAN and/or LPL is vastly greater than the number living within a similar distance to Carlisle, therefore those two airports will continue to offer the best travel options for the region.

        • Mr(s) Entitled says:

          5 Jul5 July 11:26

          Anna – You can make a comment based upon your observation but you shouldn’t extrapolate a sample size of one to cover a geographical area comprising of 7.7m people.

          Clearly people in the NW will use it. At least one HfP reader already has. Werther or not there is enough of them is a different matter.

        • Lady London says:

          6 Jul6 July 10:16

          Sounds like more chance of any delays being longer than 3 hours then.

    • Tim T says:

      5 Jul5 July 07:07

      The opening of Carlisle halves the distance and time to my nearest commercial airport, and is great news.

      Also you appear to assume that nobody would see Carlisle and the surrounding area as a destination.

      I for one am very pleased to see it open and I hope it is a success. The area needs this kind of investment.

      • Anna says:

        5 Jul5 July 11:20

        I have spent enough time in traffic queues from Windermere to Penrith to know exactly how popular the surrounding area is! But I wonder if people coming from Dublin for a holiday would pay £100 to fly to Carlisle when they can pay £35 to fly to Liverpool?

  • Rui N. says:

    5 Jul5 July 07:00

    It doesn’t and it will not make money. Something like 90% of airports with less than 1 million passenger per year in Europe do not have an operational profit (let alone pay for capital expenditures).

    • Shoestring says:

      5 Jul5 July 08:51

      [The Treasury has confirmed that proposed routes from Carlisle to London Southend, Belfast and Dublin are among five to share a £7m subsidy for new services from regional airports.]

  • Paul says:

    5 Jul5 July 08:41

    The news is slightly disingenuous. Carlisle has many ‘regular’ flights already, just not public transport. BAE systems are a regular user, along with many other company and private charters. The general public are not the be all and end all of quite a few airports, which is probably why quite a few airports are airports, not shopping malls with runways attached…

• Simon says:

  5 Jul5 July 05:53

  In the routing the first Singapore should be a Stockholm, I think.

  • Rob says:

    5 Jul5 July 08:34

    Fixed!

• ELT says:

  5 Jul5 July 07:00

  O/T BAPP downgrade to blue and then back up after 5.months.
  I.ve done this a number of times so as not to trigger the 241 so early.
  This time I have been told on phone, twice, it will not be poss to upgrade later.
  Should I believe this?
  Is it new policy? In line with all the other worsening Amex conditions?
  Thanks

  • Rob says:

    5 Jul5 July 08:33

    This is the same call centre that tells you that you lose your 241 if you cancel and that you must hold a BA Amex to pay the taxes when you book …..

    • Zac B says:

      5 Jul5 July 09:24

      I downgraded my BAPP to the basic BA Amex. I’d already earned my 241 on the BAPP.
      Now I’ve downgraded though, it still tells me I have 8k left to hit 20k spend and to trigger my 241 voucher – and the anniversary date is the same. So technically, it looks like I could trigger a second 241 voucher in the same anniversary year. Is this just a technical glitch or is it true?

      • Blenz101 says:

        5 Jul5 July 10:08

        I’ve had the same in the past, triggering a 2-4-1 on the BAPP, downgrading and then triggered again on the regular card.

        Ended up with one 2-4-1 with a 2 year expiry and one which expired in a year.

        • Anna says:

          5 Jul5 July 11:22

          Though now that sign up bonuses have become so difficult to achieve, it might just be easier to close one BAPP, apply for a second a few months later and trigger a 2nd 2 4 1 which would also have a 2 year expiry.

• Leafwarbler says:

  5 Jul5 July 08:04

  OT : I have a $ invoice to pay and the retailer has provided a Paypal link. Are there any gotchas I need to be aware of paying with my Curve card?
  Thanks

  • John says:

    5 Jul5 July 08:21

    Make sure you pay in $ and don’t let paypal convert. Paypal keeps changing its web interface so sometimes it is tricky to avoid paypal conversion and sometimes it is obvious

• Ian says:

  5 Jul5 July 08:20

  I do hope Carlisle airport is a success but one thing that appears to be lacking is any public transport link into the city, unless someone with local knowledge can advise otherwise please? If I fly up there, I will not want to hire a car and a return taxi ride will add appreciably to the cost of the trip.

  • Andrew Bowness says:

    5 Jul5 July 08:42

    The free bus is going to be picking people up 15 mins after the expected arrival time of flights? That seems… optimistic.

    • Zac says:

      5 Jul5 July 09:26

      If there’s only a maximum of 33 people on any plane that lands, its quite achievable I’d say.

    • Thomas Howard says:

      5 Jul5 July 09:34

      All flights arrive from within the Common Travel Area so there is no border control, or customs (for now) to worry about. If its anything like NQY 15mins will be about right and if things run late people out in the country seem to be able to think for themselves and wait another 5mins.

      • John says:

        5 Jul5 July 10:57

        Technically arrivals from Ireland need to go through customs (the same sort you go through when you drive from France to the UK – notice that domestics and DUB flights land at different gates at LHR T5), though they probably won’t bother at this airport.

    • RussellH says:

      5 Jul5 July 09:36

      Why optimistic?

      It is a small plane with only a few pax and not much luggage. Short walk from plane to terminal. No immigration or customs. Some one with just hand baggage could do it in 5 mins, I would expect.
      The local news had a big report last week on the preparations and rehersals for all the ground handling.

      I can certainly see people from here using the airport, at least for Ireland. And in the time it takes me to drive to the most convenient railhead I would be within 10 mins of the airport, rather than 100+ miles from MAN or LPL.
      I am not sure that Southend Airport will work for people I know – if they go to London they want to get to the West End which is a loooong way from Southend, with quite a long change at Liverpool Street too.

      • Gringo says:

        5 Jul5 July 09:59

        Agree that Southend is not ideal I live in London and would use Carlisle to get to the Lake District, but the faff of getting to Southend is off-putting

  • barry cutters says:

    5 Jul5 July 10:23

    I’m from Carlisle, have a business there and live an hour away from southend .

    I am on todays flight – landing at 5.10, Luckily I have people that can pick me up but there is no hire desk or facility to pick up a car. I did hear that enterprise were potentially putting a couple of app based cars up there soon.

    Ultimately I struggle to see how this will work from a tourism perspective
    Carlisle is 45 mins to Keswick, and over an hour to windermere & Ambleside.
    so getting to the lakes is not so convenient .
    The fast train takes you to Carlisle from Euston in 3h 15m and if your destination was the lakes you would get off even earlier at Penrith or oxenholme.
    And lets be honest – south end isn’t the easiest place to get to and doesn’t have a huge catchment area

    • RussellH says:

      5 Jul5 July 10:55

      Enterprise’s USP has always been “We will pick you up”. Every time I have hired from them I have been either met at a rail station or at a family member’s home. The Perth office once paid for a taxi as staff were having lunch when I dropped off the car. It is not that far from the Carlisle depot to the airport, though I suppose that they might say to take the free shuttle to the station and they would meet one there.
      Tourism-wise, Carlise Airport is also quite well placed for the Scottish Borders for those who like ruined castles and abbeys.

      • barry cutters says:

        5 Jul5 July 11:08

        Agree on Enterprise but they only do it in business hours. 8.30-5.30.
        Todays flight was due arrive at 5.40 until flight change.
        I will stick to getting lifts for now.

    • RussellH says:

      5 Jul5 July 11:05

      Just checked the airport website: link to Glen Rental who say that they will have cars at the airport if booked. [Useful potential discovery – they also have the nearest car hire depot to home – about 5 miles away!]

  • RussellH says:

    5 Jul5 July 10:44

    For people wanting to visit the Lake District without hiring a car that shuttle really needs to stop at the Bus Station as well. Particularly as the Bus Station is hard to find if you are not familiar with Carlisle town centre!
    But Carlisle Airport is also well situated for visiting Hadrians Wall Country

  • Ian says:

    5 Jul5 July 17:33

    Most useful – thanks for this!

• Andrew Bowness says:

  5 Jul5 July 08:50

  The airport also has a small independent aviation museum, which I assume would be of interest to a few people on this site. They have an Avro Vulcan, amongst other things.

• AndyGWP says:

  5 Jul5 July 09:01

  FAO: Tom1 – how did you parents get on with their Lufthansa delay?

  • Tom1 says:

    5 Jul5 July 21:05

    Thanks for asking!
    Re flights, they were re-routed the next morning, fra-muc on LH, then muc-sin on SQ. Their bags were nowhere to be seen, but thankfully turned up in Sin on arrival. They just went with the flow and were reasonably happy. Arrived in SIN about 17 hours after scheduled arrival.

    As for the overnight, LH could only find them a 3* hotel in the city. As their flight was around 10am and they didn’t arrive in FRA until 11pm, I just booked the airport Hilton for them and will claim in back on the EC261 all being well.

    Unfortunately my dad fell somehow getting off the plane in SIN and broke a bone in his foot, so spent the next day in hospital! He now has an attractive boot! They are going to see if LH will extend the return flights in consideration of the initial delay and his accident.

    • Lyn says:

      5 Jul5 July 21:25

      Oh dear, your poor parents. What bad luck for your father. Let’s hope Lufthansa are understanding about delaying their return flights. You might want to post again in the morning, when more are reading, to see if anyone has experience and advice re claiming EU compensation from Lufthansa,

      • Tom1 says:

        5 Jul5 July 21:40

        Will do, thanks.

• Sundar says:

  5 Jul5 July 09:04

  Rob – I would hardly call this PayPal support if we can’t use PayPal to fund/withdraw from Monese. This is probably done as part of the Open-Banking sharing initiative.

  • RIccatti says:

    6 Jul6 July 10:06

    True, there might never (foreseeable future) be a functionality to do anything more with Paypal than just check balance.

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