Coventry airport closed with immediate effect.

[Hot_Charlie]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cove ... 401690.stm

Not good.

[DaveB]

Oo-er.. didn't sniff this coming though I'm not really surprised given the amount of local feeling against the place.

ATB

DaveB

[Hot_Charlie]

Oo-er.. didn't sniff this coming though I'm not really surprised given the amount of local feeling against the place.

ATB

DaveB

Has this been another case of buy an airport, build a terminal, get an operator, lose the operator, exclaim "whoops, Oh dear, it's a commercial failure" and then have to make the heartbreaking decision to sell the the land bought as an airfield as land for development at a horribly depressing profit?

[Garry Russell]

What about the aircraft on the deck there???

[Hot_Charlie]

What about the aircraft on the deck there???

I suspect a plan would be formulated for them to leave, if they are able, and if they have to. Those that aren't?

[Tomliner]

This is sad news indeed.Wonder what will happen to AA and its Classic Fleet. EricT

[sketchy74]

As a graduate of Coventry University and having had the chance to fly from here on a few occasions I am gutted to hear about this.

One thing has always bugged me about noise complaints, as that press article said the airfield has been open since 1930..something, meaning you would have to be over 80 years old to have lived there before it was an airport, why on earth do people move to live near an airport and then moan about the noise?! Then again, I guess I and a good number if not all members of this forum are biased.

I hope the AA Fleet finds a good new home with better neighbours.

[johnhinson]

As I read it, it isn't the noise complaints that have caused it to close, although they may have restricted expansion. But with much reduced demand for charter and tourist traffic nationwide, the need for expansion must have reduced. According to the BBC report it has seen no commercial flights since November 2008 and has closed because the owners are in financial difficulty. It just seems unfortunate that this reflects on cargo, general aviation and maintenance activity. Air Atlantique used to own it, I guess they don't have the dosh to buy it back now.

John

[markw]

This had been flagged up last week on the BHX discussion forums as being down to financial problems. I suspect it has more to do with the debacle over the attempts to procure a new terminal, then losing Thomsonfly when they didn't (although there was a good chance they would have lost them anyway), no doubt having paid Air Atlantique a fair bit for the airport, and an equally eye-watering amount on the planning appeal and subsequent and rather pointless legal challenge, than anything the local NIMBYs may have planned. The airport has exisitng use rights so there's nothing the locals could have done about that, it was the new expansion, which fell foul of regional Planning Guidance in any case, that the locals were able to stop.

Reading between the lines I suspect the new owners borrowed heavily in the hope they could create Birmingham and the West Midlands own Low-cost airport, with all the bunce that the shopping, car-parking and other non-flying stuff airports make money on being used to pay off the debt. When that went mammaries-airborne they were left with the far less lucrative option of freight and business/general aviation, just as the recession probably finished those off to any great extent, especially as EMA is now taking a lot of freight traffic which used to go to Coventry in the 80s.

Sadly, I can't help thinking the bullish hubris the Coventry Airport team displayed during the planning process has come back to haunt them, which goes to show that had they got a decent set of Planning advisors on board when buying the place, who could read a Regional Planning Guidance note, they would have saved all the expense and probably bought somewhere less risky instead, such as somewhere in Dubai.

Oops, perhaps not.

[TobyV]

Not really surprised by this, heard it on the radio about sixish tonight. Since Thomsonfly left, theres just some private jets, cargo, GA and other minor users on what is basically quite a large airfield. I think its not helped that it is so close to Birmingham and the commercial traffic went there.

I flew from CVT twice, once with Air Atlantique Classic Flight and once with Thomsonfly. The Thomsonfly "terminal" was just a large portacabin type building for departures and a small converted corrugated metal hangar for arrivals. It was adequate but nothing more and would have been awful if the flight had been delayed.

Given the plans at one point to build a large Midlands airport west of Rugby, I suspect that whoever bought the lease for Coventry off AA probably thought they wouldn't have too much trouble getting planning for a proper terminal, but without that, I think it was doomed.

If someone buys it up, it will have to find a niche and it will almost certainly require some better facilities of some sort, be that for commerical passengers, cargo or executive types to attract companies to provide the necessary business.