A reader writes

I should like to make a few points, of which Cllr Carter should be informed! Firstly, he says that Manston's runway is 2,752m. When I checked, it was 2,658m. Heathrow has two runways - 3,500m and 3,570m, with Gatwick's one at 3,750m. So nowhere near comparable.

He says that Manston "is able to cater for all modern jet aircraft"; that's all very well, but a fully-laden 747 or 767 could not safely take off because there is no room to abort a take off in case of problems. If you remember, an Afghan DC-8 almost came a cropper on 11th August 2010 when, as it was later discovered, it tried to take off 25,000 lbs overweight! (So where are our CAA checks? Who was responsible? How could this happen?) It only just blundered into the sky after gouging grooves in the grass at the end of the runway, just before it could have collided with the traffic on the bit of the B2190 between the Prospect and Manston Road roundabouts! Details of the AAIB investigation can be found here: www.skybrary.aero/bookshelf/books/1670.pdf. If it had been taking off over Ramsgate, it could have ploughed into the traffic on the Haine Road. So, safe, is it?

I don't want night flights, but I'm not against the airport succeeding. But why don't people look at past history? (Sorry - no one ever does!) No one has succeeded with pie-in-the-sky, fantasy ideas. It is a small airfield, not a major airport! It could succeed as a part cargo/part holiday destination airfield. Small aircraft, such as the Fokkers that had European destinations, could attract most of our limited catchment area. I note you say that people living within reach of Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, will obviously go there because of the choice of destinations. Agreed. We need someone to take over Manston who can see it for what it is and accept its limited capabilities. But now, I suppose, I'm looking at pie in the sky!

S.B.

Nostrildamus (D)

Infratil don’t want night flights... they just want the shoulder periods.

Please bear in mind: Infratil have grown into a billion dollar company as a result of being noticeably better at both strategy and risk assessment than most of the other major international players. This does of course mean that they are significantly better on both counts than TDC.

Air freight is carried (mostly) in the belly of large passenger aircraft flying into busy passenger airports. A small proportion of freight arrives in dedicated freight-only aircraft. Manston is the 5th largest airport in the UK for receiving the second type of freight. It's doing the best it can in what is essentially a niche market, but will need some kind of advantage or Unique Selling Point (USP) if it's going to be any better than 5th.

From the airport owner's point of view, day time flights are a breeze whereas night flights are a pain in the backside. Day time flights are effectively unrestricted. Night flights will only be permitted within the framework of whatever S106 agreement TDC can cobble together and make stick. A whole new suite of monitoring, record-keeping and accountability would be triggered by scheduled night flights. The quota count system being suggested immediately makes scheduled nights flights a finite resource and potential limitation on growth and success.

BUT. See that - it's a big but. There are the "shoulder periods" that Infratil have conjured up and woven into their preposterous proposal, which are explicitly excluded from the night flight tallying and monitoring. Flights in the "shoulder periods" don't count as night flights - it's just a longer (unrestricted) day.

Hurrah! Infratil already have blanket permission for late (or should that be "late") arrivals during the night. With the longer day and shorter night that the magical "shoulder periods" bring, the plausible spill-over at either end of the shortened night start to join up in the middle. All of a sudden, Manston becomes (almost) a 24 hour freight airport, which is exactly the kind of USP that they need to creep above 5th in the table of freight importers.

"Nostrildamus nose the future"

Nostrildamus (F)

Infratil don’t want night flights... but TDC’s refusal would provide them with a handy cover story for leaving.

Please bear in mind: Infratil have grown into a billion dollar company as a result of being noticeably better at both strategy and risk assessment than most of the other major international players. This does of course mean that they are significantly better on both counts than TDC.

Infratil's shareholders are pleased with Infratil's ownership and management of Wellington Airport in New Zealand. Building on this success, Infratil made a carefully considered speculative punt, and started buying airports in Europe - Germany, Scotland and England. This turned out to be a mistake.

The least bad mistake was Lubeck Airport, north-east of Hamburg. Thanks to some quite frankly brilliant negotiating, Infratil had the right to sell the airport back to city of Lubeck after a fixed time period if they chose to do so. Time passed, the airport didn't succeed as they had hoped, so they sold it back to Lubeck at cost price, thereby exiting without too much loss or pain. Neat.

Prestwick Airport south-west of Glasgow has also failed to live up to expectations, but unlike Lubeck, there is nobody waiting in the wings who is contractually bound to buy it back off Infratil. Prestwick's vulnerability to the fluctuations in the air passenger market are reflected in the swingeing staff cuts imposed from time to time. Prestwick continues to make a significant negative contribution to the overall negative picture for what's left of Infratil Airports Europe.

Manston is definitely the worst of a bad bunch. Having cost millions, it has lost millions every year since. It has never made a profit. This contrasts sharply with Infratil's overall performance of 18% year on year return, and does not sit happily with their declared aim of achieving a 20% return for their investors. The local New Zealand financial analysts estimate that the European airports transalte into a 5% mark-down on Infratil's share price. This is not something that makes their shareholders happy - Infratil are under pressure.

Infratil need a lot of good news to start happening, and then keep happening, at Manston. They need to recover the purchase price and the subsequent losses (say £20m-£30m) and then start reliably raking in cash if Manston is to compare favourably with their other investments. Failing that, they cannot justify to their investors retaining Manston. The time is fast approaching when Infratil will have to bite the bullet. Selling Manston for a nominal £1 starts to look like an attractive alternative to losing millions a year. It is a fact of life that professional investors like Infratil have long since learnt to deal with: sometimes you just have to cut your losses and walk away.

Realistically, that time has already passed. Infratil's recognition and acceptance of the fact was signalled by the replacement of Matt Clarke (their hand-chosen representative on Planet Thanet) with Charles Buchanan (a PR and communications specialist, and experienced airport vendor) to clean up the remnants. Infratil can tell their shareholders that they've given it their best shot. The aviation industry has been through rocky times: wildly fluctuating fuel prices made business erratic; Icelandic ash clouds forced some customers into the welcoming arms of marine freight. It would be easy and convenient for Infratil to present an uncooperative or unwelcoming local regulatory framework as being the last straw. Bye!

"Nostrildamus nose the future"

Infratil top brass come to Kent

Kiwis fly in

All along the flight path, the whispered words are spreading like wildfire: the bigwigs of a company on the other side of the world are coming to Kent on Monday. I'm thrilled at the prospect of these well-travelled, high-spending visitors plastering shop counters with their New Zealand dollars, but I can't help wondering why exactly they're coming, and why now? I find myself being drawn to two options: end of deal; or, just possibly, a new deal.

Infratil already have their own hand-picked representative on Planet Thanet, in the form of the recently appointed Charles Buchanan. He has already been negotiating with TDC for some time. If Infratil HQ wanted to confer/plan with Mr Buchanan on strategy or progress, it would surely be easier to bring Mr Buchanan to HQ, rather than vice versa. If Infratil weren't happy with his performance or negotiating skills, they would simply parachute in an "advisor" to operate Mr Buchanan from behind (as Rod Hull does Emu).

No, I think Infratil HQ has dragged itself half-way round the world because they have the authority to strike deals with TDC that Mr Buchanan doesn't, and they've realised it's time to jolt Manston from its steady decline. Infratil have used up their supply of hype - I don't see what else they could offer TDC, or hold out as a plausible forecast. Having promised them the earth, there's not much else left.

So, having run out of carrots, it's stick time! Infratil's bigwigs will be putting the frighteners on TDC in a curious form of reversed mugging - give us everything we want, or we'll leave you alone. They will say that without night freight, they won't be able to build the passenger traffic they need for long-term profitability, and would have to pull the plug. TDC will shit their britches at the prospect of Infratil leaving: huge political capital has been invested in the airport as a high profile strategic contributor to east Kent's long-term growth; and if billionaires can't afford to make a go of it, Manston will be seen more clearly for the poisoned chalice it is. I'm assuming that TDC's first instinct would be to sell us all down the river.

Which brings me to the second (more interesting and hopeful) option: a new deal. Infratil have done their sums and have realised that Manston will not be a commercially successful airport. Infratil will know that aviation industry players, pundits and observers will have reached the same conclusion (probably before Infratil did) and as a result it will be impossible to find anyone willing to buy Manston as an airport. Unable to sell it as it is, and unwilling to just leave the keys in the front door and walk away, Infratil may well try to "re-purpose" Manston.

One of Infratil's core businesses is energy production, and increasingly now green energy production. I would be completely unsurprised to find Infratil seducing TDC with promises of free energy from the Manston Solar/Wind Farm, coupled with absurd over-projections of the resulting employment.

[Infratil may even offer to sell the site to TDC  for a small, or even nominal, sum. Doubtless, Infratil's fancy-pants negotiators will run rings round the TDC old guard who have been wrong-footed, and wrong-headed, so often in the past.]

Manston eco-village

Inventing the future

Grab a hefty chunk of the TDC Regeneration budget. This is the prize money. The competition: affordable, quick-build, long-life, green housing. The location: Manston's runway, 2.7km of high performance concrete and tarmac, ready-made foundations for just about anything. Established manufacturers attracted by the kudos can offer designs straight from their existing catalogues. Newcomers, green building groups, small design firms, etc will be drawn by the money as well. Large and small alike, all these people like winning competitions, particularly if there's a cash prize.

The criteria can consist almost entirely of popular buzz-words: zero carbon footprint; recycled/sustainable materials; easy assembly; reproducable; removable; practical; flexible; and so on. A key condition is that each competitor puts up at least TWO identical copies of their buildings - one is to be used as the walk-around exhibit, the other(s) will house real people.

The TDC environmental people, aided and abetted by utility companies, Government departments, and the like, can pepper the inhabited houses with environmental and energy monitoring gadgets. The real people living in the new green houses can give a running commentary (video-blog?) on how live-in-able their homes are in practice. These two factors are added to the mix (cost, green-ness, impact on local economy, etc.) when choosing the winning design, which will receive a quarter of the prize pot.

If there are enough proposals of a high enough standard, one or two dozen designs could be chosen to be built. At a stroke, you have a green housing showcase, open air research lab and attention magnet rolled into one.

Re-run the competition at three month intervals. By the end of the year, you will have a green housing exhibition park with 50 to 100 different innovative green homes, on show and being lived in by real people. There's nothing like it anywhere in Kent, probably anywhere in the country. It will attract interest, visitors, businesses and investment. Affordable housing is necessary, and will probably remain so for a while. Green housing is increasingly popular. House-building is a tried and tested way of generating local employment, and supports its own ecosystem of trades, suppliers and services.

As an alternative use of the Manston site, this ticks a lot of boxes. Agree?

Manston airport sale "not ruled out"

Clipping: thisiskent

THE chief executive of Infratil has not ruled out selling stakes in Manston airport if a buyer can be found, according to a business website. Marko Bogoievski is quoted on www.stuff.co.nz in an article prompted by the New Zealand based company posting big business losses. The website reports that analysts said Infratil's European airports, including Kent International Airport and Glasgow Prestwick, and energy developments were the most likely assets to go on the block.

Infratil Airports Europe posted an $18.9m loss compared with $1.2m of earnings the previous year. it claimed, adding that Infratil's investments as a whole returned $356.3m compared with $315.9m the year before. Earnings were up at its three major investments, TrustPower, Infratil Energy Australia and Wellington Airport.

Mr Bogoievski is quoted as saying he did not rule out selling stakes in Manston and Glasgow Prestwick if buyers could be found adding:

“In the meantime you do what you can control and that's the operating cost structures of those businesses.”

Infratil bought Kent International Airport after the previous owners, PlaneStation went bust in August 2005. Marko Bogoievski, Infratil's chief executive, added:

“The short term market conditions in no way change the future potential of the airport as outlined in our development plans. Although the current economic downturn has affected KIA in the same way as it has affected other UK airports and business in general, we firmly believe that markets will recover and KIA will be ideally situated to provide an immediate solution to the south east’s predicted runway capacity shortfall. We are not actively seeking to sell KIA and remain committed to its long term development.”

An airport's not the best route to regeneration

Regen Park

"Regeneration work in Thanet includes improving buildings and public spaces in our towns, development of business parks and working with community groups to help bring their ideas to fruition to improve the area. The emphasis in regeneration is on working in partnership with a wide range of organizations, so that together we can make Thanet a quality place to live, an attractive location for investment and an enjoyable area to visit." (TDC website)

Manston is not a building or public space in a town. No community groups are pressing for expansion or night flights. A bustling cargo airport would not make Thanet an attractive place to live in, or visit. Any profits generated by the airport would be repatriated to New Zealand, to cover the tens of millions of dollars Infratil have already lost. Profits from freight transport would go to the hauliers, mostly national and international firms.

Airport expansion may be an eye-catching, high profile project, but it's more cost than benefit, and very little of value stays in Thanet. So why is TDC, and Brian White in particular, pushing it so hard?

Job creation keeps appearing in TDC's pro-Manston arguments. My problem with this is that Manston is a laughably inefficient means of job creation. On the edge of beautiful Herne Bay, just by the A299, a 50 bed Premier Inn motel and associated 50 table restaurant have just been built. This has created 50 jobs.

Two points here:

• this is close to the 70-90 jobs Infratil keep promising, but using a lot less land and making a lot less noise, mess and inconvenience: this has to be a better bet;
• a hotel and restaurant (by definition) encourage people to come and stay in Kent, and spend their money here: surely a more sustainable path to regeneration.

TDC's regeneration manifesto is pointing in the right direction. Investing money, time and effort in Manston is a wasteful diversion from that purpose. Rather than putting their eggs in one rather threadbare basket, TDC should be concentrating on actively promoting a multitude of small new businesses. If only there was some handy light industrial space to use as a regeneration business park...

Location, location, location matters for airports too

Manston isn't Outer London. It's out of London.

Well, there are several airports that have leapt on the global branding bandwagon and smuggled the word 'London' into their name, with varying degrees of geographical accuracy.

(A special mention must go to "London Ashford Airport": 60 miles from London, 13 miles from Ashford, 1 mile from Lydd. It seems the greater the distance, the more prominent the billing - it's full title is actually "Jupiter Brazil London Ashford Airport".)

So, JBLA to one side, what are we left with? Well, starting from where London actually is, you can see that London City is pretty much a slam-dunk - 9/10 for accuracy. Spiralling out clockwise from the south, we have Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton, Stansted, Southend and Manston. Yes, folks, Manston's even further from London-land than the fantasists at Lydd.

'Location, location, location' does matter and this seems to be a persistent blind spot for many when it comes to discussing Manston's viability. It may have a lovely long runway, but it's in the wrong place.

Draw a circle with a 20, 30 or 50 mile radius around all the 'London' airports, and Manston's circle will have the least land in it - because it's on a peninsula. In terms of population within the catchment area, it may just nudge ahead of Lydd, but will always be well behind the others. It's not a great place for a high volume passenger airport. Not that great for freight either, being so far from the highest densities of people and industry.

On with your thinking cap, dear reader, for soon I will be asking for your best efforts on two topics: how would you make a sustainable success out of Manston as an airport; and how would you make a sustainable success out of the Manston site as a non-airport.

By their logos shall ye know them

A man running away from a mess on the ground labelled "Airport". 

This is prescient, you mark my words.

Manston is a poor investment

No quarter? Manston's impending doom

Infratil's sale of Fullers ferries is part of a retreat from under-performing businesses to repay debt.

The infrastructure investor yesterday announced that subsidiary NZ Bus is selling its interest in Fullers for $40 million to Souter Holdings, majority owned by Stagecoach co-founder Brian Souter. Infratil will retain its NZ Bus operations in Wellington, Hutt Valley, Auckland and Whangarei.

Infratil says the deal was part of a programme of divestments which would realise more than $100 million in this financial year. The money would be used to repay debt of about $1.2 billion including infrastructure bonds, perpetual bonds and bank debt. Infratil executive Tim Brown said the $100 million also included exercising the right to sell Lubeck Airport in Germany, worth about $60 million, and the sale of some bus depot properties in Auckland.

"In this environment we do have to look at recycling some capital and cut back on where you can't see them generating strong returns. The short term for us is going to be debt repayment but in the medium term there are various opportunities."

He would not comment directly on one analyst's suggestion that Infratil's other under-performing European airports could be next but said it was hard to run with a loss on a low-return asset in the current environment. Around 75% of Infratil's investments, including Wellington Airport and TrustPower, were performing well, Brown said. "You have to say to yourself, can you have 25% of the business not generating a return? In this type of environment you can't." New Zealand Herald, 7th April 2009

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I suspect that our local kerfuffle may soon be academic: Infratil withdraw, TDC look daft, and we all wonder what to do with 2.75km of runway. Out of curiosity, do any of my better informed readers have any idea what the current market value of Manston would be, either as a 'working' airport or as a generic light industrial site.