Is this newsworthy here?

Charleroi airport has recently opened a new parking option, effectively the old terminal-level parking, but with a new entry just before the entry to parkings 1 & 2. So rather than plunging into P1 or P2 and struggling with the mayhem in there, you can now drive up to the Express Parking (name???) and enter the old car park from the opposite end than before. It is €2 at least (you can pay with a CC at the exit barrier) and says it is limited to 15 minutes.

This car park is half the size it used to be, and the part available is not in front of the terminal building

A significant improvement if you need to drop off/pick up someone!

But what other airports in the world charge to drop off/pick up? I remember reading on a.net about one of the Belfast airports that charged a fee, but I know of no others!

sassiciai wrote:

But what other airports in the world charge to drop off/pick up? I remember reading on a.net about one of the Belfast airports that charged a fee, but I know of no others!

AMS for one (for pick up only). They just closed P2 and you've to park in P1 now. The only free option is go to depratures and pick up from there (which already many do). However, I fear that this will change as soon as more people start doing this. Otherwise, I recall that Zurich wanted this as well, but don't know if it materialised.

Hereby the figures for Ducth comemrcial airports except Den Helder (why they don't publish anything is a mistery).

August

Number of passengers
AMS: 6,788,668 (+6.04%)
EIN: 577,120 (+11.72%)
GRQ: 23,958 (+35,59%)
MST: 23,054 (+27.04%)
RTM: 195,301 (+21.01%)

August was a very good month for Dutch airports. All airports showed healthy growth.

Cargo in tons
AMS: 148,503 (+7.02%)
MST: 7,403 (+224.27%)
RTM: 2 (-/-71.43%)

Still growth at AMS, but we already know that it will end in November.

Number of movements
AMS: 48,235 (+2.48%)
EIN: 3,495 (+5.40%)
GRQ: 1,849 (-/-22.31%)
MST: 1,705 (+31.86%)
RTM: 60,216 (+1.89%)

Why will the growth end in November?

FlyRow wrote:

Why will the growth end in November?

For cargo yes as some cargo airlines will be getting less slots at AMS (see thread viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1375127 ). ABC is not the only one (SQC will loose some weekly slots as well). Less cargo aircraft (most of them 747s) is less volume. There is still some lobbying going on in The Hague, but I doubt it has an impact as the slot coordination at AMS is an independent body. Moreover, the new Dutch government will be less aviation friendly (there will be a tax on flying under the new government).

LJ wrote:

Moreover, the new Dutch government will be less aviation friendly (there will be a tax on flying under the new government).

And this will mean once again that we'll massively be flying from airports like Munster-Osnabruck, Dusseldorf, Weeze, Cologne-Bonn, Liege and Brussels. This has happened before when we had a tax and wil happen again. No surprise everyone in the Dutch aviation industry opposes this tax. I've heard rumours that Transavia is planning on moving a large part of their operations to Weeze and Brussels if this tax goes through.

LJ wrote:

Hereby the figures for Dutch commercial airports except Den Helder (why they don't publish anything is a mistery).

August

Number of movements
AMS: 48,235 (+2.48%)
RTM: 60,216 (+1.89%)

Are you sure?

LJ wrote:

August was a very good month for Dutch airports. All airports showed healthy growth.

Are you sure healthy is the right word? I am aware this is an aviation enthusiast website, but I wouldn't call growth healthy. Maybe big growth or massive growth does more right to the statistics.

LJ wrote:

For cargo yes as some cargo airlines will be getting less slots at AMS (see thread viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1375127 ). ABC is not the only one (SQC will loose some weekly slots as well). Less cargo aircraft (most of them 747s) is less volume. There is still some lobbying going on in The Hague, but I doubt it has an impact as the slot coordination at AMS is an independent body. Moreover, the new Dutch government will be less aviation friendly (there will be a tax on flying under the new government).

Those cargo slots will go to passenger airlines that actually use them, allowing further growth of passenger traffic and aircraft movements. The reasons these slots were lost is that they weren't used enough.

LJ wrote:

Moreover, the new Dutch government will be less aviation friendly (there will be a tax on flying under the new government).

Being aviation friendly or not doesn't depend on 1 measure of which the details aren't known.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

And this will mean once again that we'll massively be flying from airports like Munster-Osnabruck, Dusseldorf, Weeze, Cologne-Bonn, Liege and Brussels. This has happened before when we had a tax and wil happen again. No surprise everyone in the Dutch aviation industry opposes this tax. I've heard rumours that Transavia is planning on moving a large part of their operations to Weeze and Brussels if this tax goes through.

You're aware Germany has an 'ecological air travel levy' already? Makes no sense at all to use another airport to avoid taxes when that airport has a similar tax. Maybe depending on the amount, but that isn't known yet.

factsonly wrote:

LJ wrote:

Hereby the figures for Dutch commercial airports except Den Helder (why they don't publish anything is a mistery).

August

Number of movements
AMS: 48,235 (+2.48%)
RTM: 60,216 (+1.89%)

Are you sure?

Oops COrect number of movemnets for RTM was 4,932. The 60,216 relate to the total of movements of the mentioned airports..

Jetty wrote:

Those cargo slots will go to passenger airlines that actually use them, allowing further growth of passenger traffic and aircraft movements. The reasons these slots were lost is that they weren't used enough.

Not entirely true. ABC lost many slots due to their bad on-time performance and thus they missed their assigned slot. As for what we get in return. Considering the fact that most of those cargo slots are not daily on the same time it's will be interesting who gets them. It's not only a question of slots, it's also about the fact that AMS is full during certain time frames. Moreover, it can also be filled be yet another Embraer 195....

AirBridgeCargo will move part of its flights from Amsterdam to Liege.They'll start with 3 weekly flights and will expand to 12 weekly flights soon.

LJ wrote:

AirBridgeCargo will move part of its flights from Amsterdam to Liege.They'll start with 3 weekly flights and will expand to 12 weekly flights soon.

I am not very surpised.

Jetty wrote:

LJ wrote:

Moreover, the new Dutch government will be less aviation friendly (there will be a tax on flying under the new government).

Being aviation friendly or not doesn't depend on 1 measure of which the details aren't known.

As expected I wouldn't call the new government less aviation friendly.
- The 500K flight movement cap at AMS is going to be scrapped.
- Investments in the road- and rail infrastructure around AMS.
- Budget for more efficient border control.
- There will only be a passenger tax if it isn't possible to come to an European agreement about plane pollution or to tax noisy or polluting planes (this will be older aircraft types).

Some route news.

DL will end Newark-AMS, but KLM will add a 3rd daily (except sunday) JFK flight, This willl result in a 5 daily AMS-JFK frequency operated by DL and KLM.
The new frequency willl be with a 787-9, the rest by 777's.

I find this very unfortunate for AMS/KLM. Having only BOS, JFK and IAD in the NE is not very competitive.

FlyingHollander wrote:

I find this very unfortunate for AMS/KLM. Having only BOS, JFK and IAD in the NE is not very competitive.

me too but not for AAS. How many slots are we talking about? KLM as an airline will have to compete with 'all this' new capacity flooding into the market, of sharks.

Jetty wrote:

- The 500K flight movement cap at AMS is going to be scrapped.

Where did you read this??? The airport remains at 500k until 2020, even in the new situation. The only thing is that they will depend the growth on the actual noise. However, that's something which the old government wold have decided as well.

Jetty wrote:

- Investments in the road- and rail infrastructure around AMS.

The text only mentions that it will contribute if other parties pay up as well. Given that in the current budget of Prorail and NS Schiphol isn;t high priority (the focus is now on delivering the high density rail) nothing what hasn't aready been discussed will be delivered. BTW it would be foolish to believe that suddenly the subway will be extended to Schiphol (as originally intended). The other parties don't have it as high priority. Moreover, it's easy to say you're going to invest when the infrastructure is just completed (the adjustments for the high density rail line to Almere and Utrecht have just been finished or are in in final completion stage and the A9/A4 conenction is already finished). However, if they would start on the undergroud transport system between Aalsmeer and Schiphol I'll stand corrected.

Jetty wrote:

- There will only be a passenger tax if it isn't possible to come to an European agreement about plane pollution or to tax noisy or polluting planes (this will be older aircraft types).

[/quote]
Don't know our source as the only reason why the tax wouldn't go ahead is when the noise reductions targets are met via other means. Moreover, it's already in the budget of 2021. Your reference to the EU is incorrect as the new government would be against an EU taxation on air travel. They do refer to the Paris climate accord, but still reserve the right to impase tax on aviation if the progress doesn't meet the targets. The tax on noisy an polluting aircraft is an addition to the passenger tax and thus must be viewed separately.

FlyingHollander wrote:

I find this very unfortunate for AMS/KLM. Having only BOS, JFK and IAD in the NE is not very competitive.

How is this bad for AMS? Moreover, this means the flight will be moved from EWR to JFK. UA still flies to EWR and rumours are starting that Jet may be tempted to restart EWR (now via AMS). However, the latter is probably more gossip and wishfull thinking.

SEN-GRQ will be operated 18x weekly, triple daily on weekdays, in summer 2018. Flights are bookable on the flybe website. Great news for such a small airport!

Hereby the traffic figures for September 2017

September 2017

Number of passengers
AMS: 6,258,281 (+6.68%)
EIN: 553,096 (+9.07%)
GRQ: 22,617 (+36.08%)
MST: 21,509 (+58.15%)
RTM: 188,847 (+11.75%)

GRQ and MST are booming. Especially MST seems to be rebounding from the decline it showed previous year.

Cargo in tons
AMS: 151,885 (+6.50%)
MST: 8,178 (+297.38%)
RTM: 0 (-/- 100%)

Number of movements
AMS: 45,849 (+2.20%)
EIN: 3,378 (+0.63%)
GRQ: 2,206 (+4.85%)
MST: 1,203 (+14.74%)
RTM: 4,622 (-/-10.06%)

The number of movements at RTM continue to decline. Moreover, growth in the number of movements at EIN seem to have stalled.

According to Luchtvaartnieuws today Eindhoven welcomed it's 5 millionth passenger this year:

https://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/nieuws/ ... passagiers

It is expected that this year Eindhoven airport will handle 5.7 million passengers in total. Never before have so many passengers used Eindhoven. Last year 4.7 million passengers used Eindhoven and the year before 4.3 million.

Corendon will base a 737-800 at MST next Summer. The airline will increas the number of flights by 17 additional weekly flights. In addition the number of destinations flown will be 12 which means 6 new destinations (Zakynthos, Corfu, Ibiza, Kos, ,Catania, Trapani and a destination iin Tunesia)

Some Luxembourg news

Luxair is increasing its scheduled charter program between airports outside of Luxembourg. It will fly the following routes:
- Dole - Palma de Majorca (one weekly between April 30th and October 8th)
- Dublin - Faro (one weekly between May 12th and September 22nd)
- Salzburg - Tenerife Norte (2-3 weekly between April 30th and June 13th)
All flights operated with B737-800.

In addition, LG will serve Luxembourg - Brač in S18 between May 19th and October 13th. The flight will be operated 1 weekly with a Dash 8. Moreover, LG will start a weekly flight to KEF. The flight will be operated on Wednesday by a 737-800 between May 9th and June 27th.

Alitalia annouced it intends to start a 12 weekly Milan Linate - Luxembourg flight as of December 4th. The flight is scheduled to be operated by an Embrear 190

Wizz Air is suspending GDN-GRQ-GDN per summer season 2018. Passengers who had flights booked after March 25 have been rebooked from EIN.

Source (in Dutch): https://www.groningenairport.nl/actueel ... maart-2018


Quite a surprise for us, as the route was doing well in terms of load factor (I know that doesn't say everything, but otherwise we had no indication that they were going to cancel the route)

LJ wrote:

Hereby the traffic figures for September 2017

September 2017


RTM: 188,847 (+11.75%)

RTM: 4,622 (-/-10.06%)

The number of movements at RTM continue to decline. Moreover, growth in the number of movements at EIN seem to have stalled.

Bigger planes and better load factors.
So still doing well, there are now slots avialable for ad-hoc charters . Many of the avialable slots will be consumed by TUI and Transavia in the forthcommeing months. Transavia will add a 7th based plane in RTM next summer and TUI will also base 1 737 in RTM (these slots came available after VLM / Cityjet and FlyBe left )

A temporary departures hall is being build at the moment.The departures lounge of the terminal will receive a upgrade and expansion in order to cope with inceased number of passengers and new safety standards. A further expansion of the terminal is being prepared. this expansion will follow if RTM is allowed to handle more flights.

Jetty wrote:

Jetty wrote:

LJ wrote:

Moreover, the new Dutch government will be less aviation friendly (there will be a tax on flying under the new government).

Being aviation friendly or not doesn't depend on 1 measure of which the details aren't known.

As expected I wouldn't call the new government less aviation friendly.
- The 500K flight movement cap at AMS is going to be scrapped.
- Investments in the road- and rail infrastructure around AMS.
- Budget for more efficient border control.
- There will only be a passenger tax if it isn't possible to come to an European agreement about plane pollution or to tax noisy or polluting planes (this will be older aircraft types).

Amsterdam may not be allowed to have more than 500 ~550 k flights a year in any event. As the layout of Schiphol may not allow more flights due to flight safety (runway incursions) .
this is a very big issue to solve, or may not be solved at all..... unless the runway layout of Schiphol is modified drasticly.... but for that time...this brings a bigger role for the regional airports like RTM EIN MST and LEY when it becomes operational.
Especially RTM would be the perfect location to handle many of the non-hub bound flights

As of March 26 2018, GRQ will be connected to BRU and MUC. The routes will be operated by Nordica (who already operate the GRQ-CPH flights), but the equipment will change from an E145 to a CRJ7. The aircraft will be based at GRQ. With these 2 new routes, GRQ will be connected to 3 hubs (BRU, CPH, MUC) and is able to offer countless of connections to destinations all over the world.

Official press release (in Dutch) & timetable here: https://www.groningenairport.nl/actueel ... rport-eeld

Interesting. Those CRJ700s are not the youngest but are quite decent in terms of pax experience, certainly on those kind of distances. Should be good for the people in the North of the Netherlands, if it is brought to their attention well enough.

thijs1984 wrote:

Amsterdam may not be allowed to have more than 500 ~550 k flights a year in any event. As the layout of Schiphol may not allow more flights due to flight safety (runway incursions) .
this is a very big issue to solve, or may not be solved at all..... unless the runway layout of Schiphol is modified drasticly...

A cap because of flight safety reasons would logically apply to the number of flights per hour, not per year. If you extrapolate the number of flight of current daily peak hours there's still a lot of room to grow outside those peak hours.

I do agree it's important to look at the runway layout. Not sure if drastic change is needed, building the second Kaagbaan (for which space is reserved) while closing the Aalsmeerbaan would already be a big improvement.

The plans for the 2nd terminal on that location are long outdated. I don't know if the runway plans are still up to date. Only the second kaagbaan is still a plan.

FlyRow wrote:

The plans for the 2nd terminal on that location are long outdated. I don't know if the runway plans are still up to date. Only the second kaagbaan is still a plan.

Indeed. It was merely to show the location of the 2nd Kaagbaan, which is very much an actual plan as the government recently enforced a space reservation for that area.

FlyRow wrote:

The plans for the 2nd terminal on that location are long outdated. I don't know if the runway plans are still up to date. Only the second kaagbaan is still a plan.

Last thing I heard was that the second terminal was to become an LCC terminal and a replacement for the already too small H-pier. Similar to terminal 2 in Lisbon, only with arrivals (in Lisbon arriving passengers at terminal 2 are being bussed to terminal 1 arrivals, terminal 2 is departures only). By moving the LCCs to the new terminal they'll free up capacity at the main terminal.

airkas1 wrote:

As of March 26 2018, GRQ will be connected to BRU and MUC. The routes will be operated by Nordica (who already operate the GRQ-CPH flights), but the equipment will change from an E145 to a CRJ7. The aircraft will be based at GRQ. With these 2 new routes, GRQ will be connected to 3 hubs (BRU, CPH, MUC) and is able to offer countless of connections to destinations all over the world.

To be honest, the choice of BRU seems driven that the gap between the MUC and second CPH flight is not that big and not many other destinations would fit in. The timing itself is not that good as the connections are bad (the mentioned VIE, LIS and DOH connection are only good one-way) and not usefull for point-to-point traffic.

KLM starts flights to Växjö (VXO) in Sweden

Starting daily from the S18 timetable. Daily with a E175.

KLM's fourth swedish destination and 14th scandinavian destination. Amazing how KL seems to pick up on so many smaller EU destinations.

https://news.klm.com/klm-starts-flights-to-vaxjo-vxo-in--sweden/

Jetty wrote:

thijs1984 wrote:

Amsterdam may not be allowed to have more than 500 ~550 k flights a year in any event. As the layout of Schiphol may not allow more flights due to flight safety (runway incursions) .
this is a very big issue to solve, or may not be solved at all..... unless the runway layout of Schiphol is modified drasticly...

A cap because of flight safety reasons would logically apply to the number of flights per hour, not per year. If you extrapolate the number of flight of current daily peak hours there's still a lot of room to grow outside those peak hours.

I do agree it's important to look at the runway layout. Not sure if drastic change is needed, building the second Kaagbaan (for which space is reserved) while closing the Aalsmeerbaan would already be a big improvement.
]

The 2nd Kaagbaan is still a long way from being build. I remember something.... this runway would replace the current Kaagbaan instead of adding a 2nd Kaagbaan.
That would make it possible to expand the terminal towards the current cargo center an thus remaining inside 1 terminal concept.

LJ wrote:

airkas1 wrote:

As of March 26 2018, GRQ will be connected to BRU and MUC. The routes will be operated by Nordica (who already operate the GRQ-CPH flights), but the equipment will change from an E145 to a CRJ7. The aircraft will be based at GRQ. With these 2 new routes, GRQ will be connected to 3 hubs (BRU, CPH, MUC) and is able to offer countless of connections to destinations all over the world.

To be honest, the choice of BRU seems driven that the gap between the MUC and second CPH flight is not that big and not many other destinations would fit in. The timing itself is not that good as the connections are bad (the mentioned VIE, LIS and DOH connection are only good one-way) and not usefull for point-to-point traffic.

And I am wondering if they could make enough Yield to sustain these routes. I do not think there will be enough passengers willing to pay enough for their tickets to sustain these routes.

Hereby the traffic figures for the Dutch commecial airports (excluding Den Helder) .

October 2017

Number of passengers
AMS: 6,242,908 (+7.96%)
EIN: 536,736 (+9.51%)
GRQ: 19,145 (+28.43%)
MST: 18.813 (+24.59%)
RTM: 157,992 (+10.63%)

Cargo in tons
AMS: 156,606 (+0.70%)
MST: 9,550 (+83.51%)
RTM: 0 (-/- 100%)

Number of movements
AMS: 46,399 (+3.47%)
EIN: 3,314 (+2.03%)
GRQ: 3,307 (+64.04%)
MST: 1,521 (-/-3.31%)
RTM: 4,222 (-/-6.14%)

Source: CBS Statline

How does October compare to other months, I would think it's quite average? AMS has an artificial limit of 500.000 movements, however, multiplying Oct's movements by 12 exceeds the limit by over 11%. Or is there something I am missing?

FlyingHollander wrote:

How does October compare to other months, I would think it's quite average? AMS has an artificial limit of 500.000 movements, however, multiplying Oct's movements by 12 exceeds the limit by over 11%. Or is there something I am missing?

You're possibly missing that the 500K cap doesn't include general aviation while the statistics include it (3%), October has 31 days (3%), and October was still summer season slotwise with more daily slots than during the winter season (~6%). While October is not a busy month, that reflects more on the number of passengers than the number of flights especially now airlines have to keep flying to not lose their slots. All not huge differences but enough to explain the difference.

Jetty wrote:

FlyingHollander wrote:

How does October compare to other months, I would think it's quite average? AMS has an artificial limit of 500.000 movements, however, multiplying Oct's movements by 12 exceeds the limit by over 11%. Or is there something I am missing?

You're possibly missing that the 500K cap doesn't include general aviation while the statistics include it (3%), October has 31 days (3%), and October was still summer season slotwise with more daily slots than during the winter season (~6%). While October is not a busy month, that reflects more on the number of passengers than the number of flights especially now airlines have to keep flying to not lose their slots. All not huge differences but enough to explain the difference.

The figures also include around 500 movements from aircraft which departed AMS and returned to AMS. These can be trainingflights but I reckon the flights from the coastguard are also included in this figure. The total of "commercial flights" (thus those counting to the 500k threshold) was 44,849 in October 2017.

Could anyone provide similar figures for Belgian airports?

From another thread:

http://media.norwegian.com/us/#/pressre ... an-2331051

Norwegian will start AMS-JFK.May 7th.

Regarding Nordica flights from Groningen I wonder why did they choose MUC over FRA. Lack of slots at FRA? Lower landing costs in MUC? Business ties with Bavaria?

konkret wrote:

Regarding Nordica flights from Groningen I wonder why did they choose MUC over FRA. Lack of slots at FRA? Lower landing costs in MUC? Business ties with Bavaria?

MUC and FRA are LH hub (Europe and Asia/America )...and BRU is SN hub with big network ( Europe and Africa )

nordikcam wrote:

konkret wrote:

Regarding Nordica flights from Groningen I wonder why did they choose MUC over FRA. Lack of slots at FRA? Lower landing costs in MUC? Business ties with Bavaria?

MUC and FRA are LH hub (Europe and Asia/America )...and BRU is SN hub with big network ( Europe and Africa )

I guess that on this forum we are all aware which airlines hub at those airports.

Some sad news in Belgian aviaton: Freddy Van Gaever passed away yesterday. Freddy Van Gaever was founder of Belgian airlines including Delta Air Transport, VLM and VG Airlines. With his death, Belgian aviation looses someone who has done much for aviation and was prepared to take risks. Freddy Van Gaever died at the age of 79 due to cancer.




Source: Luchtzak.be
http://www.aviation24.be/airlines/found ... age-of-79/

The world needs more people like Van Gaever.


Meanwhile there are new artist impressions op the renovated / expanded departures lounge op Rotterdam airport (terminal renovation and expansion fase 1). Work due commence very soon. The new departure lounge will also have more facilities, such as Starbucks and the "worldfamous in holland" ... La Place.
http://www.jmvandelft.nl/nieuws/uitbrei ... e-airport/







[img]http://www.jmvandelft.nl/media/3-Artist-Impression-Uitbreiding-Terminal-Rotterdam-The-Hague-Airport-Website.jpg[/.img]

For the summer 2018 Nordica is adding weekly flights from Groningen to Nice:
LO8472 Groningen 17:10 – 19:10 Nice (-----6-)
LO8471 Nice 20:00 – 22:00 Groningen (-----6-)

thijs1984 wrote:

The world needs more people like Van Gaever.


Meanwhile there are new artist impressions op the renovated / expanded departures lounge op Rotterdam airport (terminal renovation and expansion fase 1). Work due commence very soon. The new departure lounge will also have more facilities, such as Starbucks and the "worldfamous in holland" ... La Place.
http://www.jmvandelft.nl/nieuws/uitbrei ... e-airport/







[img]http://www.jmvandelft.nl/media/3-Artist-Impression-Uitbreiding-Terminal-Rotterdam-The-Hague-Airport-Website.jpg[/.img]

What will the terminal capacity be?