ON TOUR: Robin Hood Airport
Robin Hood Airport, the former RAF Finningley, opens on Thursday with the first question where is it and why? Its location is no mystery lying just to the east of the A1M/M18 intersection with excellent motorway connections to both the M1, north to south, and M82 east to west. Doncaster is less than ten miles away, Sheffield 25 miles and even Nottingham just 40 miles. It is in the centre of a major conurbation not served well by the air travel industry. It is reckoned that six million people live within one hour”s drive of the airport. The airport is new, fresh, well publicised and bound to attract business in the short term from East Midlands and Humberside (and Manchester too) but such is the growth of air travel it is not likely to have a real effect on those airports in the long term.
RAF Finningley opened in 1936 and is best known as the front line Bomber Command base during World War II and the Cold War when the Avro Vulcan (left) made alarming shadows.. Locals may recall some wonderful air displays including the Red Arrows and Concorde. With a runway length of just under 3000m, resurfaced in 1989 (and hardly used since) it was declared by the Ministry of Defence surplus to requirements in March 1995.
Put up for tender Finningley was purchased by Peel Holdings Plc, credited with the resurrection of Liverpool Airport from a rundown and decrepit airline graveyard to one of the most rapidly expanding operations in the whole of the UK, an impressive gateway to a city in renaissance. Peel also owns the Manchester Ship Canal, Clydeport, the Trafford Centre in Manchester, also acquiring along the way Teesside Airport, now Durham Tees Valley. Robin Hood, its name controversial (and hence newsworthy) also includes an 800-acre airport business park which already supports around 100 companies, ranging from car maintenance to IT businesses, with a further 60 acre site planned which could house distribution centres and more hangar space.
Peel acquired the site in June 1999 and quickly set about planning an airport operation for the 21st century. New security rules and rapidly changing technology slowed things a little but the five years it has taken to implement its ideas compares very much with Mowlem”s experience at London City ” 1982 until the November opening in 1987. Here the comparisons should end. The east London concept took at least ten years, and a great deal more investment, before it made a real mark. The impact of Robin Hood is likely to be immediate with major future funding unlikely. Unlike London City it should not need bailing out by new investors.
Two key low cost operators, Thomsonfly.com and Ryanair will be operating flights to a wide variety of European destinations from the airport from day one and Thomas Cook Airlines will also be establishing a base. There are another half a dozen tour operators widening the travel opportunities from the airport which will offer flights to 27 destinations in 16 countries shortly after opening. The 2006 brochures are hitting the travel agents this week with long haul holiday flights to the Caribbean, Florida and Mexico in the programme.
Departing passengers will find parking very easy directly opposite the two-storey glass and steel terminal building. Passage through the airport should be very quick compared with some.
”Directions Finningley”, a unique recruitment, training, career development and business support service is also based at the Airport site. This collaborative partnership of local providers including Jobcentre Plus, Lifetime Careers, Doncaster College and North Nottinghamshire College and Peel Airports Ltd continues to be actively involved in recruiting staff across all disciplines for the airport and its partners, with a focus on recruiting from the local area. Directions Finningley is also developing a National Centre for Aviation Excellence over the next 12 months. The Aviation Academy will be based in one of the airport”s five existing hangars and is expected to become the largest and most advanced aviation training facility in the UK.
Robin Hood has been an ”80m exercise for Peel. They predict that within five years the airport will be catering for 2.3m passengers and 50,000 tonnes of freight. A total of 611 jobs have been created already and it is estimated that this will rise to 7,000 jobs over the next five to ten years.
David Ryall, managing director, Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield says: ”As the airport opens an international gateway into the region will have been established. This gateway presents all kind of exciting possibilities locally and for the wider region which must capitalise on potential worldwide trading routes and be capable of supporting the international business and leisure travellers visiting from overseas.”
The V bombers may have gone but the runways remain and Finningley enters a new era. This year it will be A320s and 737s. Who knows what the future holds? Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield can easily support the Airbus A380.
http://www.robinhoodairport.com