London has 6 airports, some of which are very far from the city center. And a seventh will see the light of day as the government has just given the green light for the reopening and development of Manston Airport… in Kent, near Canterbury.
A former Royal Air Force base, transformed into a civilian airfield in 1989, closed in 2014, then transformed into a trucking park, the airport is now owned by RiverOak Strategic Partners (RSP) which plans to invest £500m or so 600 million euros to develop activities there (to add to the 16 million pounds of its takeover).
The first challenge is to turn it into a cargo platform, but for Tony Freudmann, director of RSP, the goal is to bring airlines back for international flights. Eventually, a Paris-London could land in Manston, which is… 120 kilometers from the capital.
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But for the manager, companies, especially low cost ones, have every interest in operating from Manston. He also says talks are already underway with a number of them: KLM, easyJet and Rynanair.
At KentOnline, he explains: “Given the evolution of the passenger market, we are confident that we can persuade one or more low-cost airlines to base their aircraft here.” As long as you maintain a sufficient volume of rotations.
“It won’t work if they only come once a day because that’s not feasible. If they base three or four planes in Manston, we’ll have rotations three or four times a day, like they did in Southend,” which is 60 kilometers from London, he explains. .
“This will cover our costs and bring passengers to the terminal all day, every day. We will reinstate the twice-daily KLM service to Amsterdam Schiphol that we previously had that will give business people in particular access to almost any part of the world.” he continued.
Start of work next year
Works at the airport will begin next year with the ambition to start cargo operations in 2025. The successful launch of these operations is also the sine qua non condition for the return of companies, believes the manager.
Source: BFM TV
