Carlisle Airport

It is said that the best way of making a small fortune in the aviation business is to start with a big one. The Stobart Group, the company which made its fortune through the haulage business and the legendary Eddie Stobart lorries, is keen to buck the trend. In 2008 it bought the moribund Southend Airport in Essex and spent a large sum of money building a new terminal, control tower and railway station. In 2012 it reopened as London Southend Airport and has found a small niche in the huge air transport market that is the southeast of England. In 2014 Stobart went in to the airline business when it purchased Air Arann, an Irish regional airline. The Stobart Group is based in Carlisle in the top left hand corner of England. Carlisle has had an airport since the end of World War 2 when RAF Crosby-on-Eden was taken over by the local council. Since then it has had several attempts at introducing scheduled services, all of which were short lived and the airport survived on the back of general aviation and flight training. In 1994 the council sold it and after passing through various hands it was acquired by the Stobart Group in 2009. The airport was hardly a viable concern but the land on which it stood was put to use by Stobart when a new distribution facility was built on it. The airport itself remained under-utilised until this year. After some delay, a new terminal was opened and once again scheduled flights are operating to and from Carlisle.

Those services are limited. There are only three destinations served, Dublin, Belfast and Southend. The timetable shows that each city is served once a day, initially on five days a week, now just four days: Monday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. One aircraft is based at the airport to make these twelve weekly flights, a Saab 340 with 34 seats. If every seat was filled, which they won’t be, the airport would be handling little more than 21,000 passengers per year. Heathrow handles that in about three hours on average. A big operation it isn’t. The airline operating the flights is Loganair but the aircraft they use is in fact leased from an Estonian company called Nyxair who provide the flight crew. It is fully painted in Loganair colours and has been named Spirit of Carlisle for the duration of its service from the airport. Will the service last longer than the previous abortive attempts to operate flights from Carlisle? Time will tell. The backing of the Stobart Group will help of course. It is they who invested the money to upgrade the airport and build the new terminal so they will be keen to see some return from that investment. I suspect they will be hoping to attract a bit more business than twelve flights a week.

The thing is Carlisle isn’t really a great place for an airport. Newcastle Airport is an hour or so to the east, Manchester Airport a couple of hours to the south and both Glasgow and Edinburgh are a couple of hours to the north. Not exactly close but not too far away either. The town already has very good links with much of the rest of Britain. The M6 skirts the edge of town and the West Coast Mainline provides a fast and frequent rail connection with London. Carlisle is a reasonably sized town but, in my opinion at least, it is not quite big or remote enough to warrant an airport. In an attempt to broaden its appeal it was renamed Carlisle Lake District Airport but it’s hard to see a change of moniker having much effect. What do I know though? It could just be the start of something. Maybe some low cost airline will see a hole in the market that they could fill. Maybe Loganair will be pleasantly surprised and increase capacity on the routes they already serve. Or perhaps it will go the same way as all the previous attempts at linking Carlisle with the world by air. I hope not.

With all that in mind I thought it a good idea to sample Carlisle Lake District Airport whilst I could. I got the train down to Carlisle. There is a minibus shuttle service from Carlisle Station to the airport which was free but now costs £5. It links to the individual flights. I was the only person on it and in fifteen minutes it had dropped me off right outside the terminal building. The terminal was quite impressive for an airport with such a modest range of services, though it turned out much of the building was reserved for Stobart Group offices. Through the main doors lay the cafe/waiting area/check in/bag drop. It was light and airy and a pleasant place to wait though there were no views across the airport itself, not that there was anything much to see. I know it’s a bit geeky but when at an airport I do quite like to see some planes. This being lunchtime, the cafe was doing quite a brisk trade, not only with passengers but with meeters and greeters and Stobart Group employees. There was one check in desk staffed by a friendly airport employee. Eventually the aircraft arrived from Belfast and we were called for boarding. We passed through a door into a small security area where checks were completed as vigorously as they would be anywhere else. We emerged into the gate area with enough seats for a Saab 340 load of passengers to sit and wait. An old couple were given assistance to board before the rest of us were allowed to make our way across the apron to the aircraft. It turned out that the old gentleman was 87 years old and making his first ever flight. When this was announced to us he received a round of applause. There was one cabin crew member, locally recruited, who was tasked with looking after the twenty or so passengers on this flight down to Southend. We taxied out, took off, soon disappeared into cloud and that was my first and possibly last experience of Carlisle Lake District Airport. Just a quick word on the flight: flying Loganair is a bit like flying used to be twenty or more years ago. A hold bag is included in the fare, most likely due to the small size of their aircraft rather than an altruistic gesture on their behalf, and they provide inflight service at no extra cost. This is limited to a soft drink and a biscuit but was most welcome nevertheless. The airline is keen to emphasise its Scottishness despite this particular flight remaining wholly in England and flown by Estonians. Though flying in the Saab is not exactly a quiet experience and the cloud that covered much of the country rather spoiled the views, the flight was quite a pleasant one.

Southend might seem an odd destination for any flight, not just a headline service from Carlisle. It is, however, very well connected to London with three trains an hour taking fifty minutes to deposit the weary traveller at Liverpool Street Station. This isn’t much longer than the connections to Luton and Stansted. The airport’s station is literally across the road from the terminal so there is limited faffing about before you are on your way to the capital. It also serves the large population of Essex and east London. It is frequently voted as London’s best airport and has attracted services from the big low cost carriers Easy Jet and Ryanair. Handily, it also connects with Glasgow. Flybe originally served that route but found it unsustainable on their 119 seat E195s so now Loganair operate the service with 50 seat E145s. It was one of these I’d booked on to get me back home. It did, on time and with another drink and Tunnocks biscuit served en route.

The Stobart Group have turned Southend Airport into a success, albeit a modest one when compared with its huge competitors dotted around the southeast of England. Will they turn Carlisle into a similar success or will it be a millstone round their neck, turning a large fortune into a small one on the way? Your guess is as good as mine.