GLA is down, but has more growth potential

[jetblue497]

Fella 'talks the talk'. Interesting to find out if he 'walks the walk'. Time will tell I suppose. Anything upbeat about GLA I always find gets tempered by the fact that it's still bloody AGS at the helm.Maybe it's just me.

No its not just you

[hads]

Interesting responses to The Herald article published today

I must admit feeling very lukewarm . . . eg
> comparing Glasgow City Region to Greater Manchester when MAN was/is by far the #1 airport in the north-west of England so sitting in a position of strength looking down on LPL & LBA

> potential to add destinations such as China . . . bit too late!

> 'If I look at it from a general Scottish perspective, there is a connectivity deficit in this country.' . . . but viably to where?

> He flagged potential for new services to Germany, the north of Italy, and Spanish cities such as Madrid . . . not new if Dusseldorf, Munich, Milan, Madrid as they were lost to EDI or dropped, no mention of zero services to Scandinavia

> Noting recent successes for the airport with package holiday operator TUI, which is basing an additional two planes at the airport from summer next year . . . yes but operating W patterns and replacing ABZ based Sunwing

> Asked if he believed Edinburgh Airport had an inherent advantage when it came to inbound tourism, Mr Cliffe replied: “I don’t think that is an inherent advantage at all." . . . but of course he wasn't asked about the position today which means that unless there is significant overall growth in the market (which I personally doubt) then GLA has to offer a significantly better financial proposition than EDI or PIK

Being ( me) and an overtly positive type of fella, Im stopping the previous ticking clock and resetting it to zero and renamiming it Cliffes Clock. It starts now at position zero.
Im giving him every opportunity to deliver the exact problem areas he has identified. Afterall, the senior management position comes with hefty package and thats what he gets paid for.
So now its all about delivering.
No excuses. He knows whats required.
Get it done.

[Clive]

Interesting responses to The Herald article published today

I must admit feeling very lukewarm . . . eg
> comparing Glasgow City Region to Greater Manchester when MAN was/is by far the #1 airport in the north-west of England so sitting in a position of strength looking down on LPL & LBA

> potential to add destinations such as China . . . bit too late!

> 'If I look at it from a general Scottish perspective, there is a connectivity deficit in this country.' . . . but viably to where?

> He flagged potential for new services to Germany, the north of Italy, and Spanish cities such as Madrid . . . not new if Dusseldorf, Munich, Milan, Madrid as they were lost to EDI or dropped, no mention of zero services to Scandinavia

> Noting recent successes for the airport with package holiday operator TUI, which is basing an additional two planes at the airport from summer next year . . . yes but operating W patterns and replacing ABZ based Sunwing

> Asked if he believed Edinburgh Airport had an inherent advantage when it came to inbound tourism, Mr Cliffe replied: “I don’t think that is an inherent advantage at all." . . . but of course he wasn't asked about the position today which means that unless there is significant overall growth in the market (which I personally doubt) then GLA has to offer a significantly better financial proposition than EDI or PIK

Being ( me) and an overtly positive type of fella, Im stopping the previous ticking clock and resetting it to zero and renamiming it Cliffes Clock. It starts now at position zero.
Im giving him every opportunity to deliver the exact problem areas he has identified. Afterall, the senior management position comes with hefty package and thats what he gets paid for.
So now its all about delivering.
No excuses. He knows whats required.
Get it done.

He could start by making Edinburgh’s undeniable tourism draw a boon for GLA rather than a burden. Establish a direct bus link to that tourist hotspot and then it works for us and not against us. It’s beyond parody that the airport has one of Europe’s top city break destinations only an hour away along a straight motorway but no kind of transportation.

Imagine trying to sell GLA to worldwide airlines but having to tell them when asked that there is no transport link whatsoever to Edinburgh.

[Ken1]

Positive vibes from MR Cliffe, time will tell.

Easy win, Edinburgh has now reached saturation point and it’s venture capitalist owners unlikely to invest the significant expenditure it now needs to expand. As a departing passenger from 12.00 to 16.00 on Thursday, the terminal is now chaotic as so many passengers, even before main summer season and additional American/Canadian flights. Most significantly a lot of arriving aircraft were kept waiting at the end of the taxiway 15 mins due to lack of stands.

EDI is now an embarrassment as the capitals airport and airlines will be getting pissed off too. Come on GLA take advantage!

[bill]

Positive vibes from MR Cliffe, time will tell.

Easy win, Edinburgh has now reached saturation point and it’s venture capitalist owners unlikely to invest the significant expenditure it now needs to expand. As a departing passenger from 12.00 to 16.00 on Thursday, the terminal is now chaotic as so many passengers, even before main summer season and additional American/Canadian flights. Most significantly a lot of arriving aircraft were kept waiting at the end of the taxiway 15 mins due to lack of stands.

EDI is now an embarrassment as the capitals airport and airlines will be getting pissed off too. Come on GLA take advantage!

I echo your seniments Ken but I still think EDI has the potential to attract investment for expansion miles ahead of GLA doing anything much. I hope Mr Cliffe does prove me wrong and pulls some rabbits out of hats but I really can't see it tbh. We can't even get the fundamentals right, like a direct bus link to/from EDI as others have aluded to and the train link project soon descended into farce. We've gotten ourselves into a situation where we have too many fronts to fight now thanks to years of mis-management from (amongst others, but most recently) AGS.

[Iain]

A very interesting article here reporting on a boom in US tourists visiting Scotland, leading to "exceptional" numbers. The article even comes complete with Gordon Dewar boasting about the pax dividend to EDI:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- ... s-65637377

Edinburgh Airport has begun new links this month with Atlanta, Georgia, and also with Calgary in Canada, while resuming links with Boston and Chicago.

Following Brexit, it has been successful in attracting a bigger share of transatlantic travel than Glasgow, which used to dominate.

Until our friends AGS took over!

And the capital's airport has a significantly higher share of inbound American travellers - as opposed to outbound travellers from the UK - than any other major airport in Britain.

Between March and October last year, more than half the passengers on US flights began their journey in the US, peaking at 76% in August last year.

Edinburgh Airport chief executive Gordon Dewar says that a big change is in the spread beyond the summer months, with more airlines continuing to fly these routes into autumn.

"We were on a growth trajectory, and post-Covid, it really accelerated.

"The American market was fastest out the blocks. They stopped travel restrictions a year before Europe did, so they were ready to go."

Mr Dewar reports that transatlantic passenger numbers are 25% higher this year than they were before the pandemic.

"We've got more destinations, higher frequencies.

Any suggestion that GLA/Glasgow can't get any of this business is frankly nonsense imo - A large proportion of American visitors do visit Glasgow, not to mention the W Highlands and Islands and Ayrshire golf courses. Plus the opportunities afforded by a direct Edinburgh bus (we've only been waiting more than a decade for that!)

Unfortunately GLA is missing out on this "growth trajectory" because of AGS's failures. What a missed opportunity.

[will1983]

https://www.jobtrain.co.uk/agsairports/ ... ?JobId=734

Looks like a new post to develop business relations with airlines.

[Iain]

Looks like Stuart Patrick has written a follow up article in The Herald reflecting on the things Andy Cliffe said in his interview:

https://www.heraldscotland.com/business ... ll-better/

If anybody can get behind the paywall that would be useful!

[GeorgeNTravels]

Looks like Stuart Patrick has written a follow up article in The Herald reflecting on the things Andy Cliffe said in his interview:

https://www.heraldscotland.com/business ... ll-better/

If anybody can get behind the paywall that would be useful!

It is hard to disagree with Andy Cliffe, the new chief executive of AGS Airports, owners of Glasgow Airport, that Glasgow’s messaging is punching below its weight.

It was a lesson already learnt from a piece of work carried out before the pandemic by urban experts, the Business of Cities. Examining data from over 450 reports comparing cities across the world, their conclusion was that, while Glasgow had been making headway as a tourism destination, there was very little appreciation of how else Glasgow earns its living. Observers knew how we had used culture and sport to make a compelling case for turning an industrial metropolis into a rewarding tourist experience, but they knew very little of the current status of the sectors at the heart of our economic history; our engineering, our medical sciences and the financial services that supported their growth.

This would have been a more depressing result had The Business of Cities not also suggested the elements of the business story that Glasgow is well placed to tell. And that too is Mr Cliffe’s belief. There is a powerful message to get across and it would make his job attracting air routes to Glasgow Airport easier if we increased our efforts to do so.

One aspect that The Business of Cities’ report covered was what is now being described in urban economic development circles as a city’s innovation eco-system. There is nothing especially complex about an innovation eco-system. It describes how effective a city is in supporting new ideas, whether these be for products, services or whole new ways of living. The good news for Glasgow is that our eco-system is rich and evolving quickly.

That much was clear from a series of workshops organised by the team at Glasgow City of Science and Innovation, a partnership supporting the development of our eco-system and of which I am proud to be the chair.

Over 100 individuals from technology businesses, from our universities and colleges and from both national and local government contributed their views on what should be included in a fresh innovation action plan to keep the city region’s eco-system growing.

We have three emerging innovation districts, each with a different mix of specialisms in engineering, health and life sciences and advanced manufacturing. Space, photonics, precision medicine, digital chemistry, renewable energy and the creative industries all feature in the eleven projects currently being funded by the UK Government’s Innovation Accelerator Programme. Our research universities have been investing heavily in new facilities such as the first Technology and Innovation Centre at the University of Strathclyde and the Advanced Research Centre at the University of Glasgow. There is a great deal more to come.

There is a very long list of institutes and centres of excellence in everything from satellite applications, sensors, metallurgy, medicines manufacturing and health and wellbeing. And we have well-established assets like the Glasgow Science Centre and the Glasgow Science Festival now being joined by newer ones such as the Glasgow City Innovation District’s Technology Week, Bruntwood SciTech’s Digital Technology Hub and the Scottish Government’s Techscaler. Glasgow’s innovation action plan will have to answer many of the issues raised in the workshops. Do we place enough priority on the importance of our innovation economy? Is our risk appetite strong enough given the likelihood that many commercialisation projects won’t succeed? Are we placing the right bets on our most promising sectors? Have we built an effective community of experience around our innovators to help them grow successful businesses and have we made it easy enough to access funding at the various stages of the business growth cycle?

The workshops also repeatedly raised the importance of communicating worldwide what is happening in Glasgow if we are to attract talent, attract investment and secure the next rounds of funding from national governments and from academic research councils. We are currently not doing that well enough and collectively we must renew our marketing efforts and rise to Mr Cliffe’s challenge.

Stuart Patrick is CEO of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce