Liège Airport is the world hub of TNT Airways, and the european hub of CAL Cargo Air Lines, El Al Cargo and Ethiopian Cargo (also using Southern Air aircraft) and Avient Aviation.
Liège airport is the 8th biggest cargo airport in Europe and the 38th biggest in the world
during the strike in BRU, the most important supplementay traffic has been registered in LGG; the different actors in LGG could handle the sudden increase somewhere satisfactorly: http://rtlinfo.alinfini.be/index.php?op ... &mmo=43867
(french)
how does the waloon goverment sees the future of LGG's pax development? do they want LGG to expand or do they prefere to make LGG the cargo place to be while the pax airport becomes CRL ? since they want a trainstation under CRL but don't talk about LGG im realy curious
fc82091 wrote:how does the waloon goverment sees the future of LGG's pax development? do they want LGG to expand or do they prefere to make LGG the cargo place to be while the pax airport becomes CRL ? since they want a trainstation under CRL but don't talk about LGG im realy curious
the walloon government (the "big players" come from Hainaut !!!) totally forbids LGG to have contacts with companies having a contract with CRL, or even companies who had contacts with CRL (this is written nowhere, but reality). (just remember the story with Jet4you: Minister forbid triangular flights, because both airports are in his juridiction !! arging ecological reasons: in the same time triangular flights happen with LGG and OST (i.e. Tenerife, Alicante....) and BRU (Antalya.....)
at the end of the RTL film, one can easily "feel" behind the words, who is concerned when they say the directors staff will "use" the present events to prove their ability to handle Cargo AND passengers !!!!!!!!!!
It's clear for many years now, LGG is a cargo airport with marginal pax activity, only charters, 25 destinations this year, about 400.000 pax/year. Still, it's the 3rd biggest airport in Belgium for pax and it's showing great will of expanding due to a lot of interest from different companies. The Walloon gov has always tried to redirect them to CRL, but the market is not really the same. Let's say CRL is for regular pax flight (although mainly low cost) while LGG is for charters and touristic destinations.
About the 3 last days, LGG received more than 130 flights, something like 15.000 pax (just a guess, need to be confirmed). The Walloon media (RTL) put the emphasis on the good operations while the Flemish media (VRT) put the emphasis on the problems. Belgium is still Belgium, could be funny if it wasn't real active propaganda, but hey, this country is a huge mess and we won't change it.
To summary the weak and the good points:
The airport is big enough: no surprise here, with 2 tracks and a lot of parking space (less cargo activities during the day), it is capable to deal a lot, even wide body and very long haul (only a very few were seen).
The terminal is too small for this kind of stress, the equipment is limited (stairs, bus, ...), no surprise either. It has never been designed for such traffic, it showed its limits.
But: even with such a stress it was able to handle quite good the passengers. Of course there were some delay but not cause by the airport. The 4 hours delay mentioned in the media was the delay from the original time of departure in bru to the new real departure time in LGG. This includes 90min bus transfer, check in, security, and all normal stuff you do anyway. 4 hours seems normal. The real delay can be found for regular LGG charters, they had only 1 hour delay from normal operation. Still quite good for me.
LGG decided to please everybody, accepted to reach their limit so the pax can enjoy their holyday anyway, with some delay of course, but totally acceptable to me.
I feel a bit weird when some pax complain about the lack of information and huge (!?! have they travelled before already?) delay on VRT while they see the whole world in spinning around them to make things work.
The overall experience, not planed, not trained, seemed very good for LGG. They showed they can be a real alternative.
too bad they only allowes 2 handling agents on the ramp. I wouldn't mind to be transfered to LGG
and about the recent days its true the flemish media was way too negative and its a shame, from what i've heard from friends every single person who works at LGG helped performing a little miracle
Acid-drop wrote:
About the 3 last days, LGG received more than 130 flights, something like 15.000 pax (just a guess, need to be confirmed). The Walloon media (RTL) put the emphasis on the good operations while the Flemish media (VRT) put the emphasis on the problems. Belgium is still Belgium, could be funny if it wasn't real active propaganda, but hey, this country is a huge mess and we won't change it.
fc82091 wrote:
and about the recent days its true the flemish media was way too negative and its a shame, from what i've heard from friends every single person who works at LGG helped performing a little miracle
I don't know which Flemish media you saw. But I saw a lot of them, and they all reported facts. Just facts. Facts like LGG isn't built to these numbers of pax, so pax had to queue till outside. That the number of pax during the strike were 4 times more then normal, that the normal check-in time (exlcuding the bus transfer from BRU) was also longer then normal, that all airport services were on full force, that pax queued patiently and complained about the overall delay (= arrival in BRU till going to gate in LGG).
VRT (controlled by the Flemish Governemt) and VTM (leading Flemish commercial television) even had a neutral interview with the LGG manager, who received the questions before the interview.
Acid-drop wrote:
I feel a bit weird when some pax complain about the lack of information and huge (!?! have they travelled before already?) delay on VRT while they see the whole world in spinning around them to make things work.
Allow me to say that some guys from Aviapartner and/or Flightcare were doing the opposite to make things work. Pax are entitled to complain if their holiday is scr... up. Because in travel trade, the holiday starts at the airport, not on the beach in Spain or Turkey.
It's always a question of interpretation.
You can say : LGG reached its limit but still was able to provide a good, although not perfect, service or LGG reached its limits and this created many delay ... yeah well ... try to bring 500% capacity in BRU just to see how they do
I don't want to spoil your enthusiasm about this news. Ningbo airport is a very small airport and depends on other airports. If we have a look on the cargo part then they are a lot smaller then Ostend Airport and they have a lack of cargo routes (no big players).
I think they will use each other know how in the airline business. This small Chinese airport can learn a lot of LGG and otherwise. Those MOU's are not unusual. Look at AMS, they participate in other foreign airports without having flights to/from AMS.
Atlantis wrote:I don't want to spoil your enthusiasm about this news. Ningbo airport is a very small airport and depends on other airports. If we have a look on the cargo part then they are a lot smaller then Ostend Airport and they have a lack of cargo routes (no big players).
I think they will use each other know how in the airline business. This small Chinese airport can learn a lot of LGG and otherwise. Those MOU's are not unusual. Look at AMS, they participate in other foreign airports without having flights to/from AMS.
you don't spoil my enthusiasm at all, don't worry
-as you say, AMS is participating in development of foreign airport: that is due to the reputation of AMS. Now a newcomer (LGG's shared civil use is as young as +/- 15 years) became famous enough abroad to be asked for advice too.
-on the other hand, beiing at a low stage of development in a booming region like the Shanghai region show that there is some need for "import of know-how" from abroad: who better than a booming airport in a other region of the globe where the market shares were distributed long time ago is able to give that advice?
-third remark: you will never convince me that AMS (or FRA, or other) is acting like they do without some win/win idea, also if direct flights are not apparently the primary goal; same should also apply for LGG, I guess.
To come back to my "enthusiasm": i'm some kind of enthusiastic because I think that it is very clever to take foot in a region (the Shanghai region) where the possibilities of grow are still very big: who knows today which role that airport will play in, let's say, 10 / 15 years? to be in partnership with them from now on, will always give some advance compared to other European players (exactly the same way of thinking that motivated AMS- or other- in doing the same)
In the article below you can find some more or the same info but the comparison with Shanghai and Brussels Airport is not correct. At this moment there is no problem with slots for cargo's at Brussels Airport but the opposite, it were the Chinese carriers, possible new cargo carriers, who asked more logistics, storage and handling buildings.
With the new Brucargo West, Brussels Airport will handle a lot more cargo carriers in the near future.
Brussels Airport has a benefit: they don't have to shoose between pas or cargo, they have both.
I was just reading the article in Le Soir and before I red this I was thinking about TNT. TNT Airways is now flying to Shanghai so why not to Ningbo? I see them as only carrier between LGG and China. I don't think that the management of LGG will take the risk to attract a new Chinese carrier -> competition with their home carrier TNT Airways.
an-148 wrote:less serious than economy or market shares: just for the fun, or how to combine "luchtzk news" and "sport news": http://www.rtc.be/content/view/5846/166/
I am surprised to see only one flight to Liverpool. How do the other 3,000 Standard fans travel?
an-148 wrote:less serious than economy or market shares: just for the fun, or how to combine "luchtzk news" and "sport news": http://www.rtc.be/content/view/5846/166/
I am surprised to see only one flight to Liverpool. How do the other 3,000 Standard fans travel?
there is a second flight, only for supporters.
There are also 50 coaches travelling to Liverpool (the distance is surely short enough to justify the choice of a cheaper travel with coach than plane, including the channel crossover by railshuttle or ferry)
Daily pictures of LGG on the friend forum of mst-aviation :
