Doncaster Sheffield International Airport (DSA)

[Superfly]

Good God!

It just makes me wonder why the hell they built it in the first place!

[woodhousen]

it will be closed.......only TEN years after it was built

[muddycoffee]

Originally Posted by woodhousen

i agree..... but this extension wouldnt make it an international airport, just one that would be able to offer flights without limiting loads....ie the 737 a320........ and this would be no worse than the expansion of heathrow, birmingham, blackpool and glasgow!

In my view in the future, ideally all the big stuff, and holiday flights could use the large runway at robin hood, while the sheffield city airport could be reserved for daytime light aircraft and small business jets, and shuttles to dublin and the channel islands as before.
If predicted that the Robin hood terminal is operating at 10million passengers a year, in a few years, it would be extremely busy.

Although if the country enters another recession or at least a significant downturn in the next five years then I am sure that the expansion of the Robin Hood Airport would be damaged quite badly, as the growth of services will cease during the important initial growth phase, as all the facilities come into place.

Link Road, Train Station, off airport car parks, extra baggage carousels, airbridges etc..

[SmartCity]

Originally Posted by woodhousen

im sorry, would this be too much to ask for...this would easily give u an airport atleast as capable as coventry and blackpool......witht he 737s and 320s to europe

I agree with woodhousen here. This really is a mist opportunity for Sheffield. The decision was soley to protect PEEL Holdings and there decision in opening an airport at Doncaster. If PEEL were so confident in their new venture down the road, why block a potentially sucessful City Airport. The Plan of Sheffield Airport with the extended runway could have handled upto around 1.5 million passengers. Flights to places like Paris, Rome, Alicante, Amsterdam, Brussels would have been possible from there. Leaving the so-called big stuff for down the road. I suspect that apart from the Charter flights, DSA is unlikely to recieve many Long-Haul Scheduled services, as these airlines tend to operate from just one or two airports nationally and in the UK this would be eg. Heathrow and Manchester.

[muddycoffee]

It is not obvious from the above map, but a visit to the area confirms that the whole area along the Europa link road is brownfield land. There are acres of cleared space for new development or industrial units, and indeed already built units still for sale, therefore, the notion that space is so tight up there that they have to destroy a perfectly good runway is extremely harsh, and a pointless and tragic waste.
I vaguely remember that most of the roundabouts along the europa link road have blank stubs waiting for new development and new roads on the north of the site.

[Bladerunner]

Once the new link road is in place, and a regular bus service is running to the city centre, Sheffield will genuinely be able to describe DSA as 'our' airport, albeit shared with Donny. The travel time by bus - Parkway, M1, M18 - will take 30 minutes or even less - comparable to the journey time to most big city airports from the city centre.

Still a real shame about the city airport though. A tram spur would have been relatively easy to build, and travel time to the city centre would have been no more than 10 mins. It would potentially have been able to compete with the trains, and could have even offered flights to the London airports for people making onward connections.

[woodhousen]

but a city the size of sheffiled should not be sharing an airport which is no-where near a city. i can not emphasize enough how important it is for a city to have its own airport next to a city. in the case of birminghan, there are a large amount of people who fly in from america to come and see stratford upon avon......i will make no lie and admit that many americans prob have never heard of buirmingham uk (even though it is the second largest city) but as a result of BHX being the closest international airport to stratford, nearly all the people arrive get to experience birmingham as well as stratford ....and if they do nothing else, atleast they know birmingham exists.....


....with DSA, the only people that will see sheffield are people who are there purely to visit sheffield and no-one else!

[Bladerunner]

In my view it's only the name that is the problem. Of course a city the size of Sheffield should not have billing behind Donny. The name is a major marketing blunder. I would have been happy with Sheffield Doncaster, or Sheffield Don Valley Airport. Unfortunately, I think the name Doncaster Sheffield Robin Hood Airport is here to stay.

As I said, the distance is not that far. It is less than e.g. Stansted is from London. It's all about travel time, and once the new road is built the airport will be a 30 minute journey from the city centre. Unless they decide to take the airport bus via Rotherham and Donny, that is (please no!).

[woodhousen]

Originally Posted by Bladerunner

In my view it's only the name that is the problem. Of course a city the size of Sheffield should not have billing behind Donny. The name is a major marketing blunder. I would have been happy with Sheffield Doncaster, or Sheffield Don Valley Airport. Unfortunately, I think the name Doncaster Sheffield Robin Hood Airport is here to stay.

As I said, the distance is not that far. It is less than e.g. Stansted is from London. It's all about travel time, and once the new road is built the airport will be a 30 minute journey from the city centre. Unless they decide to take the airport bus via Rotherham and Donny, that is (please no!).

u site the distance between london and stansted....hwoever, all you have to do is look at stansted..... it many ways, it have been a major failure for london.

stansted was built and expanded to take the strain of LHR but it didnt. none of the major scheduled airlines were willing to move that far out of the city and want airports close to the city.

just look at the figures, NEMA...in the middle of no-where...no BA, no LUFTHANSA, no AIR FRANCE...its a holiday airport.............Stansted....no BA, no LUFTHANSA, no AIR FRANCE...just ryan and easy

being close the the city will attract the big names, and those big names are wat will get the money

[muddycoffee]

Originally Posted by woodhousen

but a city the size of sheffiled should not be sharing an airport which is no-where near a city. i can not emphasize enough how important it is for a city to have its own airport next to a city.

I don't think that is quite true. Have you ever looked on a map how far away, Gatwick, or London Luton is from central London. Also Barcelona requires a train journey from its main airport into the city, and in Madrid, while the metro line runs from Bajaras airport into the centre and the rest of the excellent metro system, the line is quite long and remote to get there.
Most of the cities I have visited in europe require a Bus, taxi or train journey of between 2 hours and 20 minutes between the airport and the city. Dsa and sheffield centre will compare very favourably with that.

Also while you are complaining about doncaster being the lead name in the airport's title, you never hear anyone complaining about Gatwick, Heathrow schipol, JFK, John Lennon or Charles de Gaul overshadowing the name of their city

[muddycoffee]

Originally Posted by Bladerunner

Still a real shame about the city airport though. A tram spur would have been relatively easy to build, and travel time to the city centre would have been no more than 10 mins. It would potentially have been able to compete with the trains, and could have even offered flights to the London airports for people making onward connections.

It could be even easier than you think, because right across the parkway in what used to be Orgreave, is planned the new conurbation of waverley, which consists of housing, office space, retail etc.. and they have plans for 3 tram stops and a rail station interchange at one of them

[woodhousen]

Originally Posted by muddycoffee

I don't think that is quite true. Have you ever looked on a map how far away, Gatwick, or London Luton is from central London. Also Barcelona requires a train journey from its main airport into the city, and in Madrid, while the metro line runs from Bajaras airport into the centre and the rest of the excellent metro system, the line is quite long and remote to get there.
Most of the cities I have visited in europe require a Bus, taxi or train journey of between 2 hours and 20 minutes between the airport and the city. Dsa and sheffield centre will compare very favourably with that.

Also while you are complaining about doncaster being the lead name in the airport's title, you never hear anyone complaining about Gatwick, Heathrow schipol, JFK, John Lennon or Charles de Gaul overshadowing the name of their city

1) those airports may have journeys to them, but that is because they are the biggest airports as close as possible to the city centre..just a shame they are massive cities

2) the names of those airports are fine...because they dont start with a name of another city!

[Bladerunner]

Is the airport code SDA available? Or how about SDV or SHE? Maybe we should start a 'Drop Donny' campaign...

:-)

[woodhousen]

especially considering that on my arrive and departure screens, flights to DSA are just stated as "Doncaster"

[Bladerunner]

At nine letters each, the two names are too long to fit on arrival and departure screens. As 'Doncaster' comes first, that is unfortunately what the name is being abbreviated to. If 'Sheffield' came first in the airport name, it would have ended up being referred to informally as 'Sheffield Airport'.

Sheffield Council should have anticipated that this would happen. :-(

[skyfitsboy]

It should be changed immediately, looks much better like this:

[woodhousen]

ok, im going ott now

[Bladerunner]

Originally Posted by skyfitsboy

It should be changed immediately, looks much better like this:

LOL, it does look much better now.

[Superfly]

Funny, that at nine letters, it isn't RobinHood, to get the americans interested.
Or maybe DoncSheff, or better SheffDonc!

Or how about SheffielD!!!

Don't forget that Donny has been going for city status for a while now, and since its one of Britains largest towns, I think it will get it in the not so distant future, which will be nice, and improve the profile of DSA i think.

[Starslight]

Originally Posted by Superfly

Funny, that at nine letters, it isn't RobinHood, to get the americans interested.
Or maybe DoncSheff, or better SheffDonc!

Or how about SheffielD!!!

Don't forget that Donny has been going for city status for a while now, and since its one of Britains largest towns, I think it will get it in the not so distant future, which will be nice, and improve the profile of DSA i think.

How big is Doncaster now? To be honest I don't think city status does all that much for a place, people take note for about 5 minutes and then forget about it. Anyway considering size and relative distance Sheffield really ought ot get their name first on that airport whether Donnys a city or not!