The Unofficial Plymouth City Airport Website

The future of the airport

Written 17/08/00, revised 08/01/03

Plymouth City Airport Limited was acquired by Sutton Harbour Holdings, who are trying to attract new airlines to the airport, which has previously been seen as "Brymon airport," as seen from the old entrance which held the sign "Plymouth Airport-the home of Brymon Airways."

Before Brymon began at the airport in the 1970`s, several airlines had tried operations from Plymouth (see more at Airport History.)

Since the opening of the new main runway in 1988, Plymouth has seen an influx of activity from other operators. The Royal Navy continued their operation of initial flight grading, contracted to Airwork; previous owners of the airport, and who later became Bombardier Shorts and then VT Aerospace and later took on state of the art Grob "Herons." Bond Helicopters (later Scotia/British International) began a controversial Naval operation to transfer crews to ships very frequently throughout the weekdays. Plymouth School of Flying has been growing every year and the Air Taxi; Air-Care/Victoria Aviation did have three aircraft, including a Beech Super King Air, before ending all operations. Other air taxi firms, business aircraft, including jets, and light visitors frequent at the airport.

Brymon/British Airways has always been loyal to the airport, and will stay at the airport even though they no longer own the site. Very few airlines have operated from Plymouth; due to the runway size and lack of facilities. The Isles of Scilly Skybus did operate thrice weekly to the isles. Air South West were very ambitious in 1996 with services to Dublin, Cork and Manchester and plans for more services, but like other small airlines, their operation was short lived.

As the Brymon Heathrow operation was at one time in doubt, several airlines showed an interest in taking over services: One such airline was AB Airlines(Air Bristol) which had offices based in the city, but its flights also failed. A new airline; Celtic Airways planed to launch Cork-Plymouth-Brussels flights from March 2001 and moved into ex-Brymon offices at the airport. They planed to have two Dash-8-300s when the flights begin and also operate Brussels flights to Newquay-Cornwall Airport(Also run by Sutton Harbour Holdings.) They planned to introduce more flights from the airport in the future, using even larger aircraft.

In a long running process, causing a publicity of bad support from residents and a huge support from the business community, the airport will have a runway improvement; allowing the Dash-8`s to land with a full load in all weather conditions and for larger aircraft to be able to land on the runway. Other, larger aircraft can land at the airport today, but they can not have a full load of passengers. Examples are the BAE-146-100, which lands frequently as the Royal Squadron CC2 version and the ATR-72 of British World Airlines which has visited. The runway improvements cause a diversion in the A386 dual carriageway, to enable the full length of the 1170m runway to be used and for arrester bed style safety areas at the ends of the runways to be built. The previous suggestion was to demolish a factory at the southeastern end of the airport, enabling the runway to be realigned and extended, but financing this project has been less forthcoming. The improved runway could allow larger aircraft to operate which is important as new aircraft are developed. An example of this has been Brymon`s introduction of Embraer ERJ-145s into its fleet, which are unable to land at Plymouth, despite carrying the same number of passengers as the Dash-8s. The runway improvements would still not enable the ERJ-145's to operate from Plymouth. The Dash-8`s are not out of date aircraft: most of the Brymon fleet has been replaced with new Q series aircraft.

The London City Airport idea owes much to the concept of Plymouth City Airport-the once "City class Airport." Other airlines and more scheduled flights could operate, but parking only really allows for two large size aircraft to occupy a stand at any one time; there would have to be a strict sequencing of arrivals and departures. The terminal building could be completely redesigned; if funding was found. A two, or even three storey building could be built at the current location, and, although often vital to light aircraft in strong crosswinds, the smaller runway is now rarely used, and could be turned into several parking stands for airliners.

Following the government's consultation into the future of regional airports, the airports owners put forward a radical plan to create a new Plymouth International Airport in the South Hams. This would mean the closure of Plymouth and Exeter Airports, with the proceeds of these sales being used to finance the new airport. The owners claim that Plymouth has the wrong airport in the right location and that Exeter is the right airport in the wrong location. Some doubt the feasibility of a new airport as Exeter, although it has few scheduled services; is a prosperous general aviation, charter and maintenance airport.