Manston Airport could close as losses mount

Manston Airport in the south of the UK could be about to close, as the airport owner, Manston Skyport Ltd, has revealed it is losing £10,000 a day.

A report in the UK’s Guardian newspaper states that the airport is now under a 45 day consultation period that could see up to 150 people loose their jobs.

Although Manston’s only scheduled flights are a pair of KLM flights each day to Amsterdam, the airport is often used for freighter aircraft and has been in the past been used by Russian cargo aircraft moving over-sized freight.

[googlemap src=”https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Manston+Airport” width=”600″ height=”337″ align=”aligncenter” ]

The real value of Manston has been for crew training and familiarisation flights, both for airlines and corporate operators.

Manston’s runway, at 2,748 m / 9,016 ft, lends itself perfectly for training purposes, especially when coupled with the low amount of movements that the airport.

The airport was used by British Airways for crew training on their Airbus A380s. Execujet also used Manston for training flights for its recently delivered Bombardier Global 5000 and Gulfstream G650.

The airport will continue to run as normal during the consultation period.

Manston Airport was unavailable to comment.