Blackpool becomes the second airport within Balfour Beatty’s Regional & City Airports Group The Regional & City Airports Group, owners of Exeter International Airport, have purchased Blackpool International Airport from the Irish Property Group MAR for £14m.
Blackpool becomes the second airport within Balfour Beatty’s Regional & City Airports Group, complimenting Exeter Airport which was bought from Devon County Council for £60m in January 2007. RCA will now embark on the process of transition and integration of the airport into the Group.
Commenting on the purchase, Balfour Beatty Development Director, Clive Coleman said: “There are many synergies between the two airports.As at Exeter, Blackpool Airport carries out most of its functions in house, but we look forward to sharing all experiences, processes and knowledge with them. Significant route development and marketing effort will be made to grow their market share.”
Like Exeter, there has been rapid growth in Blackpool’s passenger numbers and routes in the past few years.Exeter Airport’s passengers rose from 300,000 in 2000 to the current one million per annum and at Blackpool the percentage growth is similar for the period; from 100,000 in 2000 to around 600,000 during 2007.
Blackpool Airport has located to the south of Blackpool and has a large catchment area of over 4.5million people within the one-hour drive time.It currently has three declared runways; the main runway at 1870m length and two shorter runways for general aviation movements.
The main carriers at Blackpool are Jet2.com, Ryanair and Manx2, with some services offered by charter operators. The airport is one of Jet2’s six bases and accommodates one based aircraft in the winter increasing to two in the summer. Jet2.com operate to a range of sun leisure destinations as well as Belfast International. Ryanair operate to Belfast and Girona (Spain), and Manx2 operate to the Isle of Man and Belfast City.
