Prestwick Airport expansion held back by train service

06.07.08

Plans by Prestwick Airport to more than double its passenger numbers over the next decade are to be announced shortly, but the airport says the ambitious expansion plans depend on improvements to the ‘unprofessional’ train service to Glasgow, the Herald reports.

The airport's master plan, which will be published in the next 2 months, will show it aims to raise passenger numbers above 5 million a year from last year's 2.4 million. But with as many as 450,000 passengers a year either unable to get a train or bus from Glasgow early enough for their flight or landing at the airport after the last bus or train has gone in the evenings, bosses are worried their main customer, Ryanair, will be discouraged from launching new routes, the newspaper reports.

Graeme Sweenie, the airport's group general manager, told the Herald: ‘Most of our growth will come through Ryanair based planes that spend the night at the airport and cover early morning and late-night flights, so it will be a problem that is continually growing. Ryanair's decision to base planes here is driven by passenger demand and that's directly related to how easy it is to get to Prestwick Airport.’

The airport feels restricted by the fact that rush-hour trains regularly arrive at the airport already full, and that the train service drops from half-hourly to hourly on Sunday evenings - a key time for passengers returning from weekend breaks or arriving from abroad for Monday morning business meetings.

This encourages Scottish passengers to dirve and park their cars at the airport, placing extra traffic on the roads, while foreign passengers either have to rely on expensive taxis or take the slow early morning / late-night airport bus.

The airport wants longer train operating hours to cover the first and last flights of the day; more trains than the current two an hour, especially during peak times; longer trains and an express service that misses out many of the stops between the airport and Glasgow Central. With these changes, it believes it could raise the proportion of passengers using the train from 20% to 30% each year - an increase of 200,000.

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