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Old Jun 10, 2016, 9:57 am
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Oxford Airport

This article may be of interest to some: http://www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/news...xfords-airport

"London Oxford Airport" the sixth busiest general aviation airport in the UK and its aspirations to have common carrier traffic.
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Old Jun 11, 2016, 5:14 am
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Thanks for posting. I live about 20 mins from Oxford Airport and would love to see it develop some scheduled flights but I honestly can't see it being viable simply because Heathrow and Birmingham are just an hour away.
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Old Jun 11, 2016, 8:10 am
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The bus service to Heathrow is actually pretty good but their idea of an Oxford-Amsterdam link might have prospects. A link to Dublin for westbound flights might work too.
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Old Jun 11, 2016, 9:54 am
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Originally Posted by MADPhil
The bus service to Heathrow is actually pretty good but their idea of an Oxford-Amsterdam link might have prospects. A link to Dublin for westbound flights might work too.
I think the issue is you need sufficient volume. Offering one flight a day doesn't give people the flexibility they need for somewhere like Edinburgh. If you run a flight to Dublin to pick up the TATL passengers, the issue is when the connection at DUB gets too lengthy, folk will just put up with Heathrow.

As I understand it they have managed some charter operations with a flight to Jersey running for a few summers. They tried Palma on I think a SAAB2000 but it was load constrained.
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Old Jun 11, 2016, 11:16 am
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Well I have grown used to LHR, though I am usually connecting up to MAN, but I thought the story of the success of the general aviation side coupled with the difficulty of making common carrier aviation work was interesting. If AA would just have reasonable business class fares now that they have switched ORD-MAN to a 787 I would be happy.
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Old Jun 12, 2016, 1:38 am
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The normal route for airports like this is to develop a significant holiday charter business. People get used to using it and then some of the charters morph into scheduled. This will attract an LCC perhaps.
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Old Jun 12, 2016, 2:38 am
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Originally Posted by lhrsfo
The normal route for airports like this is to develop a significant holiday charter business. People get used to using it and then some of the charters morph into scheduled. This will attract an LCC perhaps.
But the runway is even shorter than the one at LCY, which rules out the majority of charter operators. As I said, the PMI service they tried was load constrained.
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Old Jun 12, 2016, 4:36 pm
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They've tried scheduled services; including, I think, a whacky short-lived affair to Cambridge, competing with the X5 . A young Walter Mitty was successful in raising the capital to start an Edinburgh service, but that lasted only a very short time.

I guess there's simply not the volume of passengers willing to pay the fares required to sustain routes operated by the aircraft types able to use Oxford.

My understanding is the "London" designation is self-branding.
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Old Jun 14, 2016, 3:02 am
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Originally Posted by IAN-UK
My understanding is the "London" designation is self-branding.
Certainly is self branding. The UK CAA and IATA recognise 6 airports as "London" - Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, City, and Southend.
Put 'LON' as the three letter airport code in a flight search engine and you'll get flights to/from as many of the 6 as have services to the airport at the other end of the route.
If Oxford had scheduled flights, they wouldn't show up in searches for 'LON' as the airport is not officially recognised as serving London.
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Old Jun 14, 2016, 7:41 am
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Originally Posted by Andy33
Certainly is self branding. The UK CAA and IATA recognise 6 airports as "London" - Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, City, and Southend.
Put 'LON' as the three letter airport code in a flight search engine and you'll get flights to/from as many of the 6 as have services to the airport at the other end of the route.
If Oxford had scheduled flights, they wouldn't show up in searches for 'LON' as the airport is not officially recognised as serving London.
However it is 8 miles from the new Oxford Parkway station with two trains an hour to Marylebone so, if they got their act together, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch. There isn't much point in branding it without flights though!
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Old Jun 14, 2016, 8:34 am
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Originally Posted by MADPhil
However it is 8 miles from the new Oxford Parkway station with two trains an hour to Marylebone so, if they got their act together, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch. There isn't much point in branding it without flights though!
And Birmingham Airport has its own station linked to the airport with 5 trains an hour to Euston (more in the peak periods), 3 of which take just 10 minutes longer than those from Oxford Parkway, which is more than made up by the shuttle train directly from the airport to the station instead of an 8 mile road transfer. Add a full-length runway - being extended to take even bigger intercontinental planes, and fully equipped terminals, and there is a much better candidate for the 7th London Airport than Oxford.
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Old Jun 14, 2016, 8:40 am
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And let's not forget Southampton - 1h05 every half hour from Waterloo, station adjacent to the terminal building...
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Old Jun 15, 2016, 3:30 am
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Originally Posted by MADPhil
However it is 8 miles from the new Oxford Parkway station with two trains an hour to Marylebone so, if they got their act together, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch. There isn't much point in branding it without flights though!
But they have branded it as London Oxford, although official designation is missing: I'm guessing the branding is to make the airport more visible to Netjets et al and private operators. Luton is getting chocka so someday there'll be movement up the M1 to J13 and Cranfield, or across to Kidlington.
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Old Jun 15, 2016, 7:57 am
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Originally Posted by IAN-UK
But they have branded it as London Oxford, although official designation is missing: I'm guessing the branding is to make the airport more visible to Netjets et al and private operators. Luton is getting chocka so someday there'll be movement up the M1 to J13 and Cranfield, or across to Kidlington.
Yes, I suppose it is worth adding "London" just to get the private jet operators to consider using it. Though the article suggest that there is a lot of local trade anyway.
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Old Jun 18, 2016, 12:43 pm
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Originally Posted by Swiss Tony
But the runway is even shorter than the one at LCY, which rules out the majority of charter operators. As I said, the PMI service they tried was load constrained.
The longer of the two runways at OXF is actually 50 m longer than the runway at LCY. However, you are right that it does result in restrictions.
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