10. Development Scenarios and Options
10. Development Scenarios and Options
Development of Scenarios and Options
10.1. In order to draw up a definitive list of scenarios and associated options, for the short to medium term development of Dundee Airport, we first gave consideration to:
10.1.1. any incremental changes, within the existing terminal and airside operational envelope, that might be required to:
- optimise passenger throughput,
- increase non-passenger related aviation activity, and
- enhance commercial revenues
10.1.2. the possible role of Perth Airport in accommodating the same activities should it be determined there is not a long-term viable future for Dundee.
10.2. We agreed with Transport Scotland that given the priority accorded to the short-medium term time horizon for our work and the current lack of clarity about how exactly RAF Leuchars will be used for the new role allocated to it in the March Defence Base Review, it would not be appropriate to consider the potential joint use of RAF Leuchars for civilian aviation operations in this report.
Optimising the Capacity of Existing Facilities
10.3. Based on a high level assessment of existing facilities following a day-long site visit, detailed discussions with the Airport Management Team and close examination of the layout plans at Appendices C-D, and assuming that passenger flights wishing to use the airport are not concentrated into the same narrow time-periods (e.g. the morning and evening peaks), we estimate that the existing terminal building is capable of handling:
- One large regional aircraft (up to 90 seats) and one smaller one (up to 35 seats) or two small to medium sized regional aircraft (up to 50 seats) at one time based on current stand layout and without requiring tug deployment for all aircraft.
- This equates to a maximum of 90-110 departing passengers an hour and 150,000 passengers per annum without any material capital investment.
10.4. This figure is in line with the views of HIAL corporately, the current airport manager and the past Airport Development Officer at Dundee City Council, who had oversight of the airport within his portfolio. As such, we regard it as the best approximation available of the maximum capacity of the airport as currently configured, assuming a flight schedule for passenger services that does not require more than two aircraft on the ground and being serviced at the same time during the morning/evening peak periods.10.5. Were there to prove to be a need for a more intensive concentration of passenger throughput at any point in the commercial schedule, either because of priority given to the use of the aircraft serving Dundee elsewhere or the slot limitations available at destination airports, then some small scale incremental investment in the terminal building could be necessary to increase hourly throughput beyond the levels specified above (e.g. to closer to 150,000 departing pax per annum) if current service levels are to be maintained. This would be important if the airport's convenience and amenity is to remain competitive relative to its competitors, with the most obvious potential pinch-points being check-in, the narrow security cone, the size of the departure lounges and the configuration and capacity of the arrivals hall.
10.6. On the balance of probabilities we think this outcome unlikely in the short-medium term, but we suggest nevertheless that plans are drawn-up in readiness for this eventuality so that if needed they can be implemented rapidly rather than have to turn away the opportunity to handle two large regional aircraft of 70-90 seats or three small to medium sized regional aircraft of 30-50 seats concurrently.
10.7. Essentially, therefore, it is neither runway nor apron capacity (although see below), which is the principal determinant of the airport's current capacity, but rather the size and layout of the terminal buildings. We acknowledge, that these have been configured as present to offer a cost efficient operation of current and recent schedules, but for between £500,000-750,000 these constraints could be eased if needed with the added advantage that, if undertaken, they could also facilitate an annual throughput of 250,000 passengers without the need for any further more substantive terminal enhancements.
Car Parking
10.8. If passenger numbers increase to levels where they exceed previous high points for passenger throughput (i.e. in excess of 70,000 pax per annum), additional car parking is likely to be required to accommodate increased passenger numbers within the scope of the existing terminal capacity. Airport car parking provides a positive revenue stream for the airport and so all parking now involves charges. Car Park 3, located to the east of the Ex Scottish Water building, provides more than adequate capacity for current levels of passenger throughput, but is neither ideally located nor capable of handling a major increase in passenger numbers.
10.9. Car parking at a small regional airport should ideally be located near to the terminal to avoid passengers struggling with luggage over a long distance and to maximise the convenience of use. Given the lack of depth at the Dundee Airport site there is limited scope for parking in front of the terminal, and for security reasons, such spaces should really be reserved for "known vehicles" such as taxi's or hire cars. This means there are few options that are more convenient than Car Park 3 that are capable of providing the long-term spaces that are potentially required. One possibility might be use to the existing GA aircraft parking area east of the Business Centre were TaysideAviation's operations to be relocated to the current Loganair hangar site as part of a possible comprehensive re-configuration of the airside areas of the airport described later in this chapter. However, that would then prevent the same site's possible use for a larger replacement Loganair hangar for which it is ideally suited. So for the time being the current facility to the east of the Ex Scottish Water building is probably the best option, especially as it is only 250 metres walk to the terminal entrance and is capable of being doubled in size to 255 long-term spaces if the more optimistic forecast outcomes in chapter 5 come to pass.
10.10. Prudence would suggest the airport should seek an option to acquire a small area of additional land from the University's adjacent sports facilities to cater for the possibility that a user is found for the Ex Scottish Water building that requires accompanying apron and its own car parking, requiring the existing parking to be displaced. The aim should be to have 200-250 spaces available for a 150,000-passenger throughput, although the exact number depends on the detailed traffic mix. More would be needed if a programme of summer charters were to be secured, if passenger numbers grew beyond 150,000 or if a substantive car hire business could be attracted to base itself at the airport, as that would typically need 30 dedicated spaces even if 10 pick-up spaces were allocated in front of the terminal building. By providing a good quality at least part-covered walkway between the car park and terminal building this general location probably offers the most pragmatic short and longer-term solution to the airport's car parking needs. This is because it can be reconfigured relatively easily, as required by other development projects, without having to relocate the spaces and associated payment facilities, at considerable expense, a number of times.
10.11. Discussions with TACTRAN highlighted a potential initiative associated with a large park and ride car park for the City, to be created just north of the 09 Threshold that could be served by a shuttle bus running past the airport terminal. Whilst this facility could offer a long-term safety valve for the airport, in reality it is some way away, would require a bus transfer and consequently would not form an ideal component of a commercial offer to passengers at Dundee that will focus on attracting a premium for speed and convenience.
Public Transport Enhancements
10.12. Investments to improve the airport's integration with regional public transport - such as the long distance coach routes on the abutting Riverside Drive and local bus services to and from the planned park and ride to the West of the airport (potentially also connecting the rail station to the airport) might also be worth considering. Such onward connectivity would be an important selling point to airlines and fairly cheap to implement. All that would be required is a couple of bus bays and passenger shelters for the long distance coaches and local/park and ride buses to be able to stop 30-50 metres from the terminal entrance, real time information systems linked to the terminal and perhaps an outsourced shared-taxi service available on-call to provide drop offs at the rail station or in the town centre.10.13. It is easy to overlook that Dundee Airport could potentially have the best public transport accessibility of any airport in Scotland. Dundee itself lies at the centre of radial services by train and coach to Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow. En-route to these places a number of other sizeable towns are served by direct stops, including Kirkcaldy, Glenrothes, Dunfermline, Stirling, and Perth. Service frequencies are decent by both train and coach, and both the rail and bus stations are reachable in less than 5-10 minutes from the airport.
Apron
10.14. The existing main apron in front of the terminal comprises 2 self-manoeuvring stands of about 47m x 31m (suitable for 19-50 seat aircraft to be parked-up concurrently) separated by a 6m wide wingtip clearance zone. The airport can handle a larger aircraft (e.g. a Q400 or E170/190), so long as another aircraft is not occupying one of the two stands. To the west of that there is an access lane from the RFFS station and then a general aviation stand of about 37m x 32m whose pavement strength does not make it ideal for handling commercial aircraft. Further west still (see Appendix C), there is also a separate West Apron that was designed for long-term business aircraft parking and is marked for 2 x Falcon 900 aircraft installed by pushback. As the airport does not have pushback capability, this West Apron is consequently not currently being exploited to its full potential. If all three of the main stands (i.e. those in front of the terminal) needed to be kept available for commercial aircraft, then it is very unlikely the two smaller existing West Apron stands would be sufficient to handle the up to 12-15 business aircraft that sometimes use Dundee in a day. Indeed, it is notable that even in the present circumstances, where commercial traffic is limited to the four Cityjet movements a day to/from London City, there is a shortage of business aircraft parking during peak summer periods and during major golf championships traffic is often turned away if long stay parking is requested.
10.15. Arguably, therefore, the most important short-term investments in the airport's physical infrastructure would be to enhance the size and flexibility of the existing apron, either so as to allow larger or more commercial aircraft to be serviced simultaneously, or to facilitate the attraction of ancillary activity in the form of additional Business and General Aviation movements. The drawing at Appendix E shows how this might be achieved either by moving to a nose in and push back aircraft parking system or by extending the area of hard standing with suitable PCN strength.
10.16. The most cost effective option is likely to be remarking the existing apron for nose in parking and purchasing a suitable tug for push back (probably second hand at a cost of c£50,000 or leased). The exact configuration would depend on the scale and mix of traffic anticipated but it should be possible within the confines of the existing apron to provide at least two stands capable of taking a 70-90 seat aircraft alongside a third smaller stand, or 4 stands for smaller 19-50 seat aircraft (including if needed a business jet) two of which could be used to handle a larger aircraft.
10.17. However, pushback is expensive in terms of annual staff certification and training, staff numbers, aircraft tugs and associated ground handling arrangements. Therefore, self-manoeuvring may remain the preferred solution until traffic demand justifies the costs associated with pushback; that said pushback is the key to long-term apron capacity. Moreover, for a few large aircraft types it may well be necessary to provide for tail-inward parking, as at London City Airport, in order to keep aircraft tail heights below the Instrument Transitional Surface.
10.18. In view of the foregoing, if self-manoeuvring were still to be favoured, for operational flexibility/cost reasons, then it may be more pragmatic to extend the existing terminal apron to the west (as shown in Appendix E), if a suitable business case can be made. It would certainly allow the airport to handle more aircraft in peak periods, enable business aircraft to park for longer than can currently be allowed and offer scope for displacement of other activities when development is taking place on other parts of the airport. It should be remembered that during construction the utility of existing space is often compromised. Consequently, having additional space that is less intensively used will provide a positive benefit during such works. Assuming a PCN of 27, the cost of these works is estimated to be £350,000-500,000 depending on a range of factors such as, for example, how and when it is procured, underlying ground conditions and the final design specification.
10.19. Appendix E also indicates a further potential aircraft parking area to accommodate general aviation aircraft might be provided between Taxiway C and the perimeter fence. The airport could explore with the CAA the idea that Taxiway C might be relocated southwards under visual separation criteria, subject to it being usable only when the airport was operating under visual flight rules. If this was acceptable its centre line could be at the edge of the 75m-instrument strip. Code B parking could then be provided north of the re-aligned taxiway, with aircraft remaining below the instrument transitional surface. There would, however, need to be a convincing safety case to ensure that the taxiway remained empty during ILS operations on Runway 09. The PCN strength of this new hard-standing area need not be as high as the core terminal apron.
10.20. This project could not be described as essential in the short-medium term unless it becomes clear demand is being turned away and a good business case can therefore be made for the work. We do, however, feel the area should be safeguarded for this purpose in the Airport Development Plan as it would have the added advantage of allowing a north-south depth of up to 39 metres (because these stands would not lie in front of the terminal), which would greatly facilitate the handling of larger aircraft.Hangars
10.21. If there proves to be a market for increased aircraft maintenance activity at Dundee, then further hangar space may be required. Land south of the current Loganair hangar could not be developed for a similar facility because it would obstruct the view of the west end of the airport from the VCR and its height would breach the 1 in 7 transitional surface. However, a lower height facility (e.g. a GA hangar) could be provided in this location, which would benefit from being closer to the potential extended aircraft parking south of the perimeter fence as discussed in paragraphs 10.18-10.19 above.
10.22. The best opportunity for a larger hangar development is on land currently occupied by and to the east of Tayside Aviation where VCR visibility and the transitional surface would not be such a problem (see Appendix E). A relocation of Tayside Aviation and all associated general aviation to the current Loganair hangar site, releasing the eastern end of the airport for more substantive and efficiently laid out re-development, including bringing the Ex Scottish Water building into aviation related use, would provide the optimum solution in terms of building development, with the added advantage of separating general aviation from the airport security zones.
10.23. A new larger hangar could then be provided for Loganair on the current GA grassed parking area releasing the Scottish Water building for other uses including the possibility of helicopter operations for offshore or other purposes. Of course were this kind of demand not to arise, then the building would also lend itself to conversion to additional Business or light aircraft maintenance and a range of associated or independent office uses.
10.24. Although, in our view, the foregoing proposals would make the best possible use of the airport's available space whilst allowing the hangar and apron space available to its two principal existing tenants, Tayside Aviation and Loganair, whose retention at Dundee we consider should be a high priority, it does not come without a cost or indeed logistical difficulties during the transition to the new layout.
10.25. Moreover, there are a range of other sub-optimal, but also less expensive, development solutions that HIAL may also wish to explore. Bringing the Ex Scottish Water building into early and remunerative use is undoubtedly one. However, what we wanted to demonstrate in this report is that, despite the confined nature of the site, there is scope for material additional development within the airport's site boundaries and that this is independent of whether the existing terminal capacity of 150,000 passengers is brought into full use or, even in the longer term, increased to 250,000 passengers through some small-scale enhancements should it prove possible to attract this scale of commercial activity.RFFS
10.26. To achieve this higher level of passenger throughput it is likely that aircraft size will increase which means that the required RFFS Category will also increase, possibly to Category 6 - based on Embraer and ATR/Dash 8 type aircraft. This could require some adjustment of the facilities at the fire station and ideally a permanent clear route from the fire station through the apron will be required to maintain the RFFS response time.
Estimated CAPEX for Optional Enhancement Proposals
10.27. Potential CAPEX requirements to facilitate the airport handling 150,000 passenger are likely to be de-minimis unless larger aircraft and significant peaks within future commercial service schedules are forthcoming. The case for extending the main apron is set out above, together with an order of costs.
10.28. Other projects discussed above are likely to be discretionary or depend on certain types of aircraft or business demand coming forward, at which point detailed business cases will need to be made for funding to each. However, to provide an indicative order of costs, Table 10.1 summarizes these optional enhancements. These figures exclude conversion works to the Ex Scottish Water building as these are likely to be substantive and user specific and consequently to estimate them here falls into the realms of speculation rather than informed broad-brush assessment.
10.29. In a high level strategic study such as this review, where we have worked without detailed surveys and design, such estimates are of necessity inevitably indicative, and consequently a 66% allowance has been made for optimism bias in Table 10.1 overleaf in addition to the allocation of a small contingency for unidentified items.
Source: Consultants estimates
Expansion of Perth and Fife Airports
Perth Airport
10.30. Although not originally part of the study brief, the consultancy team held discussions with representatives from the owners of Perth Airport (Morris Leslie) during the course of their stakeholder engagement process having come across several direct, indirect, existing and potential linkages with activities at Dundee Airport:
- Tayside Aviation use ATS to train engineers and have links with Perth College for pilot training;
- PDG occasionally use Dundee for training purposes;
- There is significant scope for a partnership between the two airports and UHI to develop a joint Academy initiative under-pinned not just by apprenticeships for local needs (eg Tayside Aviation and ACS) but also as a market entry level qualification for the rest of the Scottish aviation and aerospace sectors; and
- Funding for conversion training for Leuchars personnel (engineers and flying instructors) who want to stay locally. This could be funded by the Career Transition Partnership and Regular Forces Employment Foundation, with Perth College providing the training and Tayside Aviation and ACS career opportunities on completion.
10.31. The meeting noted that the two airports competed in a number of areas (e.g. pilot training, flying clubs) even though they were complementary in others and Perth Airport were keen to suggest that if a decision were eventually taken to close Dundee, they would be an obvious alternative location for the Flying school, GA and MRO activity. They also claimed that they had looked at how the runway at Perth could be extended to around 1600m so that they could accept Business Aviation and even scheduled commercial traffic and that this was possible, although embarking on such a project without a clear strategy position for Dundee and Leuchars having been established would represent too much of a financial risk for them.
10.32. Whilst it could possibly be worth further exploration if sustainable solutions cannot be found for Dundee, Perth has a number of material issues that would need to considered:
- Its location within the western part of the core catchment area identified for Dundee, which makes it less optimal for serving Dundee and North East Fife and closer to Edinburgh's orbit of influence;
- Its more scattered population (certainly when compared with Dundee);
- The lower quality surface access links are a problem, particularly the bottleneck at Bridgend; and
Scone Aerodrome is on a hilltop 385 feet above sea level and therefore much more vulnerable to cloud. An extension of the runway to the north east would see the east threshold being 20 metres below the mid-point of the extended runway, unless there was substantial filling over the full 300 metre strip width - because it would be Code 3 at 1600 metres.
10.33. These issues raise significant question marks about Perth's ability to develop facilities that are suitable for commercial traffic at a viable cost; this is much less of an issue for Business Aviation and GA traffic.
10.34. In view of the above, we have included Perth in our consideration of scenarios and options below, but only where a decision is taken to close Dundee Airport completely.
Fife Airport
10.35. Located 2 miles from Glenrothes in the centre of Fife, Fife Airport is a General Aviation airfield with a 700m x 18m runway tarmac, a small terminal/restaurant and 6 aircraft hangars. It is owned and operated by Tayside Aviation, which uses it to train pilots. There is also a flying club and skydive operation based there.
10.36. Its relatively rural location and short runway restrict its potential use to GA but there is scope to increase the size of that operation substantially with the right investment provided planning permission can be secured.