It'd be nice if they got rid of the £10 departure tax. It's a bad faith 'gotcha' charge which annoys a lot of customers and prevents any real expansion from LCC's.
Soon it'll be the only airport in the UK with such a ridiculous scheme (as MME airport is soon to abolish it) -- infact, I can't think of any other in the whole of Europe which does this nonsense.
After Flybe abandon the sun routes at the end of summer the airport will have the same soggy set of routes they had over 15 years ago; ABZ, AMS, MAN, and EDI (although with even less frequency) - (
https://web.archive.org/web/20040807.../timetable.pdf). Less holiday destinations in summertime too. Despite collecting at least £50m since the inception of the passenger fee, there have been no improvements to justify even a fraction of that cost.
Summer 2004 allowed you to fly to LPA, MAH, SPU, ALC, PMI, MLA, TFS, PFO, ACE, AGP, DLM, JER, IBZ, FAO, DBV, CFU. Even winter was able to maintain a solid set of routes.
They've pushed out all the GA flyers with extortionate charges, and all the flying schools (besides Premier Flight) have abandoned it (Anglia Air Centre, Norwich School of Flying, etc.)
I'm not a hater of the airport by any means -- it's one of the main influences as to why I became interested in aviation many years ago and pursued it as a career, hence I'm quite passionate about what happens at NWI; but what positives are there to speak about nowadays? Any?