Originally Posted by
Get me some traffic
SWBKCB, the demand has always been there. When it was announced that Peel were "given" the airport many of us said that would be the end. Peel wanted the land and did their best to close the airport. They ran the place down from the word go.
The 2008 crash saw aviation shrink by 12%, Teesside shrank by over 80% in pax alone. Peel told the largest charter airline in Europe to get lost!! How much more evidence do you need? If FRA/FPL, a strong corporate base and various other assets hadn't been there the airport would have gone under.
The Mayor is turning the airport around, he is not an aviation specialist. How come Peel couldn't with a department that ran airports and far deeper pockets? They didn't want to!! We are lucky to have someone who believes in the airport, puts his money where his mouth is and has the success of the region at heart. Power to his elbow!!!
All airports with sub-1million pax were far closer to the 80% if not worse than us, look at Blackpool, Coventry, Manston. The airport telling TUI to get lost is a very cynical way of phrasing it and the subsequent improvement in financial position proved it to be the correct thing to do, and if TUI were less than understanding they wouldn't have been ready to return with a based aircraft before the Mayor blocked the subsidy funding, nor would Loganair have been ready to expand to the kind of operation they're coming back with. All this said, if the Mayor doesn't start advertising these services properly, it's all in vain anyway.