It was always expected with the Summer season over and number of routes finished til next year that passenger numbers drop away, especially with covid having a considerable effect.
Aircraft Movements are up by nearly 230 compared to November 2019.
Amsterdam figures going in the right direction. This should improve further as the flight was brought forward to dinnertime in December, but the Dutch increased covid restrictions in December. So if December figures go pear shaped even with earlier flight then this will be down to the Dutch Covid restrictions.
What is really required to see numbers jump considerably for KLM is for the morning flight and evening return flights to be reinstasted. As this will open up day trip, business meetings and connections markets thus fueling demand and numbers increase significantly.
Aberdeen passengers slightly up on 2019.
Belfast passengers have seen a drop compared to recent months but this to be expected as travel season has passed, but also covid restrictions in Northern Ireland could be having effect. December should be interesting to see with Christmas travel for family.
Heathrow slightly down compared to previous months but still roughly in same area as previous months.
Alicante seeing its best month so far this year. It is great to see that demand is increasing for the Ryanair international flights.
So looking broadly this financial year compared to 2019 for flight movements:
April -3%
May +12%
June +63%
July +51%
August +48%
September +11%
October +21%
November +16%
This is a good indication that the Airport is heading the right direction. It is not all about passenger flights for the airport, there is much much more to activities. Increased military activity with the Draken fleet. So even with the loss of the summer routes, aircraft movements are still climbing. So going off the aircraft movements alone shows really impressive improvements.
The Airport is in a really good postition going into 2022. Just need the remaining Covid restrictions lifted worldwide then Teesside Airport can start to boom.
The benchmark to see how the Airport is performing is to compare it with 2019.
What a few on here, on facebook and media are doing are just looking at figures alone, they are not looking at the figures in context to which they represent. It is only when you look at them in the full context that you see a different picture and a one that shows positivity in the gloom. The over riding factor is Covid, if you look at the figures without having Covid as context then you get a false impression.
If Covid never happened and a full timetable was in operation, then passenger numbers would have been soaring this past year and would have been easily in the region of 350-400k for 2021.
Yes the 2020-21 financial year was awful which was soley down to Covid.
The 2021-22 financial year is going to be a bit grim to read, but there will be a lot more context to look into than the headline figures will read. Effects of Covid along with big investments will have to be taken into account when looking at the 2021-22 financial report. So don't go moaning when you see the financial results headlines.
Teesside Airport has faired better than other Airports going into Covid. Teesside had a low starting point so not much to be lost compared with other Airports. Having Draken, IAS Medical and Fire School has kept airfield operations ticking over throughout the past two years.