Interesting points made in the last few posts on the future of DTV and GROUNDHAND summed it up in his last post. Peel are in the business of making money and, sheffield is a good example here,if the owners cant make money or rather enough money from Aviation to satisfy the demands of shareholders then they will look at alternative uses for the site whether that be industrial development or indeed housing development.
I believe though its rather shortsighted to blame the management at the Airport or indeed Peel if ultimately MMEs days are numbered. The real people to blame have to be the people of Teeside as they have a good airport on the doorstop they simply don't use enough to generate the desired profits. Look no further to the cut backs already by GSM for evidence of this one. Like any other business if you don't use it then you can't complain when you loose it.
The simple solution to the problem and ultimately to get new routes is get booking seats on existing routes and show airlines the folks of Teeside actually want the airport to grow.