As for greater flexibility most days passengers have a choice of destinations ranging from A to Z, apart from B to Z.
Sad, but true I'm afrail, pmsl
If the northeast can't attract serious interest from Ryanair, and most of the other locos are already well represented at NCL, what hope is there? Maybe bmibaby will come in and have a try.
Sorry to be so pessimistic, but the future isn't bright - and holding a petition is just daft.
What the government might respond to is if local business leaders club their heads together and say - ok, our airport is doomed, but what's this new fangled rail link they are talking of down south? Oh, so it might get to Leeds in 2032? £150m per mile to get it moving, but the stretch between York and Newcastle has been costed at 'just' £41m per mile?
Let's make sure we get ourselves on that, so we don't get passed by.
Learn from what we've seen here in Coventry - local council determined to see us closed down, eventually Thomsonfly did their job for them, AND we've missed out on HS2 too. Council here voted to oppose that too, when they could instead have asked if we could get a spur or a station. For technical reasons, a station serving the Teesside region is much more feasible than one serving Coventry - and you can also stick one up on Durham, which would probably be too small.
That is a campaign that would be worth fighting on two fronts - 1) come here sooner and 2) give us a stop. Look what the Scots are doing too.
I know this is an aviation forum, but if you want better transport links, the future for MME (region) is on the rails, not in the sky.