onyx - it would be nice if Delta or United were to open a route from Teesside to JFK or Newark. Alas wishing this were the case is probably somewhat unrealistic. The point of my post was to discuss what I believe is and is not realistic for MME and my reasons as to my opinion.
I don't think routes to London, Paris or Frankfurt will appear at MME for the time being, and I believe airport management would be wasting their time in trying to make such a thing happen.
I believe that increased frequency on or additional beach routes or anything to do with charter airlines is both more credible and more likely to be commercially sustainable for the airline involved. As far as I know, the only scheduled beach route next summer from Teesside will be a once weekly to Mallorca. Core beach routes like Malaga, Ibiza, Alicante, Tenerife, Greece and Turkey just don't appear at Teesside at all throughout the summer.
Traffic for 2012 is likely to come in at around 167,000 passengers for the year - only a tiny fraction more than passed through the airport 40 years ago. For every 1 passenger at Teesside, Newcastle sees 26 passengers. MME has a lot of catching up to do even on the most basics of routes.
If Teesside can rebuild its passenger base over a few years to maybe 300,000 it will then be in a position to start talking credibly about some more year-round scheduled routes.