Originally Posted by EK77WNCL
With the lowering of fuel prices and the influx of tourists to Spain again, would Thomson not consider the resumption of MME-TFS/ALC/PMI? TOM have quite a spectacular range of UK airports and their claim is that they take you from your nearest airport. By all accounts the flights were very popular and I'm sure, given the option of flights from their closest airport, a lot of people from Darlington, Middlesbrough, Stockton, Hartlepool etc. Would take advantage
They could even use Volotea 717 or Air Europa E-jet's to operate ALC/PMI-MME, could an E-jet make MME-TFS?
It's like this; we're living in a world where deals between airports and airlines are completely one-sided in the airlines favour. No airports make money out of airline contracts alone, now that doesn't matter if you have volume - which our local competition does, so they make some money from car parking and terminal services. But DTVA does not have volume, and likely never will (though not for lack of trying), now second tier airports such as Newcastle and Leeds etc have nothing to fear as they can lose money hand over fist and rack up almost as much debt as they like (and often do - as their accounts available free online often show), because no local authority or incumbent UK government is going to allow such a facility to enter liquidation, they'll always be able to secure re-financing from somewhere. Third tier airports such as ourselves do not have that luxury, we can go bust, and we would be allowed to go bust, so when the likes of Thomson (who don't forget axed three routes of their own accord before DTVA axed them) are only willing to offer a couple of weekly rotations for six months, and are having to heavily discount the seats in order to sell them, it's just not worth it.
This is where diversification comes into play, in our case, Peel looked to sweat the assets to achieve an increase in rental income, something which they have excelled at as office space, hangars and GA parking aprons are all now full, and we have at least four firms that are screaming out for their own new-build hangars, some may have already signed on the dotted line, but here is the problem, Peel will not and rarely ever have dipped into their own pocket (maybe because they are only asset-rich and not necessarily cash-rich?), so in order to raise the necessary funds, they've looked at what the Government is currently looking for, the answer is houses, which is ideal as that's their trade (but does no favours for the lingering and now-boring conspiracy theories).
So, to summarise, whilst they will continue to talk to airlines, nothing much is going to change in that area any time soon through no fault of their own. There will be a growth in GA as the years pass, but by and large, we will be pretty much the same airport in ten, twenty, thirty years time, by which point A) the penny will drop and people will start thinking "hang on a minute, we're still here, maybe we're not actually being deliberately run down" and B) we'll be due another major industry landmark on the same scale of the low-cost boom of the 2000s, and maybe - just maybe - we'll be in a perfect position to take full advantage of it, whatever form it may take. Either way, buckle up because we're in for a long ride.