DURHAM TEES VALLEY AIRPORT - 4

[groundhand]

DTVAirport,

Whilst not defending the management at DTV, as I know not whether they do a good, reasonable or poor job, I think you are niaive in the extreme if you think that airport management can, at will, generate additional flights. The market is turmoil, the passenger numbers across Euroipe and the globe are falling and yet you seem to think that DTV management can wave a wand and make airlines start operating from DTV.

If, and it is a HUGE if, the market around DTV is as strong as you say, then the airlines that did operate would have wanted, and would have continued; evidence suggests that the market around DTV is not strong, hence the airlines' decisons to withdraw.

What are DTV management to do - pay airlines to operate?; reduce operating fees to a loss level? You are good at the negative on the management, what would you do to make things work?

One of the main problems in the UK is that we have too many regional airports thinking that they can all have a viable, growing business. No so.
Too many airports too close together competing for the same (currently declining) market. An example - look at how Coventry got itself bunred over the last few years. Pipe dreams, 2-3 years of living the dream and years of debt to follow.

GH

[Matt44]

I have been a long term watcher of this topic and feel it important to make this small point. I travel to Spain frequently as I have business interests there. I live about 8 miles form Newcastle Airport and about 40 miles form DTVA. Several posters make reference to historic passenger numbers at DTVA which did rise to around 900k pa and they give the impression that all who use the airport live very close to the airport. Thats not the case at all - the 900k pa did not come from Cleveland / County Durham alone. I passed through DTVA regularly from 2005 onwards driven by one factor alone - ticket price. BMI Baby were very competetive , regularly beating Easyjet & Thomson fly at Newcastle on the cost of a return to Malaga. Flights were full and the service was reliable. For whatever reason the airport and the airline seemed to go in opposite ditrections .Flyglobespan , the "replacement" however were expensive in comparative terms , less reliable and less regular. At the same time Jet 2 came along to Newcastle and gave us "Northeners" more choice and more competetive pricing. The point I am making is clear . I love DTVA and am prepared to travel there to fly ...if the ticket price is right. Unfortunately you have neither the servive nor the ticket price to make me come back - and I am not alone in coming down from Tyneside.Many of your 900k pa did. Sadly the traffic is working the other way as I saw several Teesside locals checking in at NCL last week off on their hols. We are in tough economic times and in the past 6 months I have used / flown from Robin Hood , Liverpool , Manchester and Birmingham to Spain due to ticket cost. MY conclusion is that the only airline ,(Its my opinion), who could make any inroads in the present climate at DTVA is Ryanair who without any competition could claw back those numbers and improve things.
Good luck.

[hatchetman]

Sunderland Airshow

Any traffic operating out of Goosepool this year ?

[paarmo]

Don't think we can fit them in this year. By the time you get three or four A340's on the stands and a 747 or two together with all of the other traffic there's not much room left. Coupled with the spatial separation for take offs for the big jets there are not enough slots to fit in a small local airshow.

[maxtoon]

don't forget the twice daily A380's from Singapore and Sydney

you know how they always struggle with the runway length

[paarmo]

Do I detect a hint of sarcasm here Maxiebabe? I was only relaying facts.

[skyman771]

Living in the North east, then I am continually asked if there are any flights from DTV to any number of European destinations. Just how bad it has become is bourne out by a glance on DTV's arrival & departures board this afternoon when, on what should be one of the busiest holiday weekends of the year, the only solitary movement reflected in either arrivals or departures is the KLM Amsterdam flight.
To put this in perspective then over the same period "up the road" there are some 20 departures to all the normal "bucket & spade" destinations & beyond. The seriousness of the situaution is reflected in the CAA stats for last month which show that just 29,840 pax used DTV, a fall of 58.2% on the corresponding period last year. The current situation surely can't be sustainable imho.

[Twiddle]

I flew there once on a GA flight and never again, surly security guards (had to listen the the handling agent arguing with security at one point), high fees with compulsorary handling.

Rip off DTV is the impression I was left with.

[N707ZS]

If Peel said "we are going to sell our aviation business", would anyone step forward and buy any of the three airports.

I presume at DTVA they would try and sell the airfield and keep the industrial plot or sell that off as a second lot.

Doncaster has the runway length in its favour and I presume Liverpool might still be a viable business.

[skyman771]

N707ZS

I presume at DTVA they would try and sell the airfield and keep the industrial plot or sell that off as a second lot.

Seems that if project "skylink" proceeds then everything will be just fine!
However if there is subsequently a project "skylink2" ....I'll leave this for others to comment

[N707ZS]

That light blue shaded area has been lined up for Skylink 2 its a bigger plot of land than Skylink 1.

[skyman771]

Those with offices on their mezzanine floor windows will have a better view than ATC! The phrase "selling the family silver" springs to mind.
In reality such a development would surely never end up as insular as that depicted on the plan!.... or would it..? Then what about access roads & other communications..

[Parsnip]

The access road is from a new roundabout to be built on the A67 just east of the railway bridge. The only reason Peel haven't started this is they have no demand for the "skylink" units in the current recession. Given the plethora of bad news around Teesside at the moment (Wilton, Corus et al) its going to be a few more years before anything happens. But Mr Peel still has 300 acres of development land which will one day turn a healthy profit.

[Paul4040]

Random question, but are bmi still using ERJs on their Heathrow routes? If so, when?

[SWBKCB]

bmi aren't using anything on their Heathrow route (cos they don't have one - read back through the thread....)

[JKKne]

I'm not an aviation expert and I would never proclaim to be but I can't help but feel increasing sorrow for events at DTV.

I do have a fondness for the airport, expressed in previous post and even more so with the increasing blandness of Newcastle though compared to my current home airport of El Prat BCN it's a nirvana.

Reading the press from back home it's amazed me how duped BBC NE, the Gazette and the Echo have become. Hundreds of jobs? Executive aircraft? Aimed at who?

Yes its in proximity to a lot of Sunderland and Middlesbrough players (and the Dragon Bannatyne) but I'd imagine they'd use private transport anyway

Grand Central are doing their best and looking increasingly competent I hear, against National Distress East Coast and Newcastle continues to offer flights in abundance to the London hubs from 3 seperate airlines

I worry as to what market is there for DTV? My daughter back home tried to book a package out to Mallorca from DTV and the price was coming in at around £200 more from LBA and £230 from NCL. She could get a shuttle taxi up and still save! She desperately wants to use DTV but is finding herself priced out

Economically we are in hard times but I can never see DTV emerge from NCL's shadow unless a major player stepped in and went serious with lo-co but even then would it be enough?

JK

[skyman771]

mccdatabase

The saff at MME did not deserve to be let down in such spectacular fashion by the MME management who are absolute

I can't see any poster on this site disagreeing. In reality how much longer can the overheads of running DTV continue to be supported / subsidised by Peel & local councils with the only airline related revenue coming from services provided by KLM, Eastern & the occasional RYR & IT flight?. .. accepting that there is in place the odd MOD contract & of course FR aviation.

[highwideandugly]

The decline continues..

Skyman ...you are right the staff do not deserve to be let down,that's why I hear a lot of ATC staff are moving north to 'the promised land' !! At least saving Peel some costs?

Arrivals board today-height of summer showed 3 Amsterdam and one Aberdeen flight.Even Derry is handling more passengers now.
Thank goodness for Flight Refueling.

Anyone know what the KLM schedules are looking like for winter? Cant see Ryanair continuing and Eastern are very much at the mercy of the current economic climate and the oil industry.Not much room for growth there then?

So that makes it a pretty dire winter?

[mmeteesside]

One snippit of good news is Dragonfly Air Charter are opening a new* base at DTV with a Beech 200 (familiar to us all as G-BVMA, the same one Northern used for a while).
Minor news but still good.

(*Dragonfly operated G-BVMA jointly with Northern in an alliance so it's not really a 'new' base.)

[Evileyes]

A number of recent posts have been moved here:

http://www.pprune.org/airlines-airpo...s-airways.html

where there is a complete thread discussing the excelsis rumour.