DURHAM TEES VALLEY AIRPORT - 5

[MMCMME]

Interesting article in todays Echo.

Durham Tees Valley Airport master plan ready for take off (From The Northern Echo)

Seems Peel havnt forgotten about the airport and might actually try and give it a go...

[apaul]

Axing the few remaining charter flights does not seem much of a 'master plan'.

[Northbound A1]

I agree it doesnt, but then it is a Peel master plan.

Peel make an interesting comment about future flights in the Evening Gazette, so the question must have been asked by the reporter.

Durham Tees Valley Airport: Fears over holiday flight cuts - Gazette Live
Quote -
Airport chiefs drawing up a 10-year rescue plan for Durham Tees Valley say "no firm decisions" have been made about the future of holiday flights - fuelling fears more passenger services could be cut.

Majority shareholder Peel Investments has not denied reports that charter flights are under threat - but bosses say they want to keep passenger aviation services, including the international connections that are “so important to the business community”.

[LEEDS APPROACH]

Market Forces

Afraid it's pure market forces. Good airport up the road and good airport just down the road. Too many airports in this country. Think it was 2jags prescot that got finningley built too-completely unrequired. Just divides existing traffic making the main regionals struggle.

Sounds like it could be a business park within 5 years reading that.

[davidjohnson6]

tiger - many thanks for your number crunching - puts the DTV route into quite an interesting perspective and makes clear the DTV-AMS route's dependency on high-ish fares and onward connections

[SWBKCB]

Some "interesting" comments on the Northern Echo article - wonder where 'Custer' drinks!

[Robert-Ryan]

So let me get this straight, Peel are considering telling charter carriers to leave, to REDUCE the terminal/airport losses?? The car parking fees / terminal spending of the single weekly Palma flight probably brings in more revenue than an entire week's worth of Aberdeen & Amsterdam flights combined!!

Can someone please explain to me the logic? Seems Peel want an airport, just not a passenger airport.

[EK77WNCL]

Might I ask, what is the rotting metal skeleton of a building next to the railway station? Is that the same one mentioned in the article used for tennis?

Also, there's all those barrack-y like buildings as you drive along to the railway station, I think it's near where the long stay car parks and stuff are (that was locked when we came back from AGP into MME once so we had to get someone because we couldn't get our cars!). Sorry I don't know the layout of MME to well but basically are those buildings still used?

Thanks a lot
Martin

[N707ZS]

Code:

The rotting metal skeleton

Was originally a hangar which was going to be converted into a hotel and sports centre, it had planning permission for this, so could possibly become something like this again.

The problem was they couldn't afford to upgrade the sewers from a six inch pipe to something suitable.

Code:

Those barrack-y like buildings

Are a hospital part of it is where Gazza was held last time he had problems up here. Could also be where some of the posters on hear go to the pub.

[NorthSouth]

As I understand it they haven't written the thing yet so "backing" seems a trifle premature. Or maybe they just mean "give me a plan, any plan will do"
NS

[Northbound A1]

Well spotted NorthSouth, it sounds like a case for the
"All say aye rubber stamp" now where's my xmas present.

The main share holder (P) are buying up all of the small plots up on that side of the runway, (north side) which werent included in the original sale.

How many fire staff do they legally need to employ if they reduce the size of the aircraft, or is it to do with pax numbers which states how many are needed?

[skyman771]

George Dunning, leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, also a DTVA board member, added: “Scaling down the airport may well keep the airport viable and flexible enough to take advantage of any substantial upturn in the commercial flight part of the airport business.

I have read some pretty obscure comments on pprune forums over the years but now frankly I despair !. The idea of viability through limiting services is as zany as any, I would really like to review the financial data / justification. Where on earth did this come from ?
That a reduction of turnover (i.e. services) would lead to an improvement in net revenue, is Peel spin I presume. What it would do is focus the whole viability of DTV on the provision of one critical service to one point, in this case KL.
As such if & when at such point KL eventually give up on DTV then the case for closure would be that much more accademic. This suggests another progressive step towards eventual closure, an event which although detrimental to the region as a whole would not be percieved as such by those at Peel who look towards land development.
This view can also be supported by the reluctance of Peel to allow third party aviation related devopment on the current airport site, presumably as it may in some way get in the way of future plans for the alternate use of the development of the site.
Secondly when I read that those that those local MP's & the like that come out with statements below that are flawed even in basic facts, then it really reflects in reality the limited amount of knowledge & sincerity they actually possess ..

Mr Blenkinsop said: DTVA has one of the longest runways in the nation with a location literally minutes away from the A1 and the A19 and a main line railway running past, it has serious potential for air freight as a way of taking pressure off of airports like Heathrow and Gatwick which should be obvious to anyone.

Nice rhetoric, otherwise a load of c**p!!

[davidjohnson6]

Playing devil's advocate...

DTV has scheduled service to 2 destinations year round, 1 weekly summer only and a few weekly charter seasonal. At 165,000 pax per year, excluding offshore islands and remote locations, it has close to the lowest number of passengers of any UK airports. DTV also tries to run fire training and scrapping of old worn-out aircraft. The airport also offers secure caravan storage.

We thus have an airport dabbling in quite a few different businesses but not having any significant size in any of these areas. Typically a company thst succeeds will pick the areas it thinks will do well and focus on them. Passenger service, fire training, aircraft scrapping and secure storage are too many unfocussed areas for a modest company like DTV to be trying. Perhaps better to pick a couple of business areas and focus energies on those and ditch the areas that incur costs and have little prospect of long term growth or profitability.

Charter may have a place in DTV but there is a need to demonstrate the benefits and logic. Perhaps someone could make a clear business case for the various activities at DTV

[SWBKCB]

DJ - From the Northern Echo - main resident businesses:

Cobham - The aerospace company employs about 90 workers at the airport, and maintains air traffic and navigation systems for Heathrow Airport and Falkland Islands' military airbases. It operates Falcon 20s that provide air support to Ministry of Defence training and emulate a range of threats to warships and aircraft. A spokesman told The Northern Echo: “We have no plans to leave the airport because we see it as the base of our Northern operations for the foreseeable future.”
Serco - The firm operates its International Fire Training Centre at the airport, which has been based at the site since 1981. In the last RGF bid, Serco partnered airport bosses on plans for the Southside development, that included a new £7.4m complex featuring training rigs, a virtual reality test centre, and accommodation for trainees. In August, it confirmed it was staying at the airport, despite the RGF snub, and said it wanted to invest in its existing centre.
Sycamore Aviation - Operating from a hangar used by Lancaster Bomber crews in the Second World War, its team of engineers dismantle aircraft and recover spares off for clients around the world. Founded by former Thomas Cook and Jet2 captain, Kevin O'Hare, it has already worked on Boeing 737s and Airbuses. It wanted to move into a purpose-built hangar on land south of the runway to handle jumbo jets. However, airport bosses say those plans could still come to fruition if their masterplan is successful

Presumably the idea of getting rid of charter means that they are losing money on these flights and see no prospect of turning this round (so no prospect of increases in the pipeline). If they are going to still service the AMS and ABZ flights, sounds like they are going to keep the terminal open for these flights, but then close it at all other times (anybody else remember the split terminal concept) - will this really save that much?

Sounds like Peel are saying to the LA's 'we'll keep the AMS service if you let us do what we want'. Time to call their bluff?

[skyman771]

SWBKCB

....Time to call their bluff?

My understanding of such an action is that one actually has " a hand to play!", the way I see it is :- "lose - Lose".
Can't see any real benefit in overhead in the operation of an intermittently open / closed pax terminal.
Seems to me more like "you either have a pax terminal or you don't !"

[highwideandugly]

DTV runway

longest in the nation....
Heathrow(2)
Gatwick
Manchester(2)
Prestwick
Glasgow
Edinburgh
Newcastle
Birmingham
EMA
Manston
Belfast
Robin Hood
Cardiff are all longer

DTV longer than
Leeds,Bristol,Aberdeen,Luton Humberside and Liverpool.

So I make it that puts DTV in the lower reaches of commercial airports..lower mid table..a bit like the Boro!!

And I heard its going to need some remedial work soon ..lets see if Peel are prepared to pay for that!

[highwideandugly]

Friends of DTV

Would like to know what the feeling is amongst these guys.All with good intentions but what support are THEY getting from Peel?

Argos usually have good offers on those plastic shovels leading up to XMAS.

I would suspect that Cobhams,KLM,Eastern,Thomson et al are watching with great interest.And what of next years holiday flights..would you really have the confidence to go ito a travel agent in Yarm and book from an airport whose stated intention(?) is to cancel all holiday flights?

What a joke

[skyman771]

Guy's it won't work!!

And what of next years holiday flights..would you really have the confidence to go ito a travel agent in Yarm and book from an airport whose stated intention(?) is to cancel all holiday flights?

"IF" this concept were to be adopted, then there will no doubt be an even further detrimental effect to KL's services, as the general public, other than the core habitual business users will lack confidence in reliability, there is also a cross over with those pax who would no longer look to DTV for any service, and as such not even consider KL as an option at all adding further pressure on load factors.
You have to wonder if KL has been appraised of the current proposals that are up for consideration. If so then looking forward, are they actually going to continue to offer DTV as a destination on their route network?

[DTVAirport]

Cobham didn't move out last winter. The Friends of DTVA don't go airside for snow clearing duties, they take care of most if not all landside, this frees up more of the airport staff to focus on the more important airside areas.

[davidjohnson6]

The Friends of DTVA don't go airside for snow clearing duties, they take care of most if not all landside, this frees up more of the airport staff to focus on the more important airside areas.

DTVAirport - are you saying that airport staff alone don't have the capacity to clear snow from airside and landside and are in effect reliant on volunteers to do some of the work for them, particularly areas (ie landside) where airport management know the Dept of Transport would be less strict on security procedures ?