For scheduled services?

Scheduled services or charter flights as they were at Blackpool doesn't mean you are making money. Newcastle just up the road is in the red financially.
DTVA has its core flights and a number of based aviation companies.

Newcastle handles around five million passengers a year and is in a different league to to both Durham and Blackpool.

Belfast
Dublin
London
Any Spanish resort
Turkey
Greece
Rome
Barcelona
Have all in the past done well in terms of numbers.
You could add the likes of Prague and Paris too.
Problem is frequency, price and yield.
If it is a business destination like London or Belfast it needs to be double daily (morning and evening) at least. Otherwise it won't compete.
If it's more of a holiday/short break destination frequency isn't as important.
Then comes price and then finally yield.
If the price isn't right people will go elsewhere. If yield isn't right the airline will go elsewhere. An airline may make money out of a route out of MME but may be able to make more elsewhere!

Getting the right airline in with the right aircraft and product is key!

It wasn't that long ago MME to LHR was a 20k pax a month route.
I would bet my house there is still a 5-10k a month market to London depending on connections and price and I doubt that would have a big impact on the AMS either.

AND it still is in debt.

and DTVA isn't?

DTVA is I believe in debt but only a small amount compared to the neighbours.

As I have said before with Durham,Humberside,Teeside etc we are talking micky mouse airports.

Newcastle traffic was 10% up last year and is the busiest north of Manchester.

Truly international with the Emirate link to Dubai,BA to Heathrow and Air France to Paris.

There is no way any business plan will escalate traffic at Durham and in my opinion the owners see it as a land bank.

So what's your point of being on this thread?

Being objective is the simple answer.

Teeside does itself no favours charging a departure fee.

Peel tax
 

Exactly, Peel are charging passengers to walk through the empty airport, and then ask for a further half a million off the councils. Just another Peel stealth tax.

Why did the councils pick up the staff pension payments if they knew Peel are planning on taking a break point in 5 years (Shown in Evening Gazette)?
Whats there to stop Peel closing the place which will leave the councils to pay out pension payments to all the DTV staff?

I suppose the councils will raise council tax to pay for it :=

A complete top-to-bottom overhaul of the terminal:- if you wanted to close the airport you would just leave it alone because in it's previous state it serves your purpose better

Bringing Loganair in to save a deteriorating route:- again, you would just allow it to die a death and then release a press statement saying "Oh deary me"

Paying seven figures for new security and radar equipment:- yes ok it can probably be packed up and moved elsewhere, but I would imagine that would be somewhat awkward and the damn sight cheaper option would be to not buy it in the first place because once again, older and depreciating equipment strengthens a business case to close

Releasing a fairly conclusive myth-busting PDF document:- perhaps they might want some of the myths debunking so in the event of closure it would be harder for the public to say "I told you so", but you wouldn't go to THAT much trouble to debunk them, coupled with other efforts to boost reputation such as the world-renowned world host training all of the staff are doing, and the customer feedback forms/Email address that are being given out in the terminal (and before anyone suggests it yes they are being read as I've witnessed the feedback being actioned with my own eyes).

Seems to me the evidence they are trying to keep it open is stronger than the evidence they are trying to close it, but it's harder for people to see - or they're just choosing not to see, either way

If Peel close the airport it just becomes another brown field site and planning permission becomes far more difficult to get, as you haven't got the global connectivity carrot to dangle in front of the LA's.

Hence the recent investments in the terminal etc - they need to keep KLM and/or the CAA happy or their development land loses its USP.

I have no problem with Peel getting as much public money to support their business as is available - what is clearly unacceptable is if that "investment" isn't properly documented and accounted for. The Northern Echo story reads like something out of Private Eye - good on them for publishing, and the lack of rebuttal is interesting.

Jay Sata - you don't do the credibility of your argument much good if you repeatedly spell the name of the place wrong (or is it just me it irritates?)

Jay Sata is a troll. He harassed the Norwich thread and now he's trying to do the same here.
He doesn't know the airport or the area. He is just trying to get a rise!

I don't think the argument on here should be NCL is better than MME or that MME is carrying less debt than NCL. It should be more around how the people of the area hold Peel and the councils accountable and to keep asking the question why isn't Peel doing more.
I don't like Peel one bit but they won't go due to the land. We can though keep the pressure on by asking the awkward questions. They do appear to be making small steps forward though.

SWBKCB, back from afternoon tea, yes both are irritating. A new page, what was the last one about.

Agreed - and nobody on the outside has a true picture.

Again, spot on :ok:

Good try, but wrong. Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow are all way way busier than Newcastle on any count (and apologies for saying this on the DTVA thread. I'll shut up now)

It was 'Teeside International' until 2004 and all my old log book entries are for Teeside.

There is an old saying that you can put lipstick on a pig but it is still a pig.
This tendancy for small UK airports to try and big themselves up as 'International' is just window dressing.

All of these marginal east coast airports suffer the same problem. Because they border the North Sea they only have 50% of the catchment area of a centrally located facility.

A licensed public airport costs a small fortune to run even when there are no flights.

If there was a market Ryanair or Easyjet would be there.

I think JaySata may have been referring to England.

However You are also wrong. Aberdeen (2.9m passengers in 2016 and declining at 15% year on year v 2015)) is a lot smaller in terms of passenger numbers than Newcastle (5.2m Pax. 2017)

Consolidating DTV with Newcastle and improving surface links (Rail, Air-Coach, A1(M) and A19 links) from all DTVA catchment areas would bolster case to expand services and airlines serving the whole North East region via Newcastle International.

A google image search shows two variations of airport logos spelt with double-S, several road / rail station signs which use double-S (including many that still do :rolleyes:) and most other places in the region such as the university use double-S, the only instance I can find of it not being double-S is in the 60s when the airport logo featured a hyphen.