Really? This is getting towards fantasy land now! 2 departures, 2 hours apart in the afternoon/evening? This must involve a second aircraft and second set of crew which put the costs up massively. This really is April the 1st stuff.

But Eastern don’t mind as they are being bankrolled by the Teesside (mayor)taxpayers!

Fear , as stated is..Heathrow recovers and slots as always will be at a premium.Hence Eastern depart the scene and KLM discover that TIA doesn’t fit into there business model anymore.

Never mind ,there are flights to Newquay.That will certainly help inward investment and the Middlesbrough football manager!

The Mayor's investments funds come from central government, not from local council taxes.

Traffic on GLA/EDI to Heathrow is believed to support 50% connecting traffic, the same statistic for Manchester is higher, believed to be as much as 70%. These routes work for BA due to their network and frequency. I'm guessing that given its location, Newcastle or even Teesside would be a market for connecting traffic between 50% and 70%. Virgin couldn't make Manchester Heathrow work even with its sizeable long haul network. I'm not convinced this route will stack up even post covid. Sadly.

And the majority of government money comes from taxes ,direct or indirect?

Exactly, but as I've said before the Mayor's money doesn't come from local taxes but national ones. So Eastern aren't just being bankrolled by Teesside taxpayers, but all of us.

in my opinion other areas have had millions/billions spent on them, it's about time we got some of the money spent on our area. Of course it needs to be spent in a sustainable way, and I'm not sure 3x daily to Heathrow is the best use of funds.
KLM are being hit hard by the quarantine requirement of course, would be interesting to know what their UK wide network looks like these days though.

This is great use of tax payers money, competing against a DfT owned rail company

Doesn't count, the press are writing articles of their own volition, and you would expect to see a heavy social media campaign as it doesn't cost! Where is the radio/TV/billboards/sides of buses??

I would like to believe Eastern wouldn't have applied for the slots if they didn't think they could keep them once all of this is over. KLM surely will be back, Heathrow won't dent it that much - remember last years AMS figures were the highest in 14 years - i.e. when British Midland were running 4x daily alongside!!

Also, I don't give a monkeys about taxpayers money being used be it local or national - look after no.1!

If Teesside is seen to manage investment effectively and can point clear goals that have been achieved, it will have an easier time asking for more cash from Westminster in the future. It's up to Teesside to decide what those goals are. Waste it all on flying almost empty planes and a bad reputation is gained and it becomes harder to get access to regional support money in the future.

HM Treasury receive far more requests for money than can ever be satisfied - they are not known to be generous to those that like to fritter money away

The airport hasn't been allocated any money by Treasury - the expenditure is part of the Tees Valley Combined Authorities 10 year investment plan, devolved to the Mayor and the TVCA.

New "Blue Wall"...as simple as.

Where does TVCA get its money from for things like this ? HM Treasury perhaps ?

Yes - but expenditure on the airport is part of £588m ten year investment plan. Clearly there will be controls built in, but there is no stand alone Treasury involvement in the airport investment.

Whom pray is the Chairman of the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) please?

Answering my own question...

The Mayor himself is also Chairman of the TVCA.

The airport funding appears very much a personal project led by the Mayor & Chairman then of TVCA.

A triple daily to LHR in the current climate is clearly excessive but we need to remember that in normal times LHR slots go for $30m+ a pair which would be an absolute non-starter for an airline operating MME-LHR. Wait until things recover and the slots potentially wouldn't be available so maybe the long game is the only way to play this one. However who knows if they can secure the same slots for Summer 2020.

Of course we don't have all the detail but one would hope that the airport has some sort of arrangement with Eastern that will stop them flogging off the slots at the first opportunity when the market eventually picks up.

After all the discussion on taxpayer money being spent, I see the Mayor on Facebook is now proposing to move HM Treasury itself up to Teesside Airport!!

Shy bairns get nowthttps://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/t...sside-19046435

The Mayor...A convenient useful & willing trojan horse in the new blue wall?