Gibbo and Houchen - fallen out

Aztec chimera said:
There are a lot of seats relative to the size of the airport. Yes I do use the airport a lot and I do have vested interest in it being available to me. I'm with you on crime, child poverty, education and probably a lot if other thing but let's take your argument on buses, count how many people you see on the next bus that goes past you or even the next train and apply the same logic that everyone is using as a stick to beat down teesside airport.
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The issue with buses is 2 fold. Costs and reliability. People don’t use them as much because of both. A better joined up service around Teesside would increase use.
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
I suppose Peel did have the teleporters back then to allow people to get through security and appear directly on plains without making the airport appear busy. It's brilliant what you can do when you don't have to obey the laws of physics. I truly wonder how they managed 4x the amount of passengers without ever actually being busy yet its now packed out for 8 months of the year.
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So Peel, who almost ran a successful airport into the ground and cost jobs for local peopl are what you're basing your argument on? Are you saying we shouldn't have a local airport because you think its not financially viable. Which it quite clearly was before Peel took over or are you saying it just because of your political bias?
 
There isn't anyone serious who thinks the airport is a success; most people who are supportive of it in Houchen's social media feeds are asking for more flights.

He himself forecasted 400,000 passengers in 2022 as we came out of Covid and the 'plan' is still to get to 1 million per year by 2026.

By anyone's measure and especially his, it's a massive failure and still losing money.
 
Only £2.9 million loss last year which was good news apparently as someone, Houchen🤔, predicted a £5million loss. Typical tories, who are already predicting a 500 seat loss (out of 1000) in the elections and are calling that a good night!!
 
Aztec chimera said:
So Peel, who almost ran a successful airport into the ground and cost jobs for local peopl are what you're basing your argument on? Are you saying we shouldn't have a local airport because you think its not financially viable. Which it quite clearly was before Peel took over or are you saying it just because of your political bias?
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"who almost ran a successful airport into the ground"

:ROFLMAO:

Form wiki:
"Passenger numbers peaked in 2006 when the airport was used by 917,963 passengers. However, since the 2007-2008 financial crisis, numbers declined to 130,911 in 2017 before starting to rise again in 2018. A side effect of the crisis saw a number of airline bankruptcies or mergers, greatly reducing the number of potential operators for the airport to pursue. Those that merged consolidated at the larger regional airports, leading to the likes of Newcastle and Leeds expanding, whilst local airports such as Durham Tees Valley continued to struggle for several years."

Lets look at passenger numbers under peel, and since Lord Airport took over.

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As you can see above, when Peel took over the airport in 2003, they reversed its declining fortunes and invested in the airport. in 2004 & 2005, passenger numbers saw double digit growth of 11.9 & 14.1% and they oversaw passenger numbers peaking at the airport's record high of 917,963 passengers in 2006.

2007 saw the global crisis hit, well, the entire planet. Air travel was the last thing on many peoples minds and those still travelling tended to do so from larger airports as airlines hedged their risk by focusing on regional hubs instead of smaller airlines. Peel had absolutely nothing they could have done to prevent that.

Look at how big those bars are, and then compare it to 2018 onward when Lord Airport took over. Yes we had covid, but we're still talking about unrealistic numbers. Newcastle airport is pretty much back to pre-pandemic figures. Newcastle airport prior to the financial crash was 5.6m passengers so even they were busier before then.

Peel were sold the airport because it was making a loss. They improved passenger numbers to figures that are a twinkle in lord airport's eye, and it still lost money. It is losing money now - airlines have to be subsidised to do routes and we have no idea what theyre getting for this as its all behind closed doors due to the purposefully complicated ownership structure.

But one thing for sure is that it is absolutely not more packed out for 8 months of the year now than it was during Peel's ownership. It just physically cant have been. There are only a few flights a day and even if everyone turned up at the start of the day, and lollygagged until the last flight of the day, it wouldn't be that busy.

Any "successful" period the airport has enjoyed was under Peel's ownership, and people hated them because they told the truth - that the airport is not long term viable. The current much fan-fared passenger numbers are basically in line with Peel's crappest years.

If its packed out now, its an even worse outlook for lord airport because where are the other 780k passengers a year going to go he is forecasting are going to suddenly arrive? Peel had capacity for them somehow mind, despite your claims.
 

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TeaCider said:
Most people don't use it, that's the problem.

It's a money sink.

I'd love to be able to fly from it, but I've never found a flight that's cheap enough to outweigh the inconvenience of going to airports that are further away.
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Same, I used to use the KLM Amsterdam flight regularly 7-8 years ago when I worked for a Dutch company and they were paying but I’d of never paid those prices myself it would be circa £300 return whereas from Leeds it would be £70.

Even since it got taken over I’ve never found suitable flights going anywhere I want to go at a reasonable price compared to Leeds or Newcastle.
 
I think trying to compare the airport to the other two is part of the problem I have with Houchen. They aren't comparable businesses in terms of scale.

Imagine telling someone that your main competitor at work is a company which is 30 times bigger. Its just not credible.
 
He's lost the support of The Gazette, The Northern Echo, Steve Gibson and now members of his own party have called for Gove to bring in the NAO to investigate Teesworks.

He's very clearly rattled and if pointing this out makes me a bit "Steve Bray" (hello whoever is reading this!) then surely that's a good thing.

Oh, and he blocked Carol Vorderman on Twitter today. Big mistake.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1783820278956544048

#BinBen
 
I Think the airport now has more non Passenger based business than before. That probably goes without doubt. That is helping narrow the losses. You've got to hope with a few more routes from ryan air etc that an extra 100k passengers is feasible in the short term. I think Eastern will be back to take the Aberdeen route now they have their feet back under the table and Logan are leaving. Logan have had a falling out with a few airports so it doesn't surprise me they are giving the route up.

I use the place often and the improvement in the place is clear to see. Im a KLM passenger and i'm not arsed about the price, like most KLM passengers, company book and pay. It was cheaper to get to Dubai with KLM than Emirates etc Having a functioning airport with reasonable flights to destinations people want is a must.
 
Aztec chimera said:
Oh do **** off with this let's whack the airport stick again cos its what Ben touched wanted. Everybody who uses it wanted it and its a fantastic airport. Maybe a labour Mayor could gave achieved the same for it but the only people I ever see slagging off Teesside airport are people that never use it.
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The problem is there are a lot more people who don't use it than do use it, sounds like you're one of the few, defending personal interests. A lot of locals can't afford to go on holiday or get priced out from flying from there as it can cost more, or simply does not go to where they want to, and when they want to.

The airport doesn't seem to make financial sense, that's why it gets whacked, certainly not compared to what other things the money could be spent on. Ben gets whacked because he does things which don't make financial sense.

I've mentioned on other posts that I personally like the airport a lot, but that doesn't mean it makes any financial sense for the area, for the sake of saving diving an hour or so to an airport which has better facilities and 20x the passenger numbers.

I flew to/ from there around 4 times a year, most years. Last used it a couple of month back and got diverted to Newcastle because of the fog. It's extremely quick for me to get to, very quick for close parking and getting through security. The problem is, the main reason why these latter two things are good is because passenger numbers are low, if numbers increased then these things would likely get worse.

Another problem is there's not enough consistency and/ or variation in the flights. It's extremely difficult to get that as it's in competition with airports located next to major cities, like Newcastle and Leeds etc. Even class Manchester in with that as it's got decent rail links from Teesside, which are also currently being upgraded.

At the minute it's ~£100m in the red, and losing £5m per year.
 
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