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Annual Review

2024 Review

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What We Thought Might Happen

At the end of each Annual Review, we offer a few paragraphs on our projections for the year ahead, then in the first section of the following year, assess how close we came. This has been increasingly difficult in recent years given public ownership puts everything into the public domain long in advance so we all already know what's ahead. Nevertheless we were able to make a couple of educated guesses as to what 2024 had in store:

We noted the community was restless for new routes, more so than usual. FedEx seemed to appease people as by the time Málaga was announced in November the frustration at stagnation had receded a little.

We thought we might get the Around Britain Air Rally back for a third time if a pattern was followed, they visited in 2004 and 2014 so it was reasonable to assume they might grace us with their presence again in 2024. Alas they did not. Chris meant to reach out to our contact from last time around but never did, if anyone from the GA community is aware if the event went ahead or not we would be interested to know.

We noted we should have a brand new Jet Centre to rival the best of them, two new maintenance hangars plus apron space, and a functioning southside business park. More fool us for not learning lessons from our own history - don't believe it until you can touch it! For those still enquiring about the status of the Willis Aviation Village, we are now assuming it is not happening on the basis that in the time since they received their planning permission, the airport have designed, applied for, had approved, built and rented a hangar of their own before they've even got spades in the ground. It simply doesn't take this long and if they've abandoned it they need to come out and say so. As for the southside, a tenants logo appeared on Unit D at the start of December.

What Did Happen

In this section last year, we noted the 4th quarter had been quiet but that "the year may not end quietly...", if memory serves, this was a FedEx hint rather than Airbourne Colours who were announced first.

January

The first noteworthy piece of news was the plans for the new "fit for purpose" railway station, which has been almost unanimously received as a waste of money. Also badly received is the location - the same place as the last one. There are efforts afoot to have it relocated closer to the entrance road bridge which would make far more sense.

The big news of the month was the announcement of Airbourne Colours as the tenant of Hangar 4, one of two 'full circle' moments during the year given the company can trace its ancestry to the previous Sprayavia operation in Hangar 2.

The Northern Echo picked up on the Eastern Airways recruitment advertisement for Teesside during the month - as did the rest of us. They noted a Jersey route had just gone on sale not realising Eastern have operated that flight for several years, and speculated they might be about to return to the airport. Ironically they would with Aberdeen but no-one could have predicted this particular advert was in relation to them taking over operation of the Amsterdam service on behalf of KLM - more on that later.

The announcement of Airbourne Colours taking Hangar 4 prompted further calls for the airport to honour promises to re-house the private aircraft owners. It is important that this issue continues to generate publicity until it is satisfactorily resolved.

February

A quieter month with the naming of the new southside road as "Mynarski Way" worthy of a mention and a very nice touch.

Mayor Ben Houchen launched his re-election campaign with the promise of flights to Málaga and Tenerife. When he was ultimately victorious, large swathes of the public expected the flights the very next day, which is a little unfair - he does technically speaking have four years to deliver, and by year end he would be half way there.

March

March too was quiet, Willis had their SAF plant on TeesWorks approved by Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council - let's hope they are more proactive building that than they are their Aviation Village!

The big news of March and one of many "worst kept secrets" was the announcement of FedEx relocating their North East freight flights from Newcastle to their proper home here at Teesside. Unlike a low cost flight, this will have an impact on Newcastle, whose purpose built freight apron from the mid-2000s now lies mostly empty. That said, we must acknowledge we're unlikely to ever compete with the volumes of freight the Emirates brings in but let's not worry about belly cargo. The move represents the second 'full circle' moment mentioned earlier, as this flight is essentially an evolution of our old TNT Airways service, and the cargo reportedly was trucked down to our Hangar 1 anyway, so makes perfect sense to move it. It's not poaching if the flights should have been coming here in the first instance. Chris remembers the former Operations Director describing how FedEx was such a vast company that the relevant people within the organisation simply didn't know another department already had a hangar at Teesside! They had to bring three different divisions to the negotiating table and in the end it was a fantastic bit of business that some spectators don't think the airport are capable of. There was some worry the Mayor might taunt Newcastle, but FedEx are said to be very protective of press releases and the TVCA apparently had to go through their media department in the USA, in part why the announcement took so long (from the point it became common knowledge thanks to NCL staff being informed they were losing it to us), and we would like to think FedEx may have stopped any meaningless ribbing by the Mayor.

Eastern Airways took over our Amsterdam route at the end of the month for what was reported initially as just for summer due to on-going engine issues with the Embraer E2 fleet, however murmurs of a multi-year deal quickly started doing the rounds (with seven being most often quoted). This appeared to be as good as confirmed when at the end of October KLM gifted Eastern three Embraer ERJ-190s they had in storage at Warsaw pending C-checks - blowing to bits the quoted reason of aircraft shortages for the subcontracting of the service. When Eastern began, most predicted chaos and chaos is exactly what we got, the service was an utter shambles. That said, some of the blame was not attributable to Eastern (unless you class the lack of robustness of just two E190s - why could KLM not step in more than they did?). Efforts were visibly being made to improve things such as the installation of ACARS on the E190s. Things stabilised eventually with the odd lapse here and there. Due to a union agreement with KLM, only 82 seats per flight can be sold, and Eastern don't allow unaccompanied minors or pets in the cabin like KLM do, and we get plenty of both. Perhaps there are loopholes as Chris has witnessed both during the course of his duties. When the E170s appear it's a real problem as they do not have business class and Teesside has a higher than average proportion of what KLM call "Platinum" passengers who have been heard verbally declaring their intent to go elsewhere until KLM return. That said, the route has defied all expectations - more in the Statistics section.

April

Loganair withdraw from the airport in full with the axing of their Aberdeen route, the consolation being they pulled Newcastle's as well albeit remaining based there. We maintain that lack of awareness was a huge problem for both their base and the previous Eastern Airways base, and whilst we were no less surprised than most, too many unqualified individuals falsely think they can claim "I told you so". A quote by a former airport director at a Friends of the Airport meeting shortly after the takeover; "We only want sustainable business, not quick wins like Loganair".

April also saw us launch direct boarding from our premium lounge which we mistakenly billed as a UK first, whereas in reality Emirates offer this service from Heathrow. It's a shame after getting so touchy about London City being erroneously called the first to roll out the new security scanners they then failed to do their due diligence properly when claiming this feat. It may be it was poor press reporting that should have read "UK first for KLM". No matter, the passengers are very fond of the new service.

May

Eastern Airways stepped in on the Aberdeen route, which was good not only because it ensured continuation but also exclusivity within the North East and perhaps more so because it demonstrated there was no bad blood between the airline and the airport following them being unfathomably forced out by Loganair previously. Unfortunately the planned second daily service failed to materialise and won't until at least the end of March 2025, which is a real problem as it needs to be twice daily, being a business route. It's just good fortune that the numbers are excellent, it would be interesting to see what those numbers would be like if there was a Newcastle service.

A second new route or rather route change for May was the return of Dalaman, replacing last years Antalya with TUI. Dalaman was always the main Turkish destination from the UK and it was assumed TUI recognised this hence the switch, however a flurry of Antalya routes across the country have been announced by a number of carriers, and Dalaman ended up being 10% down on last years Antalya. Had there not been that ridiculous four week peak-season hiatus, we would have recorded about the same number of PAX as last year. That said load factors were in the lower-to-mid 90s compared to an average of 75% for Antalya. Either way if we're not consistently filling a single weekly flight to Turkey there is something very seriously wrong.

A hostile takeover attempt emerged during May which most saw as a land grab attempt. The Mayor asserted we are not for sale and nothing more came of it.

June

Some bad news in June saw the reintroduction of 100ml liquid rules across the country after faults were found in the algorithm of some machines (not ours) relating to tracing explosives. No word on when the rules will be relaxed again but there is cynicism that it's merely to spare the blushes of the big airports who failed to meet the deadline for installing the new scanners.

July

[Nothing of note to report.]

August

It was announced during August we are to get a hydrogen refuelling station.

The announcement of "the first profit in more than a decade" caused more or less unanimous anger due to EBITDA not being recognised by most. In reality we made a £3m operating loss and at least two major news outlets corrected their reporting to reflect this by the end of the day.

September

Further anger at misleading headlines in September when a one-off charter to Zürich for 2025 was presented as being a new route. Still good news though (which is why it's so frustrating - just celebrate the win!)

October

The Northern Echo gave the game away by 'as good as' announcing Málaga one month prior to it going on sale.

We hired a highly regarded cargo consultancy firm in October to pick up where previous Head of Cargo Walter Jones left off (he moved on to work for WFS at Heathrow handling American Airlines cargo). Like Walter before, the consultancy firm is considered a major coup for an airport such as ours.

November

Eden Flight Training closed down at the start of the month, with many students reporting large losses, despite multiple warnings over the years not to invest lump sums into flight training but rather "pay-as-you-go", Durham Tees Flight Training's initial marketing revolved around this concept back in 2010. It was like seeing a suffering animal finally being put down and it probably should have happened a good six months sooner. The low point was when the owner responded to a negative TrustPilot or similar review with "Are you on drugs?!" - wow! Despite all of this we were planning on writing a nice piece for them in the section below to demonstrate non-bias following our AeroSchool sponsorship.

Ryanair announced Málaga at long last and when you look at other similar UK airports where they don't have a base, Málaga is the one constant so it's odd therefore we got Corfu in its place originally (which the others don't). This announcement demonstrated that no-one is ever happy, with complaints about flight times, choice of operator, and excessive media exposure for what it is. The latter is of course a good thing, scream it from the rooftops! As for the rest, it will overtake Alicante as their best performing Teesside route and we will make the prediction here and now that it will go year round, if not next winter the one after.

December

The logo of ABL 1Touch, a vehicle repair centre, appeared on Unit D of the southside at the start of the month. Around the same time, the Bannatyne facility in the departure lounge was also vacated, with most predicting it would not work given leisure passengers will already have availed themselves of such services prior to arriving at the airport.

Hopes and Dreams (2024)

Green = achieved   Blue = ambiguous   Red = failed

• Expand leisure offering
Ryanair announced twice-weekly Málaga

• Achieve Cargo
We ended the year with an all-time high in terms of weekly capacity

• Enthusiast Provisions
Accessible vantage points around the various new developments - unfortunately Hangar 4 has proved inaccessible

Historic Preservation
Nothing else has been demolished however fears remain

 

Company Watch

COMPANY	PROGRESS	COMMENTS
AeroSchool	Expanded	Added a third base at Breighton. The Teesside fleet grew from eight to 10. Arrived: G-BCRL, G-BZRO   Departed: Nil
Airbourne Colours	Expanded	Opened Hangar 4 in October. Arrived: G-CLSN, Jet2 (x6), PH-EAQ   Departed: G-CLSN, Jet2 (x6), PH-EAQ
Balkan Holidays	Regressed	Axed the second weekly flight for 2024 and was not a great deal worse off for it. Announced: Nil   Axed: Burgas (1x rotation only)
Draken Europe	Expanded	Another three Honey Badgers arrived including a desert camo scheme, and a third hangar is another "worst kept secret". Arrived: N270EM (G-DKNK), N274EM (G-DKNL), N275EM (G-DKNM)   Departed: G-DKNI, G-DKNJ
Eden Flight Training	Regressed	Sadly ceased trading. Arrived: G-AVSD, G-RAFA   Departed: G-ATIS, G-AVSD, G-BOXC, G-BTFP, G-OEFT, G-RAFA
FedEx Express (ASL Airlines Belgium)	Expanded	Expanded from road freight into air freight and a second hangar.
IAS Medical	Static	Nothing to report. Arrived: Nil   Departed: Nil
KLM Cityhopper	Static	Technically expanded with extra Saturday rotations for both summer and winter, however the subcontracting of the service to Eastern Airways counters this.
Loganair	Regressed	Axed their final route. Announced: Nil   Axed: Aberdeen
Private owners	Expanded	Great to see a new syndicate form around P28A G-CBMO. Arrived: G-CBMO, G-OEFT, G-SYLL   Departed: G-TRUU
Ryanair	Expanded	Announced twice weekly Málaga for summer 2025, although the third winter Alicante rotation became intermittent. Announced: Málaga   Axed: Nil
Serco IFTC	Regressed	A minor downsizing of the burning ground under their new contract, and no more "black burns" (they were the only school in Europe allowed to carry out such burns). Status of XP330 needs confirming, wouldn't be surprised if it has gone.
Thales Flight Inspection	Static	Nothing to report.
TUI	Expanded	Nothing to report. Announced: Nil   Axed: Nil
Willis Lease Finance Corporation	Expanded	The easyJets kept them busy throughout most of the year then a late flurry towards the end. Arrived: 2-WLFC, 5B-DDK, Transavia (x2), TUI (x12)   Departed: G-EZBF, LY-FBL, Transavia (x2), TUI (x12)