Teesside International Airport
Teesside International Airport, formerly Durham Tees Valley Airport, is a small international airport in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. It primarily serves Teesside, County Durham and North Yorkshire.
The airport has a Civil Aviation Authority Public Use Aerodrome Licence that allows flights for the public transport of passengers and for flight instruction. Tees Valley Combined Authority owns three-quarters of the airport and Teesside Airport Foundation owns the remainder.
History
RAF Middleton St George
The aerodrome began life in January 1941 as Royal Air Force Station Middleton St. George or RAF Goosepool as known to the locals. It was the most northerly of all Bomber Command airfields, home to both Royal Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force squadrons during WWII, and exclusively RAF post-war. Of the many military aircraft based at the aerodrome, it is best known as home to the Avro Lancaster during the war and English Electric Lightning in the 1960s. In 1957, the runway was extended to its current length of 7,516ft. The RAF station was closed in 1964 and the airfield sold to the Ministry of Civil Aviation.Tees-Side Airport
The former RAF Station was then developed into a civil airport. The first civilian flight from the newly named Tees-Side Airport took place on 18 April 1964 with a Mercury Airlines service to Manchester. On 1 November 1966, the international passenger terminal was opened by Princess Margaretha of Sweden.The IATA code for the new airport was determined as MME; however, the meaning of this is disputed. Long term employees and tenants claim Middleton St George AerodroME, but because of the lack of certainty, the current ownership have unofficially adopted Middleton Military Establishment as a nod to the military origins. Middlesbrough Municipal AerodromE is also often quoted.
In the early days, the airport developed a network of mainly scheduled routes, with limited inclusive tour charter flights. The destinations were consistent but the airlines were not, with British Midland, BKS Air Transport, Dan-Air, Autair and Channel Airways all coming and going before the turn of the decade. In November 1969 British Midland returned when they were awarded the licence to fly the London Heathrow route, which they continued operating until 28 March 2009.
The 1970s saw a decline in regional services but a growth in holiday flights, courtesy of Northeast Airlines and Britannia Airways, as well as overseas operators such as Aviaco, Spantax and Aviogenex amongst others.
On 19 October 1971, the Teesside Airport railway station opened, with a shuttle bus running between the station and the terminal.
During 1974, the CAA declared Tees-Side should be the primary airport for the North East of England, this never materialized however.
The 1980s saw scheduled routes resurge thanks to home-grown airline Casair Aviation Services, who had started out as an air taxi operator in 1972. In October 1982, Casair merged their scheduled services with Genair of Liverpool and Eastern Airways of Humberside under the Genair name, and one month later the first UK regional feeder franchise network was launched via a partnership with British Caledonian, trading under the British Caledonian Commuter Services banner. However, the new venture only lasted until July 1984 when Genair collapsed, causing the loss of 11 out of 18 routes for Tees-Side Airport. Casair stepped back in, taking over Genair services to Glasgow and Humberside, which they operated initially on behalf of Air Ecosse and then independently.
On 11 December 1982, the airport chartered Concorde for the day, it would visit twice more before its retirement, on 23 August 1986 for the air show and 30 April 1995.
Teesside International (1987-2004)
In 1987, the airport was privatised, with Cleveland and Durham local authorities retaining their shares. As part of this process the airport re-branded from Tees-Side Airport to Teesside International Airport.1990 saw the one millionth aircraft movement at the airport, in the form of a British Midland service to London Heathrow. In 1996 when Cleveland County Council was abolished, the airport ownership was divided amongst local Borough Councils. Passenger numbers grew steadily from 1993 based upon an expanding holiday charter business.
In 1994, Airtours arrived on the scene and from 1997 based a summer seasonal aircraft at the airport, this coupled with other tour operator expansion propelled the airport to new heights.
In 2002, the airport sought a strategic partner to assist with future development and Peel Airports Ltd was selected as the preferred company, taking a 75% stake in the airport, with a clause to increase to 89% after 10 years, and a commitment to invest £20million over the first five years.
Peel brought Teesside into the low cost era by securing bmibaby who based initially one, later two aircraft at the airport, ultimately giving the airport its peak years.
Durham Tees Valley (2004-2019)
On 21 September 2004, the airport was renamed Durham Tees Valley Airport at the request of bmibaby, who felt the new name placed the airport better geographically as many of the airport's passengers, particularly those from outside the UK, were unfamiliar with the location of Teesside, whilst Durham was better known. The move was widely condemned by the local population who felt passionately about the name Teesside, and considered the term Tees Valley to be geographically inaccurate, as there is no such valley.Shortly afterwards, a new access road, terminal front and terminal interior were completed. The remainder of a planned £56 million expansion and development programme would have enabled the airport to handle up to 3 million passengers annually. However the plan never materialized due to falling passenger numbers after 2006.
In late summer 2006, bmibaby announced their surprise departure from Durham Tees Valley Airport. Peel were quick to replace them with Flyglobespan who opened an initial two-aircraft base.
Passenger numbers peaked in 2006 when the airport was used by 917,963 passengers. However, since the 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.
In 2010, Vancouver Airport Services purchased a controlling 65% stake in Peel Airports Ltd and in December 2011, placed the airport up for sale. This led to the Peel Group purchasing their 75% share back on 10 February 2012 under a new subsidiary, Peel Investments Ltd.
In November 2010, the airport introduced the Passenger Facility Fee of £6 per adult to curb the airport's losses. Passengers had to purchase a ticket from a machine before being allowed to proceed through security. Similar schemes were at the time already in place at other small English airports including Blackpool, Newquay and Norwich. Passenger numbers during 2011 were 15% lower compared to 2010.
On 11 January 2011, Ryanair left the airport after ending their service to Alicante, having previously served Dublin, Girona and Rome Ciampino. They decided to leave the airport before the introduction of the Passenger Facility Fee, being notoriously against such charges.
Other developments included new airfield lighting installed and during 2012, six-figure sums spent revamping the terminal building and renovating one of the World War II-era hangars.
On 30 October 2013, after it became clear the market wasn't going to yield any further leisure services, the airport announced it would no longer accept such flights as part of cost-cutting plans that would see the airport diversify into a business airport. The airport stated it would instead focus on scheduled routes and non-passenger related aviation such as cargo/general aviation. The news was part of the "Master Plan to 2020 and Beyond" covering the period up to 2050, including residential and commercial development, released in November 2013. Peel would later reverse the charter flights decision with the return of Balkan Holidays to Burgas for summer 2019, with further large scale expansion from two major holiday companies lined up, but stopped because of the 2018 takeover. Whilst controversial and unheard of at the time, it is now generally accepted that leisure flights only benefit airports when critical mass can be achieved.
The cornerstone of the master plan was a housing estate which would have raised up to £30m to be reinvested back into the airport under a 'Section 106' agreement. This resulted in heavy opposition from the local public who misinterpreted the plans as being at the expense of the airport, but the houses were located on land too far removed from the existing airport infrastructure to be used for aviation development, and outline planning permission was received on 29 March 2017.
On 18 May 2017, Durham Tees Valley Airport announced significant investment to the airport's terminal facilities. Alongside extensive renovations in the departures area, improved retail services were introduced under the new in-house 'Xpress' brand. The first phase of investment was completed in September 2017, with the second phase starting in Autumn 2017. The airport's Privilege Membership Club also faced improvements for passenger service upgrades.
Later in May 2017, Durham Tees Valley Airport introduced a new in-house FBO called Consort Aviation.
During November 2017, the airport launched its Flying For The Future campaign to try to build support towards the airport and encourage more people to use the facility.