Possibly, seems Central Gvt are suggesting that as an option. Whereas the Mayor appears to be against this, favouring private ownership. Peel would likely be happy either offloading it at a huge cost, or building on it. Question is, how much of the estate is owned by Doncaster Airport Ltd? Be even harder to break even if it loses the surrounding land to offset costs..!
And just lost another £12m. Teesside is already becoming a drain on regional resources.
Correct, but my point was that any decision Peel might take to withdraw from the airport wouldnt necessarily result in its closure.
Well, they own it. They can do what they like with it and set what they consider to be the market price if the council's opt to buy, but even the South Yorkshire Mayor seems to understand that the cost of purchase would be huge, and little prospect of making any profit for years to come. On top of that, running an airport costs millions each year, with regular need to upgrade equipment at the whim of Government.
Im just speculating that if its happened once (at Teesside) despite all the arguments against it, it could happen again.
Can we be sure that this wasn't the intention from the outset bearing in mind that Peel are land and property developers? Peel are very good at extracting money from public bodies which eventually enhance their investments. Once those grants have been received it becomes virtually impossible to argue that the grants had been sought with an ulterior motive. Just a thought.
I suspect that the council are subsidising it to a substantial degree with only 5 or 6 airline flights a day including the odd TUI and Ryanair. They are trying hard but I worry that the 'natives' will become restless at the amount of money being expended.
There will certainly be pressure to keep it going. Whether it’s just delaying the inevitable remains to be seen.
I think the fact that a lot of effort and money went in to getting the airport up to commercial standards, including excellent landing and nav aids, amongst other things, suggests they took the project seriously. My point is that the risk has always been backed up by the knowledge that for whatever reason it didn’t work out (and remember, they were told by numerous industry experts that it would struggle) that they could recoup their losses from alternative uses of the site. I cannot think of any other organisation that would have developed it as an airport!
It seems the chalice has been passed to Oliver Coppard, devolved powers highlighted. Lose lose situation for him really, he’s clearly well aware of the scale of investment and ongoing financial support required just to keep the place as is. However he will also have a vast number of constituents who would be upset (to say the least) to see the airport close.
Believe Eastern were effectively bought in to operate the LHR and others, soon as Loganair came in (presumably on the same sweeteners) Eastern dropped out completely. Ryanair are back, but at what cost to the airport? Either way, the overheads have to be smaller than DSA, so if either one was to become profitable in the foreseeable future I would put money on Teesside being the one. However, it comes back again to critical mass. Humberside is profitable with barely any passenger flights…. Doncaster must be prostituting itself out to TUI and Wizz.. How many cars do the yneed parked and duty free sold to cover the costs?
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