Durham Tees Valley – Record Passenger Numbers

Well, according to the PR people, things all seem rosey at MME. This taken from the Durham Tees Valley Airport website:-

http://www.durhamteesvalleyairport.com/devel/press/index.shtml#story51

Record breaking month for Durham Tees Valley Airport
Scheduled services provide significant growth

Nearly a year on since the name change and Durham Tees Valley Airport are celebrating success as they hit record breaking passenger figures.

During August the airport recorded the busiest month in its history with figures showing passenger throughput of 105,000, a 16% increase compared to the same period last year.

The growth at Durham Tees Valley is credited to the new scheduled services launched this summer by low fares airline bmibaby, which saw a record month of over 23,000 passengers travelling on services to Paris, Cork , Jersey and Newquay as well as the well established flights to Alicante, Malaga and Palma.

Flights to Dublin and Rome with low cost airline Ryanair were close to full capacity with approximately 16,500 passengers using their services.

Traditional summer holidays saw a 10% increase during August compared to the same period last year with Thomson Holidays increasing their capacity for summer 2005 and introduced new flights to Gerona, Corfu and Tunisia. For the first times ever Goldtrail Holidays also introduced flights at the airport with a weekly service to Bodrum, Turkey.

Mark Clarkson, business development manager at the airport said “2005 is proving to be our busiest year ever and we are working hard to continue this impressive growth over the coming months.

“It’s no surprise that August was a successful month for the airport as we have an even greater choice of scheduled and charter destinations which are becoming a lot easier and cheaper to book, allowing North East travellers more flexibility when taking their holidays. August is a peak holiday period which was boosted by the last big bank holiday of the year.”

Success is set to continue during 2005. Eastern Airways have announced the introduction of a new route to Bristol starting on October 24th. The new service will link the North East and South West with three return flights every weekday and one on Sunday.

The airport will also see a new direct service to London Gatwick commence in October. Low cost airline, bmibaby will operate daily weekday flights and one on a Sunday, further improving the links between the region and the capital.

The airport looks set for an even busier year in 2006 as Thomson Holidays introduce new flights to Reus (Costa Dorada), Bodrum (Turkey) and Bulgaria.

Not sure how true this is, but I think some Thomson flights may be dropped next year to accomodate the new routes to Reus, Bodrum and Bulgaria. Heard that the routes being culled will be Las Palmas, Gerona and one other. If this turns out to be true, then I don’t exactly see a passenger number increase, moreover, a change in destinations offered, something which the marketing bods often fail to tell us.