List of problems that have dragged airport into obscurity

BILL Brown (Yorkshire Post, November 6) only scratched the surface of the problems currently dragging Teesside Airport into obscurity.

When I was growing up in Redcar, Middleton St George had been a wartime bomber base and so had an exceptionally long runway for a regional airport and was also equipped with the technology that allowed planes to land and take off in fog – again because of its wartime role.

I first started flying in and out of Teesside International Airport – as it became – in 1970 at which time KLM ran several daily commuter flights to and from Amsterdam and British Midland to and from Heathrow.

The rapidly developing offshore oil industry added daily flights to and from Aberdeen, and holiday and other charter flights added to the traffic.

AirUK – later merged with 
KLM – also began to use the airport.

Gradually, over the years, it developed from a fairly sparse facility that seemed to have pretensions above its station, into a thriving and busy airport, ever-improving and expanding its buildings and services.

Even the fact that passengers had to contend with a tortuous drive through the back 
roads of Yarm and Urlay Nook didn’t seem to deter people, though it was a godsend 
when the newly constructed A66 opened up a fast and direct connection.

But then the rot began to set in. British Midland pulled out when the airport operators increased landing and other charges and so if you wanted to get to London in a hurry you either took the 
train or you drove to another airport.

KLM/AirUK reduced its services which severely reduced the options for using Amsterdam as an international hub.

Flights to Aberdeen also stopped as the economics of North Sea oil declined.

A new road between the airport and the A66 came years too late and has done nothing to encourage its use, and the operators began charging more to park and even charged passengers to use the airport!

And the name-change to Durham Tees Valley was opposed at every turn locally but Peel Holdings, in their arrogance, changed it anyway – it was a PR disaster and clearly did nothing for the image of the airport (which was the supposed reason for the change).

Congratulations to them if their plan all along was to destroy Teesside Airport because that’s what they have done and, strangely, our local authorities have done nothing to stop it happening.

Grist to the mill of Newcastle, Leeds/Bradford and Manchester airports.