Teesside International Airport reports £6.6m loss months after Ben Houchen declared 'first profit in decade'

The airport was sold to Lord Houchen’s Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) by Doncaster-Sheffield Airport owners Peel Group in 2019. The authority owns 75 per cent of the holding company which owns the airport.

In August, the Tees Valley Mayor buoyantly announced that, according to the 2024 EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) figures, the airport had turned a profit of £308,555 on annual revenues of £14.5m.

At the time, Lord Houchen said: “When we took back control of our airport I pledged that we would return it to profit, and we have now delivered on this well ahead of our financial plan.”

While airport managing director Phil Forster told The Yorkshire Post: “We’re not completely out of the woods yet from where we want to be, but it is a big step in the right direction.

“What this shows is the turnaround plan is working, the airport is heading in the right direction.”

EBITDA is a different measure of profitability to net income and assesses how well a company is managing in its day-to-day operations, however it is not recognised under UK generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).

The latest Companies House figures show the airport’s losses when measured by net income.

More recently, Lord Houchen was more sanguine when commenting on the airport’s finances.

He told the BBC: “It’s a good step forward but is it now smooth sailing? Of course it’s not, there will be ups and downs.

“We don’t know whether it’s a false start so we don’t know whether next year we might have a small loss, we don’t know whether we might have a small profit.

“[Ebitda results] was a nice thing to happen, but I’m not overly shouting about it when I usually overly shout about most things that we do because I think you’ve got to take that, over a longer period of time.

“What you’ve got to look at is over a five or 10-year horizon. So there’s still a lot of work to do on that.”

The documents also showed that the airport has two loan facilities with the TVCA of up to £89.6m in March.

A freedom of information request by The Teesside Lead in November revealed this total has increased to £120m.

The Companies House documents state that the development of a new business park on the south of the airport’s land is going to be a key focus in the year ahead.

They claim this will create more than 4,000 jobs when fully operational.

The southside development is a joint venture with Teesworks majority owners Chris Musgrave and Martin Corney.

Despite the losses, the airport has had a successful couple of years.

In 2023, it had record passenger numbers since 2009 and recently announced new flights to Malaga from Ryanair next summer.