A new airport.... South Yorkshire Airport City?

Doncaster Sheffield Airport Strategic Review Announcement​

Forums4airports discusses the latest press release from Doncaster Sheffield airport where the airport questions the future of the airport. The owners of the airport, the Peel Group have announced they are looking at their options as the group has decided the airport is no longer viable as an operational airport. Here's the press release:

"The Board of Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA) has begun a review of strategic options for the Airport. This review follows lengthy deliberations by the Board of DSA which has reluctantly concluded that aviation activity on the site may no longer be commercially viable.

DSA’s owner, the Peel Group, as the Airport’s principal funder, has reviewed the conclusions of the Board of DSA and commissioned external independent advice in order to evaluate and test the conclusions drawn, which concurs with the Board’s initial findings.

Since the Peel Group acquired the Airport site in 1999 and converted it into an international commercial airport, which opened in 2005, significant amounts have been invested in the terminal, the airfield and its operations, both in relation to the original conversion and subsequently to improve the facilities and infrastructure on offer to create an award winning airport.

However, despite growth in passenger numbers, DSA has never achieved the critical mass required to become profitable and this fundamental issue of a shortfall in passenger numbers is exacerbated by the announcement on 10 June 2022 of the unilateral withdrawal of the Wizz Air based aircraft, leaving the Airport with only one base carrier, namely TUI.

This challenge has been increased by other changes in the aviation market, the well-publicised impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and increasingly important environmental considerations. It has therefore been concluded that aviation activity may no longer be the use for the site which delivers the maximum economic and environmental benefit to the region. Against this backdrop, DSA and the Peel Group, will initiate a consultation and engagement programme with stakeholders on the future of the site and how best to maximise and capitalise on future economic growth opportunities for Doncaster and the wider Sheffield City Region.

The wider Peel Group is already delivering significant development and business opportunities on its adjoining GatewayEast development including the recent deal for over 400,000 sq ft logistics and advanced manufacturing development on site, creating hundreds of new jobs and delivering further economic investment in the region.

Robert Hough, Chairman of Peel Airports Group, which includes Doncaster Sheffield Airport, said: “It is a critical time for aviation globally. Despite pandemic related travel restrictions slowly drawing to a close, we are still facing ongoing obstacles and dynamic long-term threats to the future of the aviation industry. The actions by Wizz to sacrifice its base at Doncaster to shore up its business opportunities at other bases in the South of England are a significant blow for the Airport.

Now is the right time to review how DSA can best create future growth opportunities for Doncaster and for South Yorkshire. The Peel Group remains committed to delivering economic growth, job opportunities and prosperity for Doncaster and the wider region.”

DSA and the Peel Group pride themselves on being forward-thinking whilst prioritising the welfare of staff and customers alike. As such, no further public comments will be made whilst they undertake this engagement period with all stakeholders.
During the Strategic Review, the Airport will operate as normal. Therefore passengers who are due to travel to the airport, please arrive and check in as normal. If there are any disruptions with your flight, you will be contacted by your airline in good time.
For all press enquiries, please contact Charlotte Leach at [email protected]."

"Not great news for DSA or the region"

Should the government or local council foot the bill and provide a financial subsidy to keep the airport open, thoughts...?

 

the local mps had a meeting with the aviation minster this week
We were grateful to meet the Minister for Aviation and his team on Monday to discuss the importance of opening the airspace above Doncaster. A positive meeting where we have strong commitment to help make this happen, and were pleased to hear that the team are working very closely with the CAA already to help allow the airspace to be available when we need it.

never had a meeting with the last one.

Window dressing and quite carefully worded - a 'strong commitment to help' is far from 'he will ensure it happens'. Interesting that 'the team' are already working with the CAA to help 'allow' the airspace to be available when there is no formal appointment of an operator to make a formal application. At least one assumes the MPs will have been briefed on the process on airspace application and qualification for the granting thereof so they will now know the score.

 

I did hear a clip of Coppard that someone put up from radio. I couldn't believe what I was hearing he was talking about what is happening and how things were going, but the most interesting thing he kept emphasising was numerous get of jail free cards if things fell apart. He had more get out comments than anything. Think it was three or four get out comments for every point he was making.

The way he came across is he doesn't believe in it but is being pulled along.

I note he said the stuff Ben Houchen had said about Peel and getting airlines to focus on LPL instead. It’s such utter rubbish I can’t believe it’s even allowed to be said unchecked. Fact of the matter with Teesside was that Bmibaby couldn’t make any money there, nor could they scale the operation to make it worthwhile continuing. Peel even put in a successful legal challenge FFS, they obviously wanted it to work. Same with DSA, just for what ever reason the airlines weren’t interested in spite of very generous subsidies and very low costs of operating there when compared to its competitors. Perhaps the legal challenge put airlines off? But we do know that Ryanair, easyjet, Stobart (x2) and Flybe, Globespan all suffered with unprofitable load factors. It’s very difficult to turn that around and it will, as Coppard rightly says, need an operator that has that experience and those working relationships to bring that to fruition.

Remain very unconvinced, as do the commercial team at my place of work by all accounts.

 

“…airspace to be available when we need it.”

Well, exactly. When it’s needed - i.e. when it is required by the amount of airline traffic.

Quite prepared to hold my hands up if I’m wrong, but I would be very surprised to see CAS in place on day 1 of ATC operations, for all the reasons previously covered.

 

No - strange the Council didn’t use York aviation given virtually every other local authority and the UK gov does…..guess they didn’t like the message they got from them so chose someone who just told them what they wanted to hear….

Maybe that was in the spec. Here is what we want to hear. Tell us what we want to hear.

 

Maybe that was in the spec. Here is what we want to hear. Tell us what we want to hear.

Isn’t that how private sector consultancy firms to public sector bodies often pitch themselves? I expect the Council wouldn’t have bothered approaching York Aviation, not only due to a conflict of interest over their fairly recent review (not available to the public) regards the lack of potential at DSA. I think they used North Point to write up the aviation analysis and the OBC was then reviewed by Ernst and Young as being viable. That is to say, North Point may have used questionable growth models and assumed revenue based on such models which E&Y would have reviewed and said yes on the assumptions made the airport could be viable.

What we don’t currently know is how they intend to get to the viability assumptions created by North Point. Rod Jones mentioned 2mppa by year 10, but that assumes they will be able to attract airlines to deliver that figure and they couldn’t before.

In short, have they assumed it could reach those figures by comparing other airports in other countries? The U.K. market is very specific and highly competitive, as VAS discovered. The lack of sufficient airlines to go around without pulling out of or significantly reducing their services at surrounding airports means I still remain to be convinced. They will need at least 3 volume carriers to make that 2 mppa target realistic and sustainable. It’s a fickle market, and in a downturn which is never more than a few years away in aviation, only the strongest survive.

 

Isn’t that how private sector consultancy firms to public sector bodies often pitch themselves? I expect the Council wouldn’t have bothered approaching York Aviation, not only due to a conflict of interest over their fairly recent review (not available to the public) regards the lack of potential at DSA. I think they used North Point to write up the aviation analysis and the OBC was then reviewed by Ernst and Young as being viable. That is to say, North Point may have used questionable growth models and assumed revenue based on such models which E&Y would have reviewed and said yes on the assumptions made the airport could be viable.

What we don’t currently know is how they intend to get to the viability assumptions created by North Point. Rod Jones mentioned 2mppa by year 10, but that assumes they will be able to attract airlines to deliver that figure and they couldn’t before.

In short, have they assumed it could reach those figures by comparing other airports in other countries? The U.K. market is very specific and highly competitive, as VAS discovered. The lack of sufficient airlines to go around without pulling out of or significantly reducing their services at surrounding airports means I still remain to be convinced. They will need at least 3 volume carriers to make that 2 mppa target realistic and sustainable. It’s a fickle market, and in a downturn which is never more than a few years away in aviation, only the strongest survive.

There seems to be a significant 'softening' of demand right now. The post COVID boom seems to have stalled judging by by the number of 'sales', 'offers', price reductions and free child places flowing into my inbox almost daily from one or other of the major carriers/tour companies. It's peak summer season for goodness sake!! As has been documented on other posts it's not just the UK suffering presumably from cost of living issues, it's the whole of Europe. Whilst sometimes these issues are 'transient' I would not be surprised if this is going to be with us for some time changing booking patterns and making accurate forecasting difficult. Any operator worth his salt will know exactly what is going and that the potential risk is increased - at best in just the short term - at worst, who knows - and which might well affect any negotiations. Comes at a bad time for the project? I can see the Council having to pay out a fortune to de-risk and secure this!

 

There seems to be a significant 'softening' of demand right now. The post COVID boom seems to have stalled judging by by the number of 'sales', 'offers', price reductions and free child places flowing into my inbox almost daily from one or other of the major carriers/tour companies. It's peak summer season for goodness sake!! As has been documented on other posts it's not just the UK suffering presumably from cost of living issues, it's the whole of Europe. Whilst sometimes these issues are 'transient' I would not be surprised if this is going to be with us for some time changing booking patterns and making accurate forecasting difficult. Any operator worth his salt will know exactly what is going and that the potential risk is increased - at best in just the short term - at worst, who knows - and which might well affect any negotiations. Comes at a bad time for the project? I can see the Council having to pay out a fortune to de-risk and secure this!

This is true, load factors are noticeably down this quarter. Suspect the post-Covid boom will now level out a bit. Add to this increased pressure on Eurocontrol/European national ATS providers to get their act together as there are increasing number of slot delays, restrictions on flights throughout Europe this summer. UK demand bubble is going to burst fairly soon and we may see some contraction in the market for W25/S26.

 

This is true, load factors are noticeably down this quarter. Suspect the post-Covid boom will now level out a bit. Add to this increased pressure on Eurocontrol/European national ATS providers to get their act together as there are increasing number of slot delays, restrictions on flights throughout Europe this summer. UK demand bubble is going to burst fairly soon and we may see some contraction in the market for W25/S26.

You can also now unfortunately now throw into the equation a potential global recession and an oil crisis as a result of a wider Middle East war……Seems like there are a lot of headwinds at the moment for the aviation industry!

 

You can also now unfortunately now throw into the equation a potential global recession and an oil crisis as a result of a wider Middle East war……Seems like there are a lot of headwinds at the moment for the aviation industry!

Yes it’s depressing. I hope DSA does prove us all wrong and reopens and becomes a success as it would prove that the industry is likely to be buoyant, but there’s lots going on at the moment that people aren’t talking about on these forums or elsewhere, to really cut down on costs in airlines. It’s happening right now, they’re clearly bracing for something.

 

The mechanic is now posting on the support group on Facebook that 2 years ago the airport had a whole 6 flights for one evening (6 in 6 out)!! and reminiscing how busy the airport was... lets face it, 12 movements is not impressive. if this is your case of bringing DSA back your delusional. 6 flights for one evening..!! wow 2 TUI and 4 Wizz. Christ.

 

The mechanic is now posting on the support group on Facebook that 2 years ago the airport had a whole 6 flights for one evening (6 in 6 out)!! and reminiscing how busy the airport was... lets face it, 12 movements is not impressive. if this is your case of bringing DSA back your delusional. 6 flights for one evening..!! wow 2 TUI and 4 Wizz. Christ.

To be fair, that’s reasonable level of business. Problem is that the airport footprint was too big and expensive for the number of flights it was servicing (pax and cargo), so if it was run on a shoe string it might at that level have been financially better off. Problem then is that you have the inevitable reduction in service levels and this is what they don’t appear to understand.

Noticed someone trying to start a rumour that Ryanair want to base an aircraft to fly to DUB and one other route. These people are not for real, Ryanair cannot be interested at present cos there is no airport… They I’m sure would express an interest as I’m sure they would at HUY if HUY were interested, there is a reason they aren’t interested though £££.

 

To be fair, that’s reasonable level of business. Problem is that the airport footprint was too big and expensive for the number of flights it was servicing (pax and cargo), so if it was run on a shoe string it might at that level have been financially better off. Problem then is that you have the inevitable reduction in service levels and this is what they don’t appear to understand.

Noticed someone trying to start a rumour that Ryanair want to base an aircraft to fly to DUB and one other route. These people are not for real, Ryanair cannot be interested at present cos there is no airport… They I’m sure would express an interest as I’m sure they would at HUY if HUY were interested, there is a reason they aren’t interested though £££.

For a evening of 6 hours, 6 movements at average 1 an hour, I personally wouldn't say is a reasonable level. & you can guarantee this was the lets say busiest day of the week.. other days would not have that same level of movements.

Ryanair base with DUB & 1 other route? don't make me laugh. Where are peoples brain?

 

For a evening of 6 hours, 6 movements at average 1 an hour, I personally wouldn't say is a reasonable level. & you can guarantee this was the lets say busiest day of the week.. other days would not have that same level of movements.

Ryanair base with DUB & 1 other route? don't make me laugh. Where are peoples brain?

What I mean is that it’s all relative. If it was an airport the size of NWI, MME, EXT or similar it would be a reasonable number of movements. Dont forget each one may be carrying around 180 passengers each way. Thats a fair few cars parked and overpriced pints of pisswater sold. However, DSA mk1 was built to be up there with the big players and its overheads will have reflected that, so in that case there weren’t enough movements hence the inability to stem the losses. Another example of Peel supporting the operation for such a long period of time in conflict with wider belief to the contrary! The question I would ask is how much cost could be cut away to still retain that number of movements without the airlines reducing their commitment in line with reduced service levels?

Agree re. Ryanair. They may have expressed an interest to CDC (remember, there is no operator yet so they cannot plan to return let alone say they’ll base any aircraft!) but they certainly weren’t all that interested before and, in the case of the smaller airports, cannot be relied upon from one season to the next, hence the reason HUY aren’t bothered with them.

 

Yes it’s depressing. I hope DSA does prove us all wrong and reopens and becomes a success as it would prove that the industry is likely to be buoyant, but there’s lots going on at the moment that people aren’t talking about on these forums or elsewhere, to really cut down on costs in airlines. It’s happening right now, they’re clearly bracing for something.

Can be taken with a pinch of salt as the survey was undertaken by a company with a vested interest but I think it does reflect what the aviation industry is currently experiencing. Will be interesting to see how airlines and travel companies respond and if they still proceed with their planned investments in aircraft….https://mediacentre.tpexpress.co.uk/news/brits-struggling-to-afford-price-of-foreign-holidays-turn-to-uk-getaways

 

The Yorkshire Man has posted suggesting the airport could be open very soon. no facts just old news circulating. Click bait

at the current time and crisis opening a airport is really not the brightest idea

 

The Yorkshire Man has posted suggesting the airport could be open very soon. no facts just old news circulating. Click bait

at the current time and crisis opening a airport is really not the brightest idea

Very soon?

No ATC, no landing lights, no fire cover, no staff.............the guy is in fantasy land.

 

Really can not understand why so many people continue to get embroiled in things the mechanic says he wasn't interested in the airport before it shut he hasn't a clue about aviation in the slightest and the majority of people following him are exactly the same they jumped on his bandwagon he has made himself look silly on a ridiculous amount of occasions. These people reflect badly on the more logical thinking and more interested follows the airport has/had.

Yes the airport faced many challenges had far too many failures and probably should not have been built it also had limited successes Peel did put time and effort in possibly/probably longer than they should have depending on people's viewpoint, questions remain unanswered and will forever on some things without the full facts mystery intrigue and conspiracy theories will remain part of the script for some.

 

Still intrigued to know what the strategy is going to be, when you look at the £200m expansion at LBA as seen in this article LBA things will have to be done differently than gone before

 

Still intrigued to know what the strategy is going to be, when you look at the £200m expansion at LBA as seen in this article LBA things will have to be done differently than gone before

Looks like CDC/SYMCA are leaving it down to the operators to come up with a strategy for the place. So anything they say about airlines and cargo should be taken with a pinch of salt at the moment. They’re still of the view that Peel made it fail, which is an expensive strategy to follow.

 

Looks like CDC/SYMCA are leaving it down to the operators to come up with a strategy for the place. So anything they say about airlines and cargo should be taken with a pinch of salt at the moment. They’re still of the view that Peel made it fail, which is an expensive strategy to follow.

I see from a post on the FB save DSA group which has now subsequently been deleted that the preferred bidders have walked away from the deal……not sure how much to read into this but it wouldn’t be that much or a surprise…