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...?

 

Not sure whether Ms Jones is the only one capable of opening the airport - for sure she is the only one prepared to open it at any cost!

Nick Fletcher appears to be the other strong candidate for the local major elections, and his door to door leaflet says his no 2 pledge is “support Doncaster airport”, interest his wording of “support” rather than “open Doncaster airport”. He also says “something does not smell right. Nick will get to the bottom of it”. Interesting in the chosen words!!!!

Note: I have no political leaning to him, I think he is nuts, but thought his wording interesting

 

Nick Fletcher appears to be the other strong candidate for the local major elections, and his door to door leaflet says his no 2 pledge is “support Doncaster airport”, interest his wording of “support” rather than “open Doncaster airport”. He also says “something does not smell right. Nick will get to the bottom of it”. Interesting in the chosen words!!!!

Note: I have no political leaning to him, I think he is nuts, but thought his wording interesting

It’s a realistic commitment to actually find out what happened and try to get private sector investors interested. I’m not sure whether he knows how unviable it is or whether he’s just using non committal words to ‘show support’ but in the event he wins not actually reopen it as the current mayor let council intend to do.

I agree though, he’s a nutcase and a liability but so are all of them it seems. Ros Jones seems like the nice old lady who used to give you ‘humbugs’, but she’s clearly not competent as a leader and public representative of the council, her word salad from today is evidence that she’s a puppet.

 

It is to do with the lease situation that CDC have agreed and CDC not wanting to ceed any shareholding in the airport company. They are the main reasons that the private sector walked away from it.

If CDC had purchased the airport from Peel, then offered a lease of the airport to the private sector, then it would have been a more favourable proposition to the private sector.

But way CDC have done it meant the sums didn't add up for the private sector.

 

It is to do with the lease situation that CDC have agreed and CDC not wanting to ceed any shareholding in the airport company. They are the main reasons that the private sector walked away from it.

If CDC had purchased the airport from Peel, then offered a lease of the airport to the private sector, then it would have been a more favourable proposition to the private sector.

But way CDC have done it meant the sums didn't add up for the private sector.

That’s BS. The private sector wouldn’t pay anything near what Peel wanted. The public sector don’t have the capital. The private sector have rejected it because it’s not viable.

With the sad news that Balkan Holidays have now ceased trading, that’s another former operator that now will not be heading to a reopened DSA.

 

The idiot incumbent mayor of Doncaster is on one today. Do not only is the new money not new money as confirmed by herself, she’s also putting a rail link (total combined cost £1bn) back on the agenda in spite of it being thrown out by the DfT for lacking viability just a few years ago. It’s not unreasonable to suspect that the same people who threw it out for lacking value for money will be the same people looking at it again when they submit their plans..

Oh for goodness sake, not these giant Crayola lines on Google Maps plan again? There is no way in the next few decades that Network Rail and the Rail Operators would touch this with a bargepole. Firstly diverting East Coast Main Line services via DSA would add time onto London services, but also demand would be shockingly low. Even airports with extensive rail links from around the North of England like Manchester see only around 10-15% of their throughput arrive via rail. A station at DSA on a spur off the ECML would really only see direct services from potentially from Doncaster, Leeds & the North East. The latter could easily be ruled out as Newcastle Airport would still be a better option, leaving only Leeds and Doncaster as possible major hub sources. And West Yorkshire already has it's own airport, plus regular links to Manchester.

Even if DSA made 2m passengers pa (laughs out loud), using the 10% figure for rail linkage would leave around 550 per day on average using DSA rail. Combine that and the cost of building a high speed spur plus crossovers / flyovers / dive-unders to link to the ECML, and that £1bn bill (and the rest) would leave any business case for it in tatters. But that 2m pax is being very, very overly generous as we all know, in reality those numbers would be considerably smaller as would the rail pax. So over a billion for a link and station that would see at most a few dozen punters per day. Yeah. Right. Sure Ros....

 

Oh for goodness sake, not these giant Crayola lines on Google Maps plan again? There is no way in the next few decades that Network Rail and the Rail Operators would touch this with a bargepole. Firstly diverting East Coast Main Line services via DSA would add time onto London services, but also demand would be shockingly low. Even airports with extensive rail links from around the North of England like Manchester see only around 10-15% of their throughput arrive via rail. A station at DSA on a spur off the ECML would really only see direct services from potentially from Doncaster, Leeds & the North East. The latter could easily be ruled out as Newcastle Airport would still be a better option, leaving only Leeds and Doncaster as possible major hub sources. And West Yorkshire already has it's own airport, plus regular links to Manchester.

Even if DSA made 2m passengers pa (laughs out loud), using the 10% figure for rail linkage would leave around 550 per day on average using DSA rail. Combine that and the cost of building a high speed spur plus crossovers / flyovers / dive-unders to link to the ECML, and that £1bn bill (and the rest) would leave any business case for it in tatters. But that 2m pax is being very, very overly generous as we all know, in reality those numbers would be considerably smaller as would the rail pax. So over a billion for a link and station that would see at most a few dozen punters per day. Yeah. Right. Sure Ros....

would it be viable, or too costly to put a station stop in rossington.it is 4-5 minutes from the airport. DMBC bought the land aside the crossing.

 

would it be viable, or too costly to put a station stop in rossington.it is 4-5 minutes from the airport. DMBC bought the land aside the crossing.

Put simply no. The numbers even if Rossington bound passengers were taken into account would be penny figures, and frankly no TOC is going to want to stop a service there for a handful of people, keeping in mind that that section of track is almost exclusively fast services to and from London. Having a stopping service on a fast main would cause timing issues in itself, and on the possible usage figures would just get filed under "Nope".

Edit: To give some context, the new White Rose Centre station on the Leeds - Huddersfield line is currently costed at £26.5m for an estimated 350k passengers per year. And this is on a line with a mixture of stopping and semi-fasts, and will replace Cottingley station just up the line. Yet this is on hold due to spiralling costs, so gives you an idea why this wouldn't work. It would run into tens, maybe hundreds of millions, cause timing issues and just not get enough use to even get beyond the Crayola-on-map stage.

 

Put simply no. The numbers even if Rossington bound passengers were taken into account would be penny figures, and frankly no TOC is going to want to stop a service there for a handful of people, keeping in mind that that section of track is almost exclusively fast services to and from London. Having a stopping service on a fast main would cause timing issues in itself, and on the possible usage figures would just get filed under "Nope".

Edit: To give some context, the new White Rose Centre station on the Leeds - Huddersfield line is currently costed at £26.5m for an estimated 350k passengers per year. And this is on a line with a mixture of stopping and semi-fasts, and will replace Cottingley station just up the line. Yet this is on hold due to spiralling costs, so gives you an idea why this wouldn't work. It would run into tens, maybe hundreds of millions, cause timing issues and just not get enough use to even get beyond the Crayola-on-map stage.

Didn’t part of the DfT assessment from the previous proposal include consulting the TOCs who said it’s not in their interests? When it was rejected part of the reasoning other than the astronomical cost, was the paltry passenger numbers. It’s another attempt at moving mountains to manipulate the market, but it doesn’t work.

 

Didn’t part of the DfT assessment from the previous proposal include consulting the TOCs who said it’s not in their interests? When it was rejected part of the reasoning other than the astronomical cost, was the paltry passenger numbers. It’s another attempt at moving mountains to manipulate the market, but it doesn’t work.

I couldn't say for certain, but it certainly sounds right. DSA when open was never going to attract enough rail users to ever open a station even on the Lincoln line, let alone a brand new ECML spur. Now closed and just a pipe dream in a few South Yorkshire councillor's dreams, a DSA rail link is about as far away as me netting the EuroMillions tonight!

 

I couldn't say for certain, but it certainly sounds right. DSA when open was never going to attract enough rail users to ever open a station even on the Lincoln line, let alone a brand new ECML spur. Now closed and just a pipe dream in a few South Yorkshire councillor's dreams, a DSA rail link is about as far away as me netting the EuroMillions tonight!

Doesn’t stop people believing it though, Ros Jones must be quite fearful of losing her position to be resorting to this sort of thing. It’s one thing saying they’re going to reopen the airport, another entirely when it comes to securing the vast amounts of investment required to even put in a rail link to the Lincoln-Doncaster line.

Whoever wrote yesterdays statement also attempted to play with words by saying that the rail link is a reserved scheme and so the money they claim to have received from the Government is the same cash under a different title, it’s not new. Very misleading.

 

Just seen comments elsewhere that MAI are receiving £39,000 per month for their services. That’s just shy of £500,000 per year. Could look at this two ways, it’s a significant expense to cover. However it’s also not that much given salaries etc. so I wonder how much resource has been committed to DSA from MAI? How much are FP airports getting paid!?

 

Just seen comments elsewhere that MAI are receiving £39,000 per month for their services. That’s just shy of £500,000 per year. Could look at this two ways, it’s a significant expense to cover. However it’s also not that much given salaries etc. so I wonder how much resource has been committed to DSA from MAI? How much are FP airports getting paid!?

My personal view having had first hand experience with Consultants and their charges some years ago is that this figure, if correct, is very cheap indeed! Of course as you alluse to - depends on exactly what their remit is at the moment.

Not often I look on the Campaign site which to my mind is blatantly 'political' (but hey if that's the way you roll - no problem - why deny it) to find the narrative is now all about that it is 'apolitical' with an attempted media campaign to that effect in certain 'Nationals'. It's now all about 'people' rather than politics and I'm sure sometimes that's true in local elections. I know nothing about the political situation in Doncaster other than that which I have read (falling out in lumps on the page!) and which often has no substance but I wonder if the gentleman has a feeling that the political wind my be blowing in a different direction to that preferred and mitigation is to try and divert attention from the political parties (that might lose) to certain individuals within them (that might win)? It's intriguing and one has to admire his tenacity whether it be well directed or not!

 

My personal view having had first hand experience with Consultants and their charges some years ago is that this figure, if correct, is very cheap indeed! Of course as you alluse to - depends on exactly what their remit is at the moment.

Not often I look on the Campaign site which to my mind is blatantly 'political' (but hey if that's the way you roll - no problem - why deny it) to find the narrative is now all about that it is 'apolitical' with an attempted media campaign to that effect in certain 'Nationals'. It's now all about 'people' rather than politics and I'm sure sometimes that's true in local elections. I know nothing about the political situation in Doncaster other than that which I have read (falling out in lumps on the page!) and which often has no substance but I wonder if the gentleman has a feeling that the political wind my be blowing in a different direction to that preferred and mitigation is to try and divert attention from the political parties (that might lose) to certain individuals within them (that might win)? It's intriguing and one has to admire his tenacity whether it be well directed or not!

No idea what his political persuasion is, but I think in fairness to him he’s trying to be tactical with a view to who will be able to (or has best chance of) delivering on the pledge to reopen the airport.

Bookies favourite is apparently the Reform candidate, however I’m not sure how they assess that, if it’s opinion polls then we know how inaccurate they tend to be when it comes to elections. However the Reform candidate appears to be backing reopening but under a different model.

Fletcher may struggle in Doncaster because of historic bad blood between the residents of Doncaster and the Tories. I’ve no idea what he plans with the airport but he’s clearly picked up on certain discrepancies.

Then there’s the incumbent who has the benefit of being Labour. I still think she’ll probably win even if there’s a growth in Reform support. Obviously she’s on the same ‘side’ as Coppard and so there is a political motivation to ensure the airport reopens.

What isn’t clear is how the financial review is going, and when the findings of that will be released. I still think Ros Jones is being disingenuous when she says it will reopen and it will be Spring 2026, particularly when the results of the financial review hasn’t been concluded yet (unless it has, and they’re withholding for political purposes!).

Regarding MAI, I suspect they’ll also be in receipt of expenses too like when two of them represented DSA at the recent routes conference, although they will have reps for all of their airport projects there so it isn’t clear if they were solely promoting DSA.. I also reckon there are other third party specialists being paid to consult on matters regulatory.

 

I guess today is the public’s chance to support the mandate for reopening the airport. Be interesting to see what happens tomorrow, but I notice Ros Jones and Nick Fletcher have made it almost exclusively about this one agenda. Are Reform really going to receive enough protest votes? The others certainly seem to think so, although I personally think the other candidates will help split the vote and Labour will ultimately take the majority based on the airport.

That said, bookies have got it quite right against opinion polls recently, and as of yesterday Reform were favourites to win.. If Reform win that will be the death knell for this whole farce, however I personally prefer it if they didn’t as they’re a scourge on modern democracy.

 

I guess today is the public’s chance to support the mandate for reopening the airport. Be interesting to see what happens tomorrow, but I notice Ros Jones and Nick Fletcher have made it almost exclusively about this one agenda. Are Reform really going to receive enough protest votes? The others certainly seem to think so, although I personally think the other candidates will help split the vote and Labour will ultimately take the majority based on the airport.

That said, bookies have got it quite right against opinion polls recently, and as of yesterday Reform were favourites to win.. If Reform win that will be the death knell for this whole farce, however I personally prefer it if they didn’t as they’re a scourge on modern democracy.

sadly i think reform are going to walk it. most people i speak to are supporting reform, and i say 100% of old people. they think they are going to clear the city center of immigrants , and it will be like the sixties.
what they don't realise is these people ( the vast majority) are carers, carehome workers and many employed by the NHS, all doing important jobs. they have taken the place of the eastern europeans who left because of brexit ( what a great idea that was).
and under reform the airport will not go ahead

 

I don't pretend to be a political expert but what I think everything about this proves is that once a lot of people get an idea/thought in their head then no amount of logic or reason will change that. Make of that comment what you will.

 

Interesting - suspect a similar letter will be winging its way to the UK government….Quite rightly private investors are pointing out the use of subsidies is distorting the UK airport market and propping up airports which just aren’t viable longer term. https://rca.aero/media/2025/5/1/ope...nsparency-and-fairness-in-aviation-investment

 

Interesting - suspect a similar letter will be winging its way to the UK government….Quite rightly private investors are pointing out the use of subsidies is distorting the UK airport market and propping up airports which just aren’t viable longer term. https://rca.aero/media/2025/5/1/ope...nsparency-and-fairness-in-aviation-investment

Bristol Airport have done the same, with exactly the same complaints as those made by LBA management re DSA being subsidised. What we have already learned though, is that this Government don't listen.

 

Interesting - suspect a similar letter will be winging its way to the UK government….Quite rightly private investors are pointing out the use of subsidies is distorting the UK airport market and propping up airports which just aren’t viable longer term. https://rca.aero/media/2025/5/1/ope...nsparency-and-fairness-in-aviation-investment

That to which they allude is just the same in Doncaster - the FBC hiding behind a wall of supposed commercial sensitivity which few are allowed to see! Must be somewhat difficult to vote on the 'main issue' of the airport when the business plan - which to my mind is the critical element - is not available to the electorate for scrutiny. One can only deduce that certain politicians feel they have a better chance of success by keeping the details from the electorate. It's called democracy

 

Bristol Airport have done the same, with exactly the same complaints as those made by LBA management re DSA being subsidised. What we have already learned though, is that this Government don't listen.

RCA also raised objection to DSA via the SAU. It’s interesting to see them outlining it there too so thanks for the link @Snackbar.

sadly i think reform are going to walk it. most people i speak to are supporting reform, and i say 100% of old people. they think they are going to clear the city center of immigrants , and it will be like the sixties.
what they don't realise is these people ( the vast majority) are carers, carehome workers and many employed by the NHS, all doing important jobs. they have taken the place of the eastern europeans who left because of brexit ( what a great idea that was).
and under reform the airport will not go ahead

I agree it’s a sad state of affairs and the inability to keep social media in check is a massive problem for all political parties as we saw with Brexit, as were also seeing with Trump, and to an extent the DSA situation too. It’s very easy now for ‘bad actors’ to control a narrative via social media, but it’s also created a safe space for the less intelligent who, when they can’t get their head around a concept, decide that people who maybe know a bit more than them are conspiring against society.

This is applicable to DSA as much as it is to flat earth, chemtrail believers and anti vaxxers.. it’s a popularists paradise.