7:55am Friday 24th July 2009
Exclusive By Joe Willis
A NEW airline restoring the link between the Tees Valley and London will be launched today, The Northern Echo can reveal.
Excelsis Airways’ website will go live later this morning outlining the new company’s plan to offer three flights a day from Durham Tees Valley (DTV) to London City Airport later this year.
It hopes to plug a gap in the market left by the cancellation of bmi’s DTV to Heathrow service earlier this year.
The Northern Echo understands its services include fast check-in, in-flight entertainment, leather seats, fine cuisine and a “club” atmosphere.
A door-to-door chauffeur service may also be offered and the company is working on a series of exclusive launch deals. A list of vacancies is expected to be published online, as the airline looks to recruit pilots, cabin crew and customer service staff.
A competition to find a design for the aircraft livery will also be launched. The winner will receive tickets for the airline’s first flight from Durham.
The proposed service will be predominately targeted at business customers.
The first flight of the day will arrive in London in time for morning meetings, the second will leave at lunchtime and a third will depart in the evening.
Tickets will be competitive with the East Coast Main Line train service and, long term, Excelsis plans services to other regional destinations.
If successful, it looks likely to create several hundred jobs over the next few years.
Few details have emerged of the individuals behind the airline.
However, the owner is understood to be a former senior executive with an international airline.
It is understood that Excelsis will have its headquarters in the Darlington area and it will be the first airline to be based in the region since Newcastle’s Northeast Airlines was taken over by British Airways in 1973.
Sources say Excelsis had hoped to run its first service into Heathrow, but a shortage of landing slots meant this was not possible.
London City Airport is two miles from the site of the 2012 Olympic Games and three miles from Canary Wharf.
Passengers can use the Docklands Light Railway to connect to the underground.
The new service hopes to attract many of the 80,000 passengers who flew with bmi from Durham to Heathrow last year.
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