MPs in talks for airport rescue plan (From The Northern Echo)
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MPs in talks for Durham Tees Valley Airport rescue plan
10:38am Wednesday 1st February 2012 in Traffic & Transport News
RESCUE PLAN: MPs will meet a transport minister about a long-term rescue plan for threatened Durham Tees Valley Airport – if a new buyer can be found
MPs will meet a transport minister about a long-term rescue plan for threatened Durham Tees Valley (DTV) Airport – if a new buyer can be found.
Phil Wilson, Labour MP for Sedgefield, and James Wharton, Conservative MP for Stockton South, will call for Heathrow’s landing slots to be ringfenced for struggling regional airports, such as DTV.
During a Commons debate, Mr Wilson said it was wrong that Heathrow reserved slots for only six UK airports – down from 21 in 1995 and compared with 250 such arrangements across Europe.
He told ministers: “That is important for Durham Tees Valley Airport, especially today. As we know in the North-East, the airport is being put up for sale.”
Mr Wharton echoed the called for DTV to be given special rights at Heathrow, not least because it will not, unlike Leeds, be served by highspeed trains.
The MP said the public and businesses had greatly valued bmi’s “excellent, well-managed service” to Heathrow, before it was axed in 2009.
He told ministers: “That service has gone into, what I hope, is a short-term decline in recent years. I ask for action to be taken – and for the Government to deliver the Heathrow route that would bring great benefit.”
In reply, Transport Minister Norman Baker said his colleague, Theresa Villiers – who is nursing a broken collarbone after a cycling accident – would meet them when she was “back in the saddle”.
And he added: “Our reforms are designed to protect the interests of passengers, particularly at the small number of airports – such as Heathrow – that have substantial market power.”
However, similar calls for more public service obligations (PSOs) to throw a lifeline to struggling regional airports have been made for many years.
In the last parliament, Nick Brown, Labour’s Minister for the North-East, was unable to persuade his Government to change the rules.
Furthermore, guaranteed slots at Heathrow will only offer hope to DTV if the efforts to find a buyer for the airport are successful.
Peel Airports announced in December that it would sell its shares.
Mr Wilson said the priority, if a buyer could not be found, was to ensure DTV retained an “aviation facility” – perhaps for cargo.
And, on PSOs, he said: “I understand that bmi withdrew its slots from Durham Tees Valley to Heathrow as it wanted to use them for more lucrative long-haul flights into the capital – but those slots have yet to be filled.”
Comments(3)
M C
says...
11:11pm Wed 1 Feb 12
He told ministers: “That service has gone into, what I hope, is a short-term decline in recent years...."
I'm afraid that's not correct. Passenger numbers on the Teesside-Heathrow route were in almost constant decline for nearly twenty years prior to its withdrawal in 2009. They declined from a peak of over 200,000 in 1989 to 81,000 in 2008, the last full year of operation.
M C
says...
11:55pm Wed 1 Feb 12
Not according to Hansard he didn't! They quote him as saying "In 1995, Heathrow served 21 domestic destinations and today it serves only six, only two of which are in England", which is broadly correct.
The former statement would be seriously misleading. Slots are not reserved at Heathrow for services to any particular airport. The airlines that hold slots can use them to fly wherever they choose.
Guy Fawkes says...
11:04am Wed 1 Feb 12
They might have valued it, but from around 2007 onwards, they didn't use it. During the last couple of years of the BMI flights, passenger numbers collapsed. Most of the times I went on them, they couldn't even half-fill an ERJ. Air passenger duty and poor public transport links to the airport were deterring leisure travellers, while the stress-filled, time-consuming nightmare that is making a connection at Heathrow drove business passengers increasingly to KLM.
MME does not have a future as a passenger airport as long as the APD on short-haul flights remains at its current level.
And Mr. Wilson's comments about ringfencing LHR slots for the regions is absolutely typical of Labour. Firstly they create a problem by regulation and taxation, i.e. tax short-haul air travel so much that they destroy demand for it. That tax they introduced couldn't have been better designed to kill off regional airports if they'd tried. Now, their proposed solution to that is to impose yet more regulation to force already struggling airlines to operate loss-making routes.