News: Durham Tees Valley Airport hopeful over Bmibaby replacement
Flights > News > # 975 (26/09/2006)
Durham Tees Valley airport bosses say they have made significant advances towards finding a replacement airline following last week’s sudden decision by BmiBaby to pull out of Durham this November.
The budget airline has not revealed the reason for their decision, but as a result all flights from Durham to Cork, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Newquay and London Gatwick will be cancelled from October 29. The final flights between Durham and Alicante, Malaga and Palma will take off on November 6.
Speaking exclusively to Flightmapping.com, Durham Tees Valley airport’s business development manager, Mark Clarkson, said the company was already in talks with numerous airlines.
Clarkson said: “We are looking to establish these routes as soon as possible. We have had a number of productive meetings with several different carriers about starting new routes . There are always going to be a number of regional routes which an airport like ourselves can offer which will appeal to low-cost airlines.”
Clarkson said BmiBaby’s decision to axe their Durham flights was a complete shock, adding: “The bizarre thing about their withdrawal is that the routes that they had were performing well, so we have no doubt that we will be able to attract other airlines to come in and provide new services”
Despite the setback caused by BmiBaby’s withdrawal, Clarkson remained upbeat about the airport's future.
“We are hoping that the local councils will make a decision soon about our plans for a new terminal, which will be able to handle up to three million passengers per year and we don’t think BmiBaby’s decision will have any impact on our long term development proposals. I'm confident we'll find new airline business at the airport fairly soon,” he said.
Clarkson also stressed that the three-times daily flights between Durham and London Heathrow operated by BMI were not under threat.
“There has been some confusion about the different brands BmiBaby and BMI, especially as some of the 'tiny' fares have been marketed on the Heathrow routes. However, the London Heathrow to Durham Tees Valley route is BMI's longest standing service from Heathrow, having operated continuously since 1969. There is no suggestion of this being under threat, as we are talking about two different airlines,” he said.
Other scheduled routes still available from Durham include KLM’s three daily flights to Amsterdam, and Eastern Airways’ flights to Aberdeen. Next month, Eastern Airways will launch twice daily flights to Brussels, with the Scottish budget airline Flyglobespan launching new flights to Tenerife in November. Flyglobespan have hinted that they might be interested in operating more flights from Durham, and industry insiders have speculated that they are the most likely airline to replace BmiBaby.
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