2016 Review

The year got off to an unfortunate start as "Storm Gertrude" wrote off two of our resident aircraft with more suffering damage, these were G-NIUS, G-ROWE (W/O), G-IFLI and G-CDRC or G-DOVE (damaged) - can't remember now which of the C182s it was. As I write these words "Storm Barbara" has just hit with others lining up behind her so let's hope lessons have been learned!!

Looking back at this page from last year, specifically the '2016 preview' section, I reference the failure of the SSI steel works coupled with an in-general poor north east economy potentially impacting on passenger numbers and GA/BA movements, add to this the bizjet-busting news article we reported on in August on grouse numbers being at a record low - we had cause for concern. As it turned out these obstacles had little-to-no effect, not only did the low grouse numbers fail to deter the hunters, we've enjoyed a slightly stronger year for corporate jet movements during shooting season. As well as being busy in general we had two stand out "Luton" days, the first, "Terrific Tuesday" (30th August) saw 10 biz turn up within a three hour window and the second - "Super Sunday" (18th September) saw the same number over a four hour window - they just kept coming!! More of the same please. Even taking biz out of the equation, whenever the weather played ball the flying schools were never on the ground, there were many weekends that saw a movement every two minutes during daylight hours. Okay it may only be resident tins and the biz has mostly been the usual suspects leading to a slightly bland year for enthusiasts, but it is still great to see and exactly what the doctor ordered. November provided some refreshing excitement in the form of two corporate Boeing aircraft arriving for short term storage - again more of the same please!

Elsewhere, history was made on Saturday 28th May when Skylive delivered a successful air show after a 26 year wait. The event received mostly positive reviews and went on to be nominated for Performance of the Year at the Living North Awards. Both the display and static line-ups were heavily lacking for most enthusiasts, but we make up less than 5% of the audience and Joe Public were thoroughly entertained. It was a fantastic day if enjoyed as a full package and Skylive look set to deliver on their promise to grow the show each year as well as listening to and taking on board all feedback good and bad and you can't ask for any more than that so we tip our hats to them.

From Skylive to Skydive, we were sad to see Skydive St. George leave the airport during September, many will be aware of a secondary reason for them leaving, but the reason they gave (increased aircraft movements making drops more difficult) is perfectly valid and if a company should leave the airport better it be for this reason than any other.

Company Watch
A new feature for 2016 - how have our resident operators performed over the year? (Based soley on aircraft movements, the below reviews should not be seen as an indication of how a company is performing financially)

COBHAM Aviation Services	DURHAM Aerosports	EDEN Flight Training
Continue to be busy with extra Falcon 20s being drafted up from Bournemouth on an almost daily basis; still no sign of replacing them though! I think they went on record as saying they wouldn't replace them during their current MoD contract.	Also very busy and branching out into engineering and have recently become an aircraft dealership, they have their eye on one of the planned new hangars.	Have grown very quickly in both size and reputation and movements are on a par with their more established competitors PTT Aviation.
FLYING FOX Aviation	GREAT NORTH Air Ambulance	IAS Medical
Hard to gauge how busy they are in regards to aircraft hire as their aircraft are not mode-S equipped but as a sales broker they seem to be a powerhouse. They have enquired about the demand for a bar-café style clubhouse.	Looking to consolidate all aspects of the business under one roof with a brand new state-of-the-art operations centre and DTVA is in the running.	They do well despite the company still being in its infancy, Khalid and Jack from IAS confirmed as much during the summer when we went flying with them.
NPAS Tees Valley	PRIVATE Owners Group	PTT Aviation
Due to move out in the spring when the DSA-based fixed wing P-68s come online.	We believe this only includes Hangar 3 based aircraft in which case there is no scope for growth as the airport appears to have brought new resident requests in-house, placing any new arrivals in Hangar 1.	Craig McCloud back in control and back in his old building which he occupied for several years through his previous flying school Cleveland Flying School, talk about things coming full circle! Not sure yet whether or not he plans to re-open the old Wings/Flyers/Old Armoury Café but we would certainly encourage him to.
SERCO IFTC	SKYLIVE Events	SYCAMORE Aviation
Very busy and continue to enjoy a worldwide reputation that is the envy of their competitors.	Still enjoying the success of their debut show. Already busy planning for next year and we understand one of the individuals behind Skylive has moved his non-aviation business venture into the airport - now if only Steve, another Skylive director could do the same as he owns Upex Pies - now that would be a very welcome business on-site!!!	Very busy with hangar 1 full of crates containing aircraft parts, unfortunately for us it's all been shipped in by road. They're winning plenty of contracts they just seem to be getting aircraft that are unable to fly. We understand they've recently parted-out a Transaero 737 that was in a state of advanced heavy maintenance when that airline went bust, and they're also just back from Arizona where they completed work on an aircraft in one of the famous desert bone-yards.
THALES Flight Inspection	WESTON Aviation
A new (sort-of) company in a very overcrowded market place, it seems every man and his dog is in the calibration business these days, luckily Thales inherited contracts for several of the UKs military airfields which will be a good platform upon which to build a reputation.	As mentioned above business aviation has done very well again this year, we suspect they are also in line for one of the new hangars, possibly the first one, and if they use it to it's full potential (i.e. engineering as well as parking), there will be no boundaries to what they can achieve.

Airport Goals
Final reflection on 2016 is to look at the goals I set the airport as a bit of fun, these were as follows:

> 2015 loss to not exceed £2m
The airports own aim, in line with the master plan and axing of charter flights plus other cost cutting measures
Unknown - I would imagine this was achieved but we won't know until the end of the financial year in April

> Housing application to be submitted
and approved!
Half achieved, the plans have been submitted but the outcome remains unknown

> Attract two or more aviation related companies
of any kind
No - PTT Aviation moved in but I guess as a takeover rather than a new tenant they don't count. Unfortunately we ended the year with one less due to Skydive St. George leaving

> Attract two or more non-aviation related companies
We've already heard rumours of one!
Yes - a couple of signs have appeared on the old approach road advertising new businesses

> Grow the number of resident aircraft from the current 42 to 44 or more
Two might not seem very ambitious, but you have to be realistic
No - we're down by two compared with a year ago, up by two compared with to the start of the decade though

> Skylive to deliver a successful air show
We have every confidence
Yes - reviews have been mostly positive

Passenger Figures

The CAA have changed how they report airport statistics and it would appear passenger figures have not been published properly since March, whether this is a temporary technical glitch or is now the norm remains to be seen. As of March, we were consistently up month-on-month, up for the year to date and Amsterdam was up also, whilst Eastern had yet to bottom out and was showing a decrease of around 17-20%, which we were told they had budgeted for a 25% decrease. Reports after March were sketchy, KLM for the most part has been performing exceptionally, there may have been a small decline towards the end of the year but there's only so much the numbers can go up by and we have had a fantastic run of increases from them. Jersey was slightly down but this was due to being back on the Dash 8 compared with an E175 the previous year. Hopefully we'll see our first annual increase in passenger numbers for ten years, but even if not we're talking 1 or 2% either way so nothing to either celebrate nor cry about.

DTVA Oscars

Thanks to the return of an elaborate statistics page for 2016, we're able to figure out some awards and statistics as follows.

COMMERCIAL AVIATION
Overall best visitor	G-CLAA	Boeing 747-446F	CargoLogicAir	EI-FWB	Sukhoi Superjet 100/95B	CityJet	OY-RJC	Canadair CRJ-200LR	Blackbone Aviation
Most frequent visitor	D-CNAC	SA-227DC Metro 23	BinAir (5)	G-CHMR	Embraer ERJ-145	Eastern Airways (4)	Various	(3)
Best livery	Various	Airbus A320	Small Planet A/L	G-TCDA	Airbus A321	Thomas Cook Airlines	HB-ALL	ATR-72-200F	Zimex Aviation
BUSINESS AVIATION
Overall best visitor	N777AS	Boeing 777-200ER	Mid East Jet	VP-CEC	Boeing 737-900ER BBJ3	Mid East Jet	N231CE	Gulfstream G550	Corporate
Most frequent visitor	N397CM	Citation 510 Mustang	Corporate (13)	N288Z	Gulfstream G650	Corporate (9)	N117EA	Eclipse EA-500	Corporate (8)
Best livery	G-EGVO	Dassault Falcon 900	TAG Aviation	LX-TWO	Gates Learjet 35A	Ducair	N711EG	Gulfstream G-IV	Corporate
GENERAL AVIATION
Overall best visitor	ZK-IGM	Eurocopter EC130	North Shore Heli.	SP-MMS	Beech C90GTi King Air	Ad Astra Executive	3A-MIG	Pilatus PC-12	Corporate
Most frequent visitor	G-ZAZU	Diamond DA42	PTT Aviation (38)	G-BUIF	Piper PA-28 Warrior II	PTT Aviation (27)	G-NEAU	Eurocopter EC135	NPAS (26)
Best livery	M-YMCM	Bell 429	Private	N556L	Cirrus SR22	Private	G-RIDB	Bell 429	National Grid
MILITARY AVIATION
Overall best visitor	113/136	Dassault Rafale C	Armée de l'air	PH-XXV	B-25N Mitchell	Private	G-BVVG	CJ-6A Chujiao	Private
Most frequent visitor	G-LBSB	Beech 350	GAMA / RAF (22)	ZF139	Tucano T1	RAF - 1 FTS (17)	Various	Tucano T1	RAF - 1 FTS (15)
Best livery	ZH883	C-130J Hercules C5	RAF	PH-XXV	B-25N Mitchell	Private	G-BVVG	CJ-6A Chujiao	Private

Note 1: There was a lot to choose from but mostly run-of-the-mill stuff, some of the choices above are a case of "best of a bad bunch". Best livery judged solely on photos in our 2016 album with the exception of N556L which has recently had a superb re-spray.

Note 2: Some observations from the stats page; 2016 saw a first type visit for the Sukhoi Superjet (EI-FWB) and a first sub-type visit for the Learjet 75 (G-USHA), NetJets came painfully close to running every one of their Citation 560XL fleet through the airport, falling just six airframes short out of 23. We saw seven visits from six Citation 650 airframes - a rare sub-type that are usually very few and far between. Finally, some types and sub-types that usually grace our airport at some point during any given year but did not during 2016:- Raytheon 390 Premier I, BAe-125, Hawker 900XP, Learjet 40, Learjet 60, Falcon 50, Falcon 7X, Gulfstream G-V, Cessna 210 Centurion, Cessna 404 Titan, Diamond DA40 Diamond Star, Dornier 328, Socata TB10 Tobago, Airbus A319, ATR-42, Boeing 757, Boeing C-17A Globemaster III and BAe 146 CC2.   

A year in photos

Click here to view our 2016 photo album.

A year in the news

* = very negative | ** = negative | *** = indifferent | **** = positive | ***** = very positive

It looks like the excellent UK Airport News website has shut down, so all I've been able to find is the following, it's been a quiet year on the news front.

29/01/16: Storm Gertrude: Strong winds overturn aeroplane at Durham Tees Valley Airport **

07/06/16: Return promise after Durham Tees Valley Air Show success *****

07/06/16: Homes plan submitted for land at Durham Tees Valley Airport ***

24/06/16: Q&A with Durham Tees Valley Airport boss on holiday flights, houses and 'facing reality' ****

06/09/16: KLM agree new 'long term agreement' to fly from Durham Tees Valley Airport *****

30/09/16: Training bosses hope new venture is a flying success *****

DTVMovements

We welcomed back Dave Rose to the updating team in 2016, he never left but is now able to update on a more regular basis.

Many of our regular viewers will have noticed we lost the advantage of advanced notice of aircraft movements around spring when unfortunately we lost our contact, we're more professional than to name names but we thought you might like to know that the selfish actions of a single individual briefly spoilt it for all of you. Luckily, we were able to make alternative arrangements and normal service has been resumed.

Further change on the website will be Stuart taking over daily movement photos for 2017, this will hopefully take some pressure off Ando and see your photos added to the website more frequently than the current weekly upload on a weekend, and the resident movements section will be expanded to cover all residents that leave on a trip away or for maintenance etc (as you can imagine, it isn't practical to cover all movements such as local flying and circuit bashing - especially if we're chucking one out every two minutes on a summer weekend!!).

Our website is continuing to attract decent visitor stats, the figures below are the monthly visits and as well as our regular local visitors the stats show an increasing number of hits from all parts of the world, a testimony for the hard work that all involved put into the site. Our thanks go to all those listed on the home page credits without their continued often daily supply of info it would be impossible to provide the volume of up to date info that the site holds.

2016 visitor stats

Month	Visits
Dec	40162
Nov	41184
Oct	40217
Sep	35916
Aug	39388
Jul	42302
Jun	34027
May	35717
Apr	35770
Mar	39967
Feb	36504
Jan	40117

2017 Preview

Housing remains the hot topic for 2017, three years after the airport unveiled the masterplan of which the housing is the cornerstone, and in excess of seven months since the application actually went in. I shall be somewhat apprehensive should the application get rejected though I am assured that all businesses worth their salt have multiple back-up plans in place (I am of course referring to aviation supportive back-up plans). We understand it may be as late as spring before the plan is approved or rejected.

Moving on, Newmarket Holidays have a much expanded offering for 2017, though we may not feel the benefit as many of their packages are utilising the existing KLM Amsterdam service. We've also heard reports of Omega Holidays offering charters to Friedrichshafen, Dubrovnik, Venice and Naples during July and August using Eastern's new Embraer 170s, but I can't find any evidence to back this up. NPAS will sadly leave us during spring - a criminal decision by those entrusted to uphold the law. We're not quite sure how six fixed wing P68s are expected to serve the entire country from Doncaster, but hey what do we know!? A good few people at the airport believe they will end up staying, but three months is cutting it fine for any u-turn and I would imagine the crew will have already sourced alternative employment.

Looking at the bigger picture, we appreciate and understand there is a constant bitterness amongst the enthusiast community toward the airport, don't think that we don't feel it as well, but we all need to reassess what we consider as "busy", the 2000s represented a golden era that both enthusiasts and the public alike use as a yardstick to measure success but this is not an accurate comparison. Look back through our history and you'll quickly see that current levels with some minor variations is the norm, we're often compared to Newcastle and Leeds but that is not comparing apples to apples, they're in a different league and we never have nor ever will be on their level. That said I'm not suggesting there is no scope for growth of course there is, but it will come from areas other than passenger flights, and as enthusiasts this is surely more beneficial to us - most airlines can be found within an hour or twos drive north or south; personally, I'd rather have the rarer and more unpredictable BA/GA stuff coming to me rather than me having to go searching for it. What we ideally need ahead of volume is a company with a high turnover of aircraft, be it light aircraft, bizjets or airliners. Sycamore, Flying Fox, Weston and perhaps even Naljets all hold potential in that regard and could in time ramp up their respective operations.

Military visitors should get more interesting during 2017 as the MoD starts to overhaul the training fleet including the Tucano, Beech 200, Grob Tutor and the DHFS Squirrel and Griffins with T-6C Texan II, Phenom 100, Grob G120TP Prefect, Airbus Juno and Jupiters respectively. The downside is the Linton-based Tucanos will be replaced with Valley-based Texans so overshoots may become few and far between, but at least when they do happen they will be of greater interest! Also, several F-35s have been delivered to the RAF and Royal Navy but so far all remain US-based, surely some will relocate over the pond in 2017 - might we get our first overshoot from one?! It would be very nice!!

To quickly summarise, more than likely another bland year awaits as far as we are concerned, but from a business perspective based companies will continue to do well and visitors will be aplenty, but from the enthusiasts point of view, we will have mostly seen it all before.

Reasonable Expectations
Previously "Airport Goals", I've renamed it as it is not our place to set goals for the airport to achieve, although that was never our intention it was just a figure of speech.

> Housing application to reach a conclusion
Hopefully approved.

> New route
Most likely if anything is a turboprop hop to the likes of Belfast, failing that we still feel a w-pattern from Flybe's Doncaster base should be all but guaranteed at some point in the future.

> Growth
Growth in the following areas: - passenger figures on all individual routes, based air operators and number of resident aircraft.

That's enough waffling from me!! I consider myself unbiased and I've tried to reflect that above. I hope it's been an enjoyable enough read and not too depressing!

Chris

From all at DTVMovements, we hope you had a fantastic Christmas and wish you a happy and prosperous new year!

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