Introduction

Welcome to this years DTV Movements annual review. I was quite surprised this time last year to discover just how anticipated and respected this yearly page has become to the point I had to rush the 'polishing up' in order to get the page out such was the demand! This year it's ready to go nice and early at the start of December and I'll try not to disappoint! I've done my best to condense the page down as much as possible, but there's a lot to cover and I had enough material to start writing the page as long ago as June.

2017 Review

What I thought would happen:

I always go back and read over the previous years review before writing this, specifically the section that looks ahead to the following year. I touched on the following points:

• Fate of the long gestating housing development finally being decided
  Outline planning permission was received if only by the skin of the teeth, full permission was gained at some point and infrastructure work will take place in 2018.

• An expanded offering from Newmarket and a new player in the form of Omega Holidays
  The Newmarket excitement didn't last, they've axed all of their one-off charters UK-wide for next year, though they will still utilise the KLM Amsterdam service. Luckily, the airport acted fast and brought in Super Break with the announcement of a flight to Seville, followed up shortly after with a trial Gibraltar route during July and we expect more will follow in due course. We're not sure on the status of Omega Holidays, fingers crossed they enjoyed enough success to return.

• NPAS leaving
  They left discreetly and earlier than planned when our helicopter left for maintenance and never returned. Still a travesty.

• UK military training fleet overhaul
  I suggested military overshoots might become more exciting with the arrival of a few new aircraft types into the MoD fleet, but despite several deliveries none have yet graced us with their presence.

I ended with the footnote that another bland year awaits, I think it's fair to say I was way off the mark!

What actually did happen?

The Mayor
We got a new (and the first ever) Tees Valley Mayor in Ben Houchen, who claims he is going to buy back the airport and it would appear he was victorious solely off the back of this pledge. Personally I think his initial intention was for the consortium of local authorities to hand over their 11% - which would be more practical and may even make sense, but it is perceived he wants Peels majority shareholding. To quote MP Phil Wilson “First of all, it’s not for sale. Secondly, Peel has invested and covered the airport’s losses of £38m since 2003. It is currently losing over £2m a year. If you have a private sector company who is willing to carry this financial burden whilst remaining committed to securing a sustainable future for the airport, why would you want to transfer that burden to the taxpayers of Tees Valley? And I have no idea how much it would cost to buy in the first place, but I would imagine Peel would want some compensation for the £38m". Common sense from the MP, yet in contrast the Mayor gave a simple rebuff that lacked the same substance .

Goodbye Weston, hello Consort
Next up we were surprised, yet perhaps a little enthused to learn Peel had concluded Weston Aviation's contract in favour of bringing executive handling in-house.  A few days after the announcement the FoDTVA committee were briefed by then Business Development Director David Grant (now Commercial Director) who noted Weston were happy just sitting on the trade they already had and weren't particularly promoting the airport, he then went on to give the most inspiring speech I've ever heard from any executive associated with DTVA, and the key line was "Weston chased contracts, we're going to chase aircraft". In the weeks following the launch of Consort, we dismissed an increase in traffic as purely coincidental, but it soon became apparent they were good for their word and they didn't half put us updaters to work on here - the daily pages are notably bigger on average. There was a dip towards the end of the year but then perhaps that's to be expected?

Skylive
Before Consort fully moved in however we had Skylive coming up and FoDTVA had a much heavier workload than the previous year, one of our tasks was to carry out basic restoration work on three cockpits from a farm just across the river from the airport, a Meteor, a Vampire and a Vulcan. We put in a lot of hours of graft on these along with other air show tasks, all whilst juggling Lourdes charters, ad-hoc charters and lugging our trade stall all over the place (April/May is by far our busiest time), what with my paid job as well I've never worked so hard in all my life but it was fun and rewarding. The air show itself once again went well, the only things to go wrong were things that Skylive had zero control over, mainly the weather which didn't always play ball, but overall it was still a good and very well organised day out - Dave Rose had a blast so it must have been top drawer!!! As far as the 2017 event goes I'll leave you with the note Dave Anderson placed in the notes section of the daily movements page on 27th May; "We have all been to Skylive and what a great day (despite the two downpours) if you didn't go then you missed a very good day out, well organized with lots on the ground to see and do as well as a flying display that kept the crowds entertained. This was a well supported event by the public and hopefully it will continue next year and grow into an even bigger show, maybe then some of the doubters and stay aways might make an effort to support it and our local airport. (DA)." The latter part might now be irrelevant but the principle still applies, very well said Dave. Unfortunately the one mis-step in the year was the cancellation of the Skylive Air Show, at least as far as DTVA hosting the event is concerned and they will be sorely missed. Hopefully if Skylive remain elsewhere on Teesside we will still host any traffic that is unable to transit to and from the show in a single sortie.

Terminal Refurbishment
Towards the end of May the airport announced a terminal refurbishment, again this was surprising to me as they had only recently completed what was described as a terminal refurbishment when they built the Swissport Café and lounge, renovated several office suites as well as the landside toilets and security screening area. It quickly became clear that the new development was of a much bigger scale, and more heavily advertised with mock-ups being proudly displayed on the airport screens and on pop-up banners. Phase one is complete and looks amazing, you'd think they'd had a blank cheque to spend! Interestingly, when showing Loganair around their MD apparently thought he was being shown the executive lounge!

Loganair
Speaking of Loganair, another development we never saw coming. We had a fairly good idea a new operator was to be announced imminently and the day before we were tipped off that an aircraft would be flying in for a PR event and photoshoot. I stayed up waiting for a flightplan to appear, and eventually at about 2.45am a Loganair flight appeared. At that point I figured it must be Flybe and despite their franchise agreement with Loganair about to end they must only have Loganair equipment available so that's what they were sending, I like most others was initially quite bemused when premature Northern Echo advertising revealed not only was it Loganair as an independent operator, but they were doubling our Aberdeen capacity and adding in a random Norwich too! Like with all things DTVA though you cannot take anything at face value and have to scratch away at the surface to get to the truth, and when you take a step back and listen to the business case it all makes perfect sense. With Eastern chopping and changing their schedules at short notice all of the time, oil and gas sector workers cannot trust them as they end up with fines for missing their connecting helicopters and arriving on their rigs late, this coupled with doubts over Eastern remaining in the scheduled market in the long term the airport felt it necessary to seek out a more stable airline partner for the route. Loganair are a very well run airline and their inital loads are looking very healthy (curiously, Eastern have also received a boost and are not far behind them), Norwich not so much but then we think people flying Norwich - Aberdeen are remaining onboard and therefore not counted. They announced the opening of a base within six months instead of what we understand was supposed to be 18 months, and Aberdeen and Norwich alone do not support a base so it will be interesting to see what comes next (update - it appears Guernsey will feature), either way we are very glad to have them here and wish them every success.

Flying For The Future / Your Questions Answered
In November, the airport unveiled the revamped departure lounge to the press whilst at the same time launching a new Info website with a PDF document titled "Your Questions Answered", we knew to expect this document and were highly anticipating its release, and when it arrived it did not disappoint! Naturally the Internet dissected it word-for-word in a negative manner, trying to pick it apart, but as per usual they just ended up churning out nonsense and I found their specific critisims were answered more than sufficiently elsewhere within the document.

Reasonable Expectations (2017)
Final reflection on 2017 is to look back at the reasonable expectations I set out at the end of last years review. (See section further down for next years).

• Housing Application to reach a conclusion
  Outline permission was very publicly received, and at some point that turned quietly into full permission.

• New route
  I noted any new route would most likely be a "turboprop hop to the likes of Belfast" and in fact we got two from one operator, job well done!

• Growth (in pax figs across all routes, no. of based air operators and no. of based aircraft)
  Aberdeen saw growth by the end of the year thanks to additional capacity, looking like passengers that were using alternative routes / transport have now come back to DTVA with more flights and much better fares. Amsterdam was down more than up but ultimately remained stable and Jersey saw continuous increases. Overall we are likely down for the year, so we won't tick this one off but we are unconcerned. We gained two more air operators (one of whom is non-flying) but lost four (two non-flying), there was a 2% overall increase in resident aircraft, but a 3% decrease in active aircraft and 15% increase in stored/WFU aircraft.

Company Watch

COBHAM Aviation Services	CONSORT Aviation	DURHAM Aerosports
No change although we suspect the deal with Draken International will see the Falcon 20s eventually replaced by one or a mix of the Draken fleet, which includes Aermacchi MB-339CB, Douglas A-4N Skyhawk, L-39 Albatross, L-159E Alca, MiG-21BiS and soon to add Mirage F1s.	Hit the ground running with a steady increase in traffic as the year progressed, huge numbers of grouse shooters and an increase otherwise, hopefully it will carry on and won't just be an initial surge of business.	No change, still very busy and in the event a hurricane was blowing the airport into the North Sea, they'd still have both aircraft out on the ramp ready to go!
EDEN Flight Training	FLYING FOX Aviation	GREAT NORTH Air Ambulance
Eden have successfully positioned themselves as the primary resident flying school (not including Durham Aerosports who serve a different market).	Appear to have left, although looking at their previous patterns they may move an aircraft or two in during the winter when grass strips are unusable.	Plan to move to Urlay Nook, an unfortunate loss but on the plus side at least all of the space available in Hangar 3 East will be taken up.
IAS Medical	NPAS Tees Valley	PRIVATE Owners Group
Back up to two aircraft following delivery of brand new Beech 250 G-IASB, they seem busy enough.	Departed as planned although slightly earlier, the helicopter left for maintenance around February if memory serves and simply did not return.	Numbers remain steady with the hanger being used to the operators desired capacity.
PTT Aviation	SCENIC AIR TOURS North East	SERO IFTC
Have moved into the ex NPAS hangar, operating from an airside position only.	A new outfit for 2017 who appear to be doing well. Their parent company operate a PA-28 Cadet and ex-Eden Flight Training AA-5A Cheetah G-GDAC out of Bournemouth.	No changes to report. Their worldwide reputation has put them (and the pubs of Yarm!) well and truly on the map.
SKYLIVE Events	SYCAMORE Aviation	THALES Flight Inspection
2017 event was again successful, well received and well organised. The fact they won't be back (from DTVA at least) in 2018 is a Greek tragedy.	Very busy in America, which is no good to us, sadly the UK operation has had very little in the way of new business.	Predominantly military contracts keeping them going, could do with eating into the market dominance of Flight Calibration Services.
WESTON Aviation
Left in May, prior to this no changes to report compared to last year.

Passenger Figures

Amsterdam is doing ok with no real cause for concern, Aberdeen is enjoying a surge for obvious reasons and ultimately will reach if not exceed it's previous peak, and Jersey enjoyed probably it's best year to date.

The Oscars

Civil

YR-TIB - Boeing 737-3L9 - Air Bucharest

© Stuart Reid

G-OSRB - Boeing 727-2S2F(A)(RE) - 2 Excel Aviation (T2 Aviation)

© Aidan Williamson

SP-SPE - ATR-72-202 - SprintAir

© Dave Rose

General Aviation

N1F - Gulfstream G650 - TVPX Ars Inc / Friedkin International

© Richard Bowater

N360PZ - Dassault Falcon 7X - WFBN / City Electric Supply

© Dave Rose

C-GNRS - Bombardier BD-700-1A10 Global Express XRS - Bombardier Inc

© Dave Rose

Military

T-785 - Dassault Falcon 900EX - Swiss Air Force

© Dave Rose

Out with the old, and in with the new

PH-KZU - Fokker 70 - KLM Cityhopper
PH-EXL - Embraer ERJ-175-200STD - KLM Cityhopper

© Aidan Williamson                                        © Dave Rose

In Memoriam

G-ZBAV - Boeing 737-82R - Monarch Airlines

© Richard Bowater

The end of the road

EI-SLH - ATR-72-215F - ASL Airlines Ireland

© Dave Rose

Star resident

© Chris Smith

Overall Best Photo

G-JOTR - British Aerospace Avro RJ85 - JOTA Aviation

© Aidan Williamson

This shot by Aidan Williamson is captured on finals for 05 and shot in the south-side field. The contrast, sharpness and composition are all of a high quality and it deservedly receives the top shot of 2017. Well done Aidan! (DR)

Please keep submitting your shots to the website, there were lot's of good quality visitors in 2017, let's keep em coming.

Most Visits

C56X G-ZENT is the most frequent business aviation visitor at 11 as of 01/12. EC35 G-POLA and DA42 G-ZAZU are currently tied on 43 visits each, will one pip the other before the year end? Seems yes - POLA hit 44 with an overshoot on 01/12! For the military, Tucano (was it ever going to be anything else?) ZF374 takes the crown with 15 visits. Finally, in what turned out to be the worlds most pointless crew training sorties, B738 G-ZBAV made 42 visits taking the civil victory, let's hope the runner up doesn't suffer the same fate (AT76 G-IACY)!

Other points of note from the Stats page, we had by far more Challenger 300 visits than any other year, and all of them were the new 350 variant. We only had a single visitor from Bombardier's Global family, (usually common enough) in the form of Global Express C-GNRS. The new Challenger 650 variant made it's debut in the form of NetJets example N216QS. The CJ4 is the only variant of the CitationJet family not to visit in 2017, nor did we get any Citation 750s. The Embaer Legacy 450 made it's DTV debut on 24/07 (OO-NEY). The PC-12, Citation 560XL and Citation 510 are the most common business aircraft types at DTVA in 2017, A109s for helicopters, PA-28s for GA, Tucanos for military, with civil being a mixed bag.

Most Progressed Resident Operator

Eden Flight Training

Eden have positioned themselves as our primary flight training organisation having only been formed a couple of years previously, they've seen the bigger picture and taken full advantage of the change in business model of their competitors.

A Year in Photos

We've received more photos in 2017 than any other year! We don't enforce the guidelines set out on the Photo Submission Rules page, so don't hesitate to send in contributions and anyone wishing for airside access to acquire improved photos send us a message and we'll do our best to oblige (we cannot make any guarantees), our airside passes have always been for the benefit of all.

Click here for 2017s photo album.

A Year in the News

I've covered most of the main news items above, click here for a full list of the years headlines.

DTVMovements

On 24 October an easyJet crew training flight provoked the general public into asking what it was here for, and to our delight the Gazette turned to our website for the answer and then told their readers where they had got the info from, before noting a couple of other movements! Glad to be of service! This led to us creating the Guide To Business Aviation page which is tailored to 'regular folk', and we also hope to have a wooden plaque placed in the airports viewing area soon as well.

Website visitor statistics

Providing I'm reading the figures correct, we've grown by 10000 hits per month compared with last year.

Jan 17	45956
Feb 17	42641
Mar 17	50808
Apr 17	47999
May 17	47942
Jun 17	48628
Jul 17	47667
Aug 17	50408
Sep 17	46984
Oct 17	54341
Nov 17	51160
Dec 17	20261 (to 13/12)

2018 Preview

An interesting year awaits, whilst we don't know the specifics, it's obvious more is coming, which makes it difficult to set out the reasonable expectations below because we suspect nothing we could conceive would outdo what we think is likely to happen. So with that in mind, here is a thinner than usual list of reasonable expectations.

Reasonable Expectations (2018)

• Construction
  Break ground on something...anything!

• Air Operator
  Gain a new resident air operator of any kind (excludes airlines) or any aviation organisation otherwise

• Passenger Figures
  Any growth off the back of Loganair to be retained and not just a temporary boost

To summarise, a very good year, with lot's of positives, and whilst we don't quite yet have the bragging rights, 2017 was the year the negative brigade whether it be individuals, pressure groups, web forums or whatever - lost a lot of credibility and started to look rather silly (if they didn't already), and all being well next year is set to be better still.

Here's to another interesting year if nothing else! From the DTVMovements Team thank you for your continued support without which we would be nothing, we hope you all have a great Christmas and a happy and prosperous 2018 - you guys are the best!

The DTVMovements Team

Written by Chris Smith, "The Oscars" judged by Dave Rose, edited and ratified by Dave Anderson. Additional contributions Matt Falcus. Thank you to Aidan Williamson, Stuart Reid and Richard Bowater whose photographs have been used in this report.

---