Teesside Airport reports losses while Mayor claims profit
The former RAF Middleton St George has been a commercial airport since 1964, with English Electric Lightning interceptors giving way to rather less exotic inhabitants. The airport was privatised in…
January 14, 2025
The former RAF Middleton St George has been a commercial airport since 1964, with English Electric Lightning interceptors giving way to rather less exotic inhabitants. The airport was privatised in 1987, but then brought back into public ownership in January 2019, losing its Durham Tees Valley name and reverting to its former name of Teesside International. The purchase was an election pledge by Conservative Mayor of the Tees Valley, Lord Ben Houchen
Now owned by the Tees Valley Combined Authority the airport is operated by Stobart Aviation. Early growth was brought to a halt by the COVID 19 pandemic, and recovery has been tardy.
Ben Houchen said earlier in 2024 that the airport had made its “first profit in a decade.” In August, TVCA and Lord Houchen announced that the airport had achieved a slender £308,555 profit according to the EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) measure, but this excluded more than £120 million of loans from TVCA. Even if EBITDA was a measure of profitability, and even if the loans were entirely interest free, it would take more than 400 years to repay them!
And Teesside International Airport’s accounts showed a loss of £6,625,147 for the period ending 31 March 2024, up from a previous year’s financial loss of £4.5m. Revenue for the year dropped from £15.6m to £14.9m.
Lord Houchen said that: “We’re currently going through a refresh of the business plan for the airport, so we’re bringing together a new five year business plan for the airport, because actually we are five years into the 10 year plan. We’ve achieved a lot out of that plan more quickly than we thought we would… the world’s in a different place post-Covid, the airport is in a different place.”
