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ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » ON the face of it, news that a new airline has flown into Tees Valley is a shot in the arm for local business.
Darlington-based Excelsis Airways has big plans to rev up the number of regional flights in and out of Durham Tees Valley Airport (DTVA) - starting with a business-targeted, Teesside-London City service later this year.
The reinstatement of Teesside's link to the capital, severed when bmi withdrew its Heathrow service in the spring, is crucial to DTVA's plans to ramp up passenger numbers from 680,000 last year to 3m by 2020.
Excelsis is also hopeful about winning a prized Heathrow slot and says hundreds of jobs will be created if its ambitious plans get off the ground.
DTVA is understandably keen not to raise expectations until the i's and t's have been dotted and crossed, and has so far refused to confirm whether the London City service has lift-off.
Meanwhile other development chiefs are choosing not to comment directly on the airline or its plans.
This raises a whole host of questions.
Has the London City service been given the green light after all? Why is the airline communicating different messages to DTVA? How is Excelsis being funded, who is behind it and are they here to stay? What sort of returns are they hoping to generate on their investment? And what is their exit strategy?
These are all questions we have posed, but have yet to receive answers to.
On the plus side, the fact that Excelsis has committed to a site at the Morton Palms Business Park is a positive statement of intent.
And providing it gets off the ground, the London City route will give local businesses a new international gateway and complement DTVA's popular KLM service to Schipol in Amsterdam.
It will also attract more customers and inward investment to the region and strengthen the North-east's case for hosting two airports.
But it's somewhat disconcerting to see Excelsis revving up the engines while others appear to be still in the airport lounge.
After being rocked by a series of airline route cancellations, plant closures and job losses in recent months, Tees Valley could well do without another false start.
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