Teesside International Airport - an absolute gem of a place to fly from

Murphy_The_Cat

oldernonethewiser said:

Sounds like a good old fashioned airport. 

Old fashioned in the respect that you had happy people, offering very good service and a friendly face.

But also very, very good screening equipment that meant that you didn't have to seperate the liquids and computerised stuff from your baggage for scanning.

oldernonethewiser

"Old fashioned in the respect that you had happy people, offering very good service and a friendly face"

That will never catch on

daveyjp

Also worth looking at Humberside if connections through AMS are preferred.

martindow

Small airports are a delight and Southampton is another that comes to mind.  It is advertised as being 99 steps from the station platform, another few yards and you're through security and into the waiting area.

Mands

Murphy_The_Cat said:

By a long shot, Teesside International Airport is the best airport that I've used for many years.  It's absolutely tiny and the number of destinations that it services are limited, but if it fits your criteria, then give it a go ! Friendly people, flawless service, carparking just outside the terminal building, quality food and drink service - an absolute pleasure from start to finish.

If your default airport of choice is MAN, NCL or LBA, then MME is potentially an option that you may not have considered in the past.

As a former resident of Teesside we thank you for the correct spelling. It's quite a rarity

Teesside ... the area along the side of the Tees

DullGreyGuy

martindow said:

Small airports are a delight and Southampton is another that comes to mind.  It is advertised as being 99 steps from the station platform, another few yards and you're through security and into the waiting area.

Have to say the drive through check in for VS at Heathrow does make it all a more pleasant and a lot less than 99 steps... always a little surprised that BA havent dont similar. 

Skiddaw1

Oddly enough, me and Mr Skiddaw were talking of Teeside airport just the other night. He used it once and remembers it being nice. I do like a wee airport. I agree about Southampton (I used to use it a lot back in the day) and Inverness is also nice.

bagand96

Passengers love using small airports where there's few other passengers or flights!

The flip side of the coin is it's very hard to generate enough cash to keep the place going.

Doncaster Sheffield - closed to all aviation
Southend - no commercial schedule in Winter 22/23 - a very limited schedule in Summer 23
Teesside - bought into public ownership
Cardiff - bought into public ownership
Prestwick - bought into public ownership
Blackpool - closed to commercial aviation
Coventry - closed to commercial aviation

There's a bigger debate about whether airports should be treated as national infrastructure or private commercial enterprises.  But in the UK we've gone down the latter route which does make life tough for the smaller operators.

Murphy_The_Cat

bagand96 said:

Passengers love using small airports where there's few other passengers or flights!

The flip side of the coin is it's very hard to generate enough cash to keep the place going.

Doncaster Sheffield - closed to all aviation
Southend - no commercial schedule in Winter 22/23 - a very limited schedule in Summer 23
Teesside - bought into public ownership
Cardiff - bought into public ownership
Prestwick - bought into public ownership
Blackpool - closed to commercial aviation
Coventry - closed to commercial aviation

There's a bigger debate about whether airports should be treated as national infrastructure or private commercial enterprises.  But in the UK we've gone down the latter route which does make life tough for the smaller operators.

Hopefully, fingers crossed, black cat across your path etc, etc, the commercial ventures that Teesside Airport have/are adding will keep the passenger side of their operation viable.

CKhalvashi

eDicky said:

Good tip..! It sounds like how Stansted and Southend airports, probably others outside London, used to be - before they were expanded and adapted to the price-gouging and user-unfriendly culture that has been forced on air travelers since.

Completely agree with this as someone who flew for the first time from Southend (to Vilnius, self-connecting to Minsk the following morning on a Vilnius-London one way Belavia ticket with an 8 day stopover) in February 2020.

Free drop off (thanks mom), friendly ground crew at the gate (during a 4 hour delay caused by a major storm, OH is a pilot so she dragged me to speak to them) and a generally good atmosphere.

Only complaint (which was nobody's fault) was we missed celebrating a birthday with friends in Vilnius as we didn't land until 3am.

Sadly many airports have changed, and not for the better though.

daveyjp said:

Since Doncaster closed MME is now where you need to go to see the only 727s now operating in the UK.

Just wondering the airline Davey, as I didn't think any of those were left in Europe due to noise limits.