A TINY airport in the UK has been promised new flights to two holiday hotspots, with some potentially coming as soon as next year.
As part of his re-election campaign, Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen, vowed to bring new flights to Teesside Airport.
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While the mayor has said the new flights would arrive “ideally in the coming months” he has said that they will certainly start “over the next year or two”.
Now, in a further update, Mayor Houchen, who is a member of the House of Lords, has said that flights to Tenerife are the most likely to arrive first.
He told the Northern Echo that “progress” was being made in discussions with different airlines.
He said: “We’re working flat out to deliver those flights.
“We’re still trying to get them in potentially for summer next year, if not then we could see Tenerife in particular maybe in winter next year or the summer after.
“As with everything we’re going to do it as fast as we can, it might not be as fast as people like it but we will absolutely deliver on that promise.”
The news comes as Teesside Airport announced its first pre-tax and interest profit in 12 years earlier this week.
It now hopes that the new flights will be able to help the regional hub continue in the same direction, once they’re up and running.
Currently, Ryanair and TUI are the main flight operators serving the airport.
Passengers can use the airport to fly to destinations like Dalaman in Turkey, Corfu in Greece and Majorca in Spain.
Other destinations include Reykjavik in Iceland, Jersey and Lapland.
Some passengers in the region choose to travel the 40-odd miles north to fly from nearby Newcastle Airport, which has a greater offering of destinations.
And starting from next summer, it will have new flights to Turkish hotspot Dalaman, as well as additional flights to Antalya.
The so called “Turquoise Coast” is home to blue flag beaches, coves, and long stretches of white sand.
The other small UK airport set for new flights
Ryanair looks set to launch three brand new flights at a small UK airport, as it already begins to cast it eyes on next summer.
In April this year, the budget carrier started new routes from Norwich Airport for the first time.
Passengers in Norfolk were able to book flights to Alicante in Spain, Faro in Portugal and Malta, with some routes starting from as little as £17.
Now the airline could be set to launch more new routes from the regional travel hub, according to its managing director.
Richard Pace has said that he is hoping to see at least two or three more flights added to the airport’s route map in time for summer 2025.
In an interview with BBC Radio Norfolk, he spoke of the success of the first few months of flights from Norwich Airport and said he would know more about the future routes from next month.
At the moment, there is no indication of where the new routes will travel to, or when they will begin.
Sun Express, a joint venture between Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, will start a twice-weekly route to Dalaman on May 4, 2025.
Chris Ion, aviation development manager at Newcastle Airport, said that the airport had seen a “fantastic response” since SunExpress launched flights to Turkey from Newcastle Airport, and that they are delighted that services will expand further in 2025.
Tobias Bracht, head of sales for SunExpress, said that the expansion was a testament to the airline’s success at Newcastle Airport.
Meanwhile, easyJet launched 60 new flight routes across 11 UK airports earlier this summer.
And this UK airport also launched new flights to a holiday island destination this year.
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