Newcastle Airport blames ash cloud for passenger decline
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Newcastle Airport has blamed strike threats and the ash cloud crisis for its 1.7% decline in year on year decline in passenger numbers. “We’re cautiously optimistic about the future however,” the airport’s Planning and Corporate Affairs Director Graeme Mason told Travel Daily. “We believe we would have started to see growth again had it not been for the BA strikes, the recurrent threats of industrial action and the ash cloud situation, which shut the airport for a week.” the North East is home to some two and half million people, who are attracted to the regional Newcastle airport for convenience reasons. “It’s much closer for tourists to get here and we have a large terminal, great shopping and good food and beverage outlets. In addition we’re 15 times the size of Durham Tees Valley.” explained Mason. In the past year, the popularity of flights to Dubai has increased as well as services to Amsterdam and Paris. However, Mason admits that while many international destinations are growing, domestic travel has been hit hard. With good connection to Europe, the Middle East and Australasia via Emirates, the airport is keen to operate flights to the Americas. “We’re talking to airlines about the possibility of flights to New York,” said Mason. “In addition to that we’d like to see operations to Frankfurt; it’s our number one European target destination.”
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