Doncaster Sheffield Airport: Flight risk or soaring success?

One issue facing Doncaster Sheffield Airport is its proximity to other airports.

Within a 70 mile (110km) radius passengers can already choose from four other sites, Manchester, Leeds Bradford, East Midlands and Humberside.

Up the M1 in Leeds, Vincent Hodder, chief executive at Leeds Bradford Airport, is unequivocal in his assessment.

“I’m predicting that DSA will fail,” he told the BBC.

“I can’t foresee a scenario where DSA is able to generate sufficient passenger numbers to enable it to actually be self-sustaining.”

He claimed “a lot of airlines were paid to operate out of [DSA]” under the previous ownership, adding: “Their losses were underwritten, so the taxpayer ends up funding both the cost of the operation as well as the losses incurred by the airline.”

One thing any airport needs is flights and Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary also remains unconvinced.

“Doncaster is a hard sell,” he said in an interview with Sky News.

“We used to fly to Doncaster, but there isn’t much of a traffic base there.”

He said DSA was not part of his company’s growth plans.

“It’s close to Leeds Bradford and Leeds has grown rapidly with us and Jet2 in the last five or six years.

“I think it’s a very tough sell in the shadow of Leeds Bradford.”