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New airline could bring jobs boost

A new airline is to create ‘several hundred jobs’ should their plans to restore the link between Durham Tees Valley (DTV) and London City Airport (LCA) succeed.

The new service from Excelsis Airways is hoping to attract the 80,000 passengers who flew with BMI from Durham to Heathrow last year – predominantly targeting the business clientele.

The airline will provide a ‘daily service’ running from DTV to LCA three times a day; a morning, lunch and evening flight. Excelsis are advertising benefits including speedy check-ins, in-flight entertainment, luxury seating, fine cuisine, and ‘club’ atmospheres.

The first flight of the day will arrive in London in time for morning meetings, the second will leave at lunchtime and a third will depart in the evening. Although Excelsis had initially hoped to run its first service to Heathrow, where a shortage of landing slots made their plans ‘not possible’, the LCA is only two miles from the site of the 2012 Olympic Games and three miles from Canary Wharf.

Scarce details have been revealed on the individuals behind the airline, although the owner is rumoured to be a former senior executive behind an international airline. The airline is also hoping to provide several hundred jobs to the North East, currently advertising on their website positions from pilots and cabin crew, to aircraft designers and customer service staff.

Competitors for the airline include easyJet, Flybe and Britsh Airways, who also provide connections between the North East and London Airports. Should the service come to fruition, Excelsis hope to further their inland destinations to other regions from Durham Tees Valley.

A DTVA statement said: “We have met with Excelsis Airways to discuss their proposals and we look forward to receiving further information and details of the services they intend to introduce.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .