New operator to take over airport lease

Richard Youle Local Democracy Reporter

A battle over the future of Swansea Airport has ended after the current leaseholder agreed to give up its lease.

Swansea Council, which owns the airport, said a change of operator was now imminent following a “range of issues” with leaseholder and operator Swansea Airport Ltd which has resulted in the lease being brought to an end.

Swansea Airport Ltd had contested the council’s decision to seek to end the lease and a court hearing was due to take place next month, but that day in court has been averted.

A not-for-profit group of airport users called Swansea Airport Stakeholders’ Alliance will take over temporary control of the 450-acre site in Fairwood, Gower, while the council looks for a long-term operator.

Success

Council leader Rob Stewart said: “Our successful talks in this complex matter mean that we’re now in a position to install a temporary new leaseholder – the Swansea Airport Stakeholders’ Alliance. Its members are eager to make a success of the airport.”

Council joint deputy leader David Hopkins thanked all those involved in talks over the last few months. A long-term solution will be sought, he said, through a competitive tender. “The alliance will have the opportunity, with others, to bid in that process,” he said. “There’ll be opportunities for future investment in Swansea Airport.”

Swansea Airport Stakeholders’ Alliance, which was set up in 2021, said it intended to operate the airport in agreement with the council and support the current businesses and users until a new long-term operator has been installed.

It said: “The alliance welcomes the opportunity to tender for a longer-term partnership with the council and other stakeholders to provide a sustainable and welcoming facility that delivers social, economic and environmental benefits, that sits sympathetically within the landscape and the community and which everyone can be proud of.”

It said it would talk to various groups in the short term and develop proposals to operate the airport into the future.

Roy Thomas, the director of Swansea Airport Ltd, said he planned to put together a team of experts and bid for the long-term licence when the opportunity arose.

He also called for an inquiry into the process which had led to the current turn of events. “It’s a sequel of unbelievable circumstances,” he claimed. Mr Thomas said the airport had 16 full and part-time staff and wondered what would happen to them.

Early days

Swansea Airport Stakeholders’ Alliance said it was too early to say about the people working there and it that it would only know what it had inherited at the point it took over, but it stressed that the airport would be very much open for business.

The imminent arrival of a new operator marks the end of a turbulent period for the airport. Its operating licence was suspended in 2019 following an inspection by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which identified safety concerns. It was subsequently reinstated and Mr Thomas, who had taken over the lease in 2001, said he was investing hundreds of thousands of pounds into it every year despite making a loss.

But Swansea Airport Stakeholders’ Alliance and another group expressed dissatisfaction in 2021 with the way they felt it was being run, such as its closure two days a week and the closure of the cafe, and presented alternative proposals to the council.

The council sought internal and external legal advice and in early 2023, just after Swansea Airport Ltd said it planned to organise passenger flights between Swansea and Exeter, the council’s cabinet decided to negotiate a new lease with the company after it had requested one.

A report before cabinet, however, acknowledged “issues in connection with lack of aviation fuel, general management, staffing levels etc”. Less than a month later the CAA suspended the airport’s refuelling licence and provisionally halted the operating licence due to a “systemic failure of safety management”, and three months after that cabinet decided to take steps towards legal action for  breaches of the tenant’s current obligations and seek to end the Swansea Airport Ltd lease.

Mr Thomas told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that he agreed to enter into a voluntary CAA licence suspension in March last year in order to rectify matters within six months. He said he had rectified the most important issues but had been unable to address some of remaining ones despite being confident of doing so, and that this had put him in a difficult position.

Mr Thomas alleged that the council had not talked to Swansea Airport Ltd for around 12 months, that the company had requested a meeting in recent weeks, and that he has invested more than £6 million into the airport over the past 20-plus years. “I took it from dereliction to a stage where it’s got a bright future,” he said.

History

Swansea Airport originally formed part of Fairwood Common and was transferred to Swansea Council’s predecessor in 1938. It was requisitioned during the Second World War for use as an air defence airfield.

Once not required for military use, the council of the time established a civilian aerodrome. It also annulled the site’s common rights through an act in 1956. The act also stipulated that if the aerodrome was abandoned for a period of five years, the land would be preserved as open space for the enjoyment of the public.

The lease taken over by Swansea Airport Ltd expired on December 31, 2016, but the arrangements continued. It includes an obligation on the lessee not to use the premises for any purpose other than that of an airfield, with at least one runway licensed by the CAA to “category one” level.

The airport has been used by private aircraft pilots, flying schools, air cadets, sky-diving operators and Wales Air Ambulance – now based in Dafen, near Llanelli – over the years.

It has two runways and is currently home to two flying schools, a sky-diving club and the cafe. These aviation activities don’t require the airport to be licensed with the CAA – a licence is for commercial operations such as fare-paying passenger aircraft.