Exclusive:'Waste of taxpayers' funds': Leeds Bradford Airport boss Vincent Hodder says £193m Doncaster Sheffield Airport scheme won't ever make a profit
A £193m public sector plan to reopen Doncaster Sheffield Airport is a "waste of taxpayers' funds", the man in charge of nearby rival Leeds Bradford Airport has claimed in explosive remarks.
LBA chief executive Vincent Hodder told The Yorkshire Post he believes there is “almost no chance” DSA will ever make a profit as City of Doncaster Council (CDC) pushes ahead with efforts to reopen the site following its closure under the private ownership of Peel in 2022.
CDC’s own estimates suggest there will be losses of more than £80m in the first nine years of operation - but project profits of £230m across the 15 years after that.
Mr Hodder was previously chief revenue officer and chief strategy officer for Flybe which was based at DSA until it withdrew in 2019 - months before the airline went entirely out of business.
"What I know about that airport is that there is almost no chance that it will ever generate a profit,” he said.
“It is my considered professional judgement that every single pound of taxpayer money which is being funnelled into the reopening of that airport will ultimately be a waste of taxpayers' funds.
“At a personal level, as a taxpayer, I feel like that is a misuse of the money I'm paying in my taxes.
"Money which is being spent on reopening the airport is money which is not being spent on other essential government services.”
A total of £193m of public funding is expected to be spent on reopening the airport, which officials argue will provide a springboard for wider regeneration around the site creating thousands of jobs.
CDC intends to loan more than £100m to a council-owned company called FlyDoncaster at low interest rates as part of the project.
An assessment of the planned subsidy has previously suggested the reopening of the airport could result in more than 20 per cent of LBA’s current passenger traffic being displaced to DSA.
Once the council passes funding to FlyDoncaster, it will be required to publish details of the figures within three months of a decision to grant money. There will then be a further month for any interested party to apply to the Competition Appeal Tribunal for a review.
Mr Hodder said LBA would only make a legal challenge against DSA receiving public funding if money was used “to provide subsidies to airlines which impacted on the level competitive playing field in UK aviation”.
He said: “It is their money and money which has been allocated to South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority and Doncaster Council.
"If they want to spend it on reopening their airport, it is within their authority to do so. All we require is the subsidy funds paid for by the government are not misused to disrupt the competitive playing field in terms of allocation of aircraft between different airports.”
Earlier this year, the Competition Appeal Tribunal rejected a challenge by privately-owned Bristol Airport against the Welsh government giving a £205m subsidy to the state-run Cardiff Airport - with the money including £100m for paying incentives to airlines to expand routes from the sites.
It accepted the Welsh government’s argument that the subsidy was being granted to the airport company and later payments from Cardiff to airlines “would not themselves be subsidies”.
In response to Mr Hodder’s remarks, a DSA project spokesperson said: “We will comply with all rules and regulatory requirements and have developed a robust plan for this airport, which will contribute towards its success and the wider economic benefits it will bring.
“As Leeds Bradford Airport have said in their communications around their planning application to increase night-time flights, we also ‘support the future of aviation in Yorkshire’. A reopened DSA will greatly benefit this aim and we look forward to opening as soon as possible, as part of a strong aviation community in this part of the world.”
Mr Hodder’s comments come after LBA posted a £6.6m loss in its accounts for 2025/26 despite passenger numbers rising to a record 4.4m.
LBA is currently seeking to expand to seven million passengers by 2030, which Mr Hodder said is needed for the airport to be sustainable. Its results did also record EBITDA before exceptional items, which is a commonly-used measure of profitability, of £19m for the year.
A ‘high case’ traffic forecast published for DSA has suggested passenger numbers could reach 2.6m by 2051 with the airport’s previous best year being around 1.4m passengers.
South Yorkshire mayor Oliver Coppard said in September 2025 that the success of DSA’s reopening could not “simply be reduced to a line on a profit and loss spreadsheet” and the project had a “unique ability to drive jobs and growth, to return money back into the economy and to attract investment... across South Yorkshire”.