Teesside Airport (MME) serves passengers based in the North East of England. It’s far smaller than its Newcastle and Leeds neighbours. I’m always surprised how few flights depart from this little gem of an airport.

There’s plenty of reasons to want to fly from Teesside…

Parking is immediately in front of the terminal.

And up to two hours parking is free if you spend a minimum of £5 in the Landside Café or shops.

They have new scanners at security that mean you don’t need to remove liquids or electronics from your hand luggage. Liquids can’t be over 100ml. The security staff are bored – so they’ll likely check inside your bag and probably take your toothpaste away (more about that later).

And the airport terminal has been refurbished, including the lounge.

For it’s size, the lounge has pretty good food, especially the egg mayonnaise sandwiches.

If you’re lucky, they will board your flight direct from the lounge – just depends on if they have staff available.

The guardian of the lounge is very strict. Here are some examples:

  • She only likes KLM Flying Blue status when flying KLM to Amsterdam. If your SkyTeam Elite status is with another Sky Team airline you’ll need to argue like anything to gain admittance – even though the ticket has Sky Priority on it and should have lounge access.
  • She asks to see your KLM status. Make sure you have your KLM status saved to your mobile wallet – having Sky Priority on your ticket isn’t enough.
  • Don’t ask for two drinks. I asked for a beer and a shot, both for myself and was told only one drink per person. Of course, I just went back after ten minutes and was able to order another drink.
  • Don’t arrive early. I witnessed a couple, who had paid extra for lounge access prior to their flight to Alicante, arrive two hours and ten minutes before their flight. They were told “go away and come back in ten minutes”.
  • Dress up. Fancy dress clothing, sportswear (including tracksuits and football shirts)  and swimwear(!) are not allowed.
  • Stag and hen parties aren’t allowed.

Toothpaste

Security is usually deserted except for the staff. As a result, they like to check your bag and swab your laptop. In October 2024, I had a brand new tube of Oral B toothpaste in my liquids. It was under 100ml. The security team put it under a scanner and advised that it was ‘the wrong kind of toothpaste’! The tube was thrown into a box containing hundreds of toothpaste tubes of different brands. It’s still not clear what is the right kind of toothpaste – I wrote to Teesside Airport and asked them to clarify but had no response. I now pack my liquids in checked luggage. That means they were unavailable when I missed my connecting flight in Amsterdam and KLM put me in the Hotel Van der Valk Schiphol.

Flights

There are so few flights that I can list them here:

Year-round Flights

Amsterdam, The Netherlands with KLM (seem to operated by Eastern Airways).

Aberdeen, Scotland with Loganair.

Alicante, Spain with Ryanair.

Summer Flights

Malaga, Spain in June, July and August 2025 with Ryanair.

Majorca, Spain from March to October 2025 with TUI & Ryanair.

Faro, Portugal from April to October with Ryanair.

Jersey, Channel Islands May to September operated by Fairs-Lloyds Travel and Premier Holidays.

Corfu, Greece from June to October with Ryanair.

Dalaman, Turkey – May to September with TUI.

One-off Specials

Lapland, Sweden on Saturday 20 December 2025.

Lapland, Finland on Friday 19th December 2025.

Zurich, Switzerland on Friday 20th June 2025.

Why so few flights?

It’s a mystery, but probably has to do with the airport changing hands several times. There were once daily flights to London. Trains no longer stop at the nearby train station, the service had declined to once a week on a Sunday!

The airport does seem to be trying harder to attract both airlines and customers – I receive regular promotional emails from them.

A new £2.5million cargo handling facility opened in 2022. This was perfect timing as Doncaster Sheffield Airport closed in November 2022 and much of the freight is now handled by Teesside.

Let’s hope Teesside Airport continues to serve the local community.

Teesside International Airport
Darlington, Tees Valley, DL2 1LU

https://www.teessideinternational.com/