The former Robin Hood Airport is moving steadily toward reopening under council ownership, with £193 million in public funding agreed and Munich Airport International on board as operator; but repeated delays to cargo and passenger timelines, revised passenger forecasts, and a Civil Aviation Authority airspace process extending into 2027 mean the road back is longer than originally promised.
Doncaster Sheffield Airport closed in November 2022 when its private owner, the Peel Group, shut it after Wizz Air withdrew operations, citing financial unviability. Since then, the City of Doncaster Council has led a sustained and public campaign to bring the site back into service; a campaign that has now secured significant funding, appointed an operator, and begun the technical and regulatory groundwork for reopening; while repeatedly pushing back its own target dates.
The funding picture
Funding to fully reopen the airport of £193 million has been secured from a mix of sources including £160 million from the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, the South Yorkshire Local Growth Fund, and the City of Doncaster Council. Full Council has approved up to £57 million of borrowing to fund upfront and reopening costs.
The UK Government allocated £30 million toward the reopening, devolved to SYMCA via the Integrated Settlement. Chancellor Rachel Reeves reiterated that support at the spending review, describing her intention to help “recreate South Yorkshire airport city.”
However, the release of the £160 million of devolution funding for the project remains on hold until some terms of the current lease the council holds with landowner Peel are renegotiated.
Who will run it
Munich Airport International, the wholly owned consulting subsidiary of Munich Airport, will provide operational and management services to FlyDoncaster Ltd, the airport operator owned by the City of Doncaster Council. Together with FP Airports Ltd, a UK-based aviation specialist, Munich Airport International will help drive forward the reopening.
Lorenzo di Loreto, Managing Director of Munich Airport International, said the company is committed to helping develop DSA into “a passenger friendly and competitive airport and an engine of social, economic and environmental growth for Doncaster and the wider region.”
The timeline; and how it has shifted
The trajectory of promised dates tells its own story. In late 2024, Mayor Jones promised passenger flights would return by spring 2026. Shortly before the 2025 elections for Mayor of Doncaster, the projection said the airport would “reopen” in spring 2026. Before SYMCA met in September 2025 to approve funding, Mayor Jones said freight flights would return in spring 2026. This was pushed back in December 2025 when Jones said freight would not return until summer 2026.
The most recent documents, from March 2026, push it back further still. Cargo flights are now projected to return in “late 2026.” Projections for passenger flights remain at winter 2027/28, with bookings expected to be possible before the end of 2026.
South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard has been more cautious throughout. He has said the airport is unlikely to be at full operational capacity until 2028, and that commercial passenger flights are therefore unlikely before then, albeit with the aim of achieving it sooner if possible.
Doncaster Council chief executive Damian Allen pushed back on that framing. “We are optimistic in terms of our timeframes for cargo in 2026/27 and for the opening for passengers in the winter of 2027/28,” he said.
The airspace question
One hard constraint is the Civil Aviation Authority’s airspace reinstatement process; a staged regulatory procedure that cannot be rushed. In January 2026, the CAA published a timeline for the staged process of reinstating airspace at DSA, setting a proposed date of 29 May 2027 for making a final determination.
A City of Doncaster Council spokesperson confirmed that freight activity can commence before full CAA approval, subject to air traffic control, radar, and fire safety being in place alongside the necessary support services. A CAA airspace decision is now expected “by autumn” 2026.
The council has recently established an Airport Consultative Committee, which it has described as a “crucial regulatory milestone” in regaining airspace.
The airport’s current status is that DSA is unlicensed, with the runway technically closed, although there is an exemption for aerospace services group 2Excel to operate maintenance flights into and out of the airport.
Revised passenger forecasts
One significant development in the most recent documents is a downward revision to passenger number projections. Passenger number estimates for the reopened airport have been more than halved in revised technical plans submitted to the CAA; an initial projection of 2.5 million passengers per year after a decade in operation has been superseded by revised estimates of 1.1 million passengers per year by 2037. DSA’s previous record year was 1.4 million passengers in 2019.
The revised figure is substantially below the 1.9 million level previously deemed “affordable” for the reopening project, though a project spokesperson said officials remain “very confident” in the business case, stating that “the ambition of and potential of this project haven’t changed.”
The economic case
The business case for reopening highlights that the airport could create more than 5,000 direct jobs and 6,500 indirect jobs, and could boost the economy by £6.6 billion when fully operational. Coppard has previously acknowledged that economic benefit estimates are “lower than we initially understood,” and that the commercial aviation and passenger forecasts “have the potential to make or break this project.”
Looking further ahead, at the unveiling of the South Yorkshire People’s Network on 16 March 2026, Mayor Coppard announced that SYMCA would be looking to develop plans for a rail and tram connection to DSA, though no firm date was set in the transport vision, which extends into the 2040s.