Peel Group – which owns the airport – said it will start to close down on 31 October after no tangible proposals were received regarding the ownership of the airport during a strategic review into its future. 

DSA said it will continue to "work closely" with airport customers and other users to explain the impact of the service reduction and work with them to minimise the disruption to their operations and customers. 

A spokesperson for the airport said: "The high fixed costs associated with running a safe, regulated airport, together with recent events materially reducing prospective future aviation income streams, mean that a break-even business plan cannot be identified for the foreseeable future."

Since the July 2022 announcement of the review, Peel said it has been "actively engaging" on a weekly basis with local and national political stakeholders, including working group meetings, primarily led by officers at Doncaster Council, South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) and the Department for Transport (DfT).

Throughout the consultation process up until today, Peel has also been in close contact with the airlines and other aviation users of the airport. None of these discussions, it said, have delivered any "tangible results" that have changed the board of DSA or Peel’s view the airport "is and will remain unviable". 

Peel said it received a letter from the mayor of South Yorkshire and mayor of Doncaster earlier this month, stating they had completed an economic impact study of DSA which identified its economic benefit to the region – yet provided no solution to its lack of financial viability.

Robert Hough, chairman of Peel Airports Group, said: "We recognise that this will come as a great disappointment to many. The intractable problem remains the fundamental and insufficient lack of current or prospective revenue streams, together with the airport’s high operating costs.

"Our employees have always been DSA’s greatest asset, and we are grateful to them all, past and present, for their dedication and diligence over the years. The immediate priority remains to continue engaging closely with them over the next few weeks."

Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen said: "My heart goes out to staff at Doncaster Sheffield Airport, with hundreds of jobs now at risk due to this unfortunate announcement, and to those local people who have lost their airport on Peel’s watch.

"This would have been us. It’s easy to get carried away with the progress we’re making at Teesside Airport – with the excitement of new flights, investment zones and private businesses like Willis investing £25 million – and forget that closure was the alternative if we didn’t bring it into public ownership three-and-a-half years ago."