Gloucestershire Airport: What Skyborne’s boss thinks of the decision to sell - and more
The first of our 'Ones to Watch' series: Lee Woodward of Skyborne talks growth, 'significant plans' for 2025, the decision to sell Gloucestershire Airport and what he'd love its future to be.
Dear reader,
Welcome to the third and final edition of The Raikes Journal this week, the digital magazine we email out to subscribers on Monday, Thursday and Friday. The first and last emails of the week being full editions, Monday’s always being free and Friday’s usually part paywalled to help pay for what we do.
Today finds us back at Gloucestershire Airport and talking again about its future with someone with a serious interest in the site, which was put up for sale last year by its current owners, Gloucester City Council and Cheltenham Borough Council.
We are talking about the lead story on today’s edition, an article that marks the launch of our new ‘Ones to Watch’ series, in which we turn our attention to Gloucestershire businesses we expect big things of in 2025.
And we are talking about Skyborne, the aviation training school with a major footprint both here and in the United States of America and which last year landed a lucrative contract with its latest major airline - this time British Airways - to train its next generation of pilots.
It’s a UK success story, an entrepreneurial operation providing a solution to airlines worldwide and it’s putting Gloucestershire on the map in the aviation sector.
What does its founder and chief executive officer, Lee Woodward, think of the decision to sell the Staverton airfield? What does 2025 look like for Skyborne and will it now be investing elsewhere? And much more.
This is a members’ edition, which means the main story is part paywalled - which is just one of the ways we help make out support of the Gloucestershire busness communtiy sustainable.
Have a great weekend.
Just to finish… I am looking for commercial partners who would like to work with Raikes in 2025, support what we do (perhaps sponsor the Ones to Watch series) and and feature in our stories as well! We don’t do advertorials, but we can deliver content for your business you can’t get anywhere else; credible, independent, third-party content business leaders and significant others want to read and take seriously. If you want to know more, please email me: andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.
And… if you refer a friend to Raikes you’ll not only help us grow our audience, you’ll gain points towards a free full subscription too! Click the link below for more details.
Andrew Merrell (editor).
If you have a story, an issue, a news item, a charity or an interview you want us to write about or investigate, challenge the powers that be on, then please email me: andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.
Your briefing notes…
🤝 A Five Valley’s headquartered firm has grown its customer base by ‘several hundred’ after completing an exciting deal with a business from Essex - adding six staff to its 70-strong team. Gloucestershire-based BookCheck has bought the payroll client base of chartered accountants and tax advisors, Rickard Luckin, and is on the lookout for similar opportunities. James Wetherall, managing director of BookCheck, which is based near Stroud, said: “We do anticipate carrying out more acquisitions of this nature in the future. We are also very interested in hearing from firms who want to refer any future payroll clients to us, as we have a highly scalable model in place”. Read the full story in our Reports and Deals channel, sponsored by Randall & Payne.
🍜 Newport-based Thai street food operators Kinn Kinn is the newest independent eatery to join the Food Dock community in Gloucester. Founder Gena Dyer, is described as a passionate Thai chef known for her authentic, street food-inspired cuisine. Customers will find “vibrant, fresh, and spicy flavours culminating in the traditional favourites such as pad Thai and Thai Green Curry” as well as Dyer’s “signature dishes” including Moo Ping – grilled barbeque pork skewers - and Kinn Kinn’s own Falling Angel Chilli Beer. You can read more in our PR Wire channel.
👋 Indigo Redfern, who was awarded an MBE for her services to the county’s community in the 2023 New year's Honours list, is stepping down as chief executive officer of GL11 Community Hub – a role she’s held since 2014. Under her watch the charity navigated the Covid-19 pandemic and forged greater partnership working with organisations including the NHS. The charity has supported thousands in its community facing poor health and the impact of the ongoing cost of living crisis by providing counselling, money advice and employment support. Redfern, who is relocating to Suffolk, said: “My time at GL11 has been such a privilege. GL11 is well positioned for its next phase of development.” Redfern helped Raikes with its story Charities in Gloucestershire face a bleak 2025.
🏗️ Freeman Homes, the Gloucestershire construction firm behind plans to build 140 homes in Coleford in the Forest of Dean, has asked the district council to postpone its decision on the scheme. The business wants to develop land at Poolway Farm, Gloucester Road and the scheme was due to be debated at the local authority’s development management committee on Tuesday. But after raising concerns over some of the recommended conditions the applicant has requested a time extension. The scheme is for 53 two-bed homes, 34 three-bedroom houses, 37 four-bedroom properties and 12 two-bed flats. The “likely date” for the application to return to the committee is 11 March.
Shoppers buy into Gloucester loyalty scheme
🛒💷💳 Gloucester BID has revealed that the gift card it backs to encourage visitors to shop within the city, has seen a significant increase in sales and use. According to the Business Improvement District, which represents businesses in the city centre, £40,000 worth of cards were bought in 2024 and in the last quarter of 2024 more than £9,000 was spent via the Gloucester Gift Card. An estimated 170 businesses now welcome it as payment, the highest number since the card’s launch in 2019. They include leisure activities like VRXPERIENCE and RollerXpress, food and drink outlets such as The Fountain Inn, Coal Kitchen, Mister’s and Gloucester Food Dock and visitor attractions including Gloucester Guildhall, the Museum of Gloucester, National Waterways Museum and The Folk of Gloucester. Plus a host of retail options galore - including Gloucester Quays and Gloucester Food Dock. Find out more here.
Sporting and other highlights this weekend…
Friday:
🥃 🏴 Burns Night Whisky Tasting at The Roses, Tewkesbury, from 7.30pm. A celebration of Scotch whiskies and history.
Saturday:
🏉 Gloucester-Hartpury play Leicester Tigers away at noon.
🏉 Gloucester Rugby play Leicester Tigers in the Gallagher Premiership at 3.05pm at Kingsholm Stadium.
⚽ Cheltenham Town FC play Salford City FC at 3pm at Whaddon Road.
⚽ Forest Green Rovers FC play Altrincham F.C at 3pm away.
⚽ Gloucester City FC play Frome at 3pm away.
🤡 Comedian Justin Moorhouse at Stroud Sub Rooms at 7.30pm.
Sunday:
🚵🏽 🏆 Forest of Dean Mountain Bike Trails, hosted by Mini Downhill at Cannop Cycle Centre. The latest date in a winter series described as fun exciting way to race downhill. Aimed at beginners.
* Everything you read on The Raikes Journal is made possible by our incredible Founding Partners: QuoLux, Willans LLP, Gloucestershire College, Merrell People and Randall & Payne, our sponsors Hartpury University and Hartpury College, our Founding Members and wonderful paying subscribers.
If you upgrade to paid you’ll be part of this community interest company too. We are dedicated to delivering quality journalism for Gloucestershire, to championing the county, in particular its businesses, charities, education and training providers, and to helping create an even stronger community. If you upgrade to paid you will be able to see past the paywalls often put on our second and third email editions of the week, that lock all our archive after two weeks and lock our rolling Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire series. You will be able to comment on our stories too. You’ll be helping make this CIC sustainable to deliver more original articles on our county. The cost of seeing past all our paywalls is just £2.30 a week - or £1.80 a week if two or more people sign up at once. Or go all in and become one of our Founding Partners or Founding Members!
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Gloucestershire Airport: ‘A great opportunity,’ says Skyborne’s boss
The first of our ‘Ones to Watch’ series: Lee Woodward of Skyborne talks growth, 'significant plans' for 2025, the decision to sell Gloucestershire Airport and what he'd love its future to be.
By Andrew Merrell.
Welcome to the first of our series of articles focusing on the Gloucestershire businesses we consider to be ‘Ones to Watch’ in 2025.
We begin with a broad-ranging chat with the founder and chief executive officer of Skyborne, the Staverton-headquartered flight training school now also a multi-million pound business.
Lee Woodward discusses how 2024 panned out, both here and on the other side of the Atlantic where his business also has a major base, how 2025 looks, hints at where the next investment will be – or rather won’t be – talks about growth and he reacts to the decision to sell Gloucestershire Airport, Skyborne’s home.
This is a business Woodward founded seven years ago after 14 years at CTC Aviation and a career that began with a decade as a British Airways pilot, a working life shot through with a love of aviation, a sector in which he continues to forge an increasingly influential name.
“I’m still a pilot at heart. I am still current. I get very hands-on with the business. I work as an instructor.
“We have 98 instructors in the US and I was in front of all of them last week running through some performance management and am able to swap hats from being CEO.
“I have been passionate about aviation my whole life. I still am.
“I am very lucky to work with some very talented individuals and did so in my previous role at CTC Aviation too – with some people with some very strong business skills, like Tom Misner (Skyborne’s chairman) and Marco Bettelli (another director of the firm).
“They have really helped me, as have many colleagues and staff in the business who are part of an incredibly talented team. I am very lucky.”
Raikes asks him about an article in FlightGlobal in which he recalls a conversation with his chairman about possibly taking over a flight school in the US.
It was 2021 when the exchange took place - mid Covid-19 pandemic - but Woodward saw an opportunity and put the idea to his chairman, who played devil’s advocate by asking “if Warren Buffet doesn’t think it’s a good idea, why do you?”.
Aircraft were still grounded across the world and tens of thousands of pilots furloughed, but US flight school FlightSafety - one of the world’s leading aviation training specialists - was looking to sell its Vero Beach operation, which had a capacity for 370 students.
Woodward saw a perfect fit. After stress testing the idea - and that conversation - he went for it. It proved a masterstroke.
“To have my name mentioned in the same sentence as Warren Buffet is a little embarrassing, but that chat made me think a little harder about the idea,” said Woodward, who just last week was at the Florida site – which is now a significant part of the Skyborne operation.
The business now has about 400 students in the United States and 150 in the UK, who are based at Gloucestershire Airport.
The group’s last annual accounts, published in October 2024 for the year ending December 31 2023 show turnover rose from £13.5 million to £17.9 million.
Another line in the annual report that stood out was the one about growth.
Is that still the case?
“We’ve been recording near double-digit growth year on year since we first started,” said Woodward.
“There was still a little bit of post-Covid recovery in the United States in early 2024, but we were still very strong (in the US).
“In the UK we were exactly on target. What we laid out in 23 for 24 was exactly on budget. I would say 25 will see both fully on target.
“We are convinced 2025 will be a year of healthy managed growth too. The company is very serious about delivering high quality training to the sector.
“We have significant investment plans for 2025 - which I can’t talk about at the moment - for the first two quarters of ‘25 and we should see facilities growth in 2025.
“That should come to fruition through April.”
We know where some of that investment will go – into 31 new planes to help it service its rising student numbers.
In 2024 it announced it had won a major contract to train the next generation of pilots for British Airways, and it already works closely with EasyJet, Delta Air Lines, Jet2 and Ryanair, among others.
(You can read that story here: £21m will deliver free training in Gloucestershire for airline pilots)
“We have ordered 31 aircraft,” said Woodward. “We expect to take delivery of eight of those in 2025, 10 in 2026 and 10 in 2027.”
Skyborne is also keeping a close watch on electric aircraft and eyes on a similar number of those planes, should they emerge onto the market.
Which brings us to the subject of Gloucestershire Airport itself.
When news broke late last year that the airport, owned by Gloucester City Council and Cheltenham Borough Council, was to be sold it sent shockwaves through the site.
Home to numerous businesses, it has long been a political football too, with some talking-up the potential windfall of selling the land for houses while others pointing out it has become commercially viable as a business park and an airport as well as a boost to the county’s economy.
It is currently in the hands of estate agents Colliers. Raikes asked if there had been any interest in the site so far, for this story, but is yet to hear back.
The sale of the airport is a decision Woodward has not spoken about in the media - until now.
The impact on Skyborne in a general sense seems clear. It has to protect itself by investing elsewhere, although Woodward did not confirm that.
But at the same time he is clear about the Staverton site, its potential and what he would dearly love to see happen to it.
In the article with FlightGlobal, published late last year, there was talk of doubling the size of the UK operation of Skyborne “either by extending the current facility or building a second site”.
“We are future-proofing our business. It has forced us to think about expansion plans outside Gloucestershire Airport or the immediate area,” Woodward told Raikes.
“I think there are ongoing challenges around air traffic control and we can’t let our business be at risk. But we will power through it.”
A shortage of air traffic control staff at the airport forced it to limit flying time, which impacted on many of the businesses on the site.
“You will see some news on those alternative plans in the next couple of weeks. I think there are great examples of regional airports that have done well.” he added.
“Oxford, Biggin Hill and Farnborough airports are all in good shape and I think there is a very good future for Gloucestershire Airport - if it is well-managed and some of the issues between the boroughs can be sorted out.
“We are very passionate about what we have managed to do in the area and I think there is an opportunity to really create something very special in Gloucestershire.
“When I started out there (at Staverton) I said to the people running the airport that I wanted to really make a mark and put Gloucestershire airport on the map.
“I was at Delta Airlines recently sat down the CEO there and was explaining to him how we worked at Gloucestershire Airport and what we did here. So Gloucestershire was part of a conversation in Atlanta (USA) about airline training.
“I am also very proud about what we have achieved here. I would encourage everyone to see the potential of the airport.
“It is a relatively affluent part of the country. There is a lot going for the county. I think there is a tremendous opportunity here to develop light jet and corporate traffic, to celebrate the other successes here too.
“We are not the only flight school. There is the air traffic control training, but there is Staverton Flying School next door to us. It is amazing what Kathryn and Steve (Williams. The owners) have done.
“If we can find the right owner for the airport there is no reason why it can’t enjoy the same success as those other local airports.
“It can be done here. It would be really good for Gloucestershire and the surrounding area too.”