Sunderland City Council has confirmed that the Sunderland International Airshow 2022 planned for the 22nd-24th of July has been cancelled for the third year in a row due to the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the Covid pandemic.

This is the second major European airshow to cancel the event in 2022 due to Covid uncertainty the first one being the Oostwold Air Show in the Netherlands.

The Sunderland International Airshow is one of the biggest free annual seaside airshows in Europe, held at the Roker and Seaburn seafronts in North East England. It takes place over the course of three days, usually the final weekend in July (Friday to Sunday), and attracts around 2,000,000 spectators every year. 

The airshow usually features a large number of aircraft both military and civilian. In addition to the flying displays, the seafront plays host to a range of food counters, stalls and fairground games. The Royal Navy traditionally have a warship off the coast every year, usually HMS Ocean, the adopted warship of Sunderland.

The leader of Sunderland City Council, Coun Graeme Miller, said:

"We know from our own experience and that of other event organisers over the last 22 months just how difficult Covid makes it to plan for events, particularly when it comes to large scale events with a long lead-in time such as the Sunderland Airshow.

"Because of the nature of the airshow and the infrastructure and contracts that need to be put in place to support it, we have reached the stage where we would need to commit now to allow the event to go ahead this summer which we just don't feel able to do that at the moment.”

"It simply doesn't make financial sense at this point to make such a commitment given the current uncertainty around the pandemic and the fact that we don't know where we are likely to be with Covid come the summer,"

"However residents can rest assured that events remain as important to this city as ever as our own events programme and those of our partners continue to grow and evolve, attracting exciting new events which appeal to residents and visitors alike."

The airshow was first held in 1989 as a single-day show and was planned to be a one-off event when it attracted 250,000 spectators. Due to its success, from 1991 it became a two-day show, and subsequently three days. Due to thick fog and mist in 2008, the airshow was cancelled. The airshow was also cancelled in 2020, 2021 and now in 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.