AirTalk.org

Joe Curry · Guest

Airport policy flies in the face of common sense

AS A relatively small northern European country, geographically
remote from its major markets, effective and competitive air travel
should
be a priority for Scotland.

Actually, almost all aspects of aviation are outside the scope of
the
devolution settlement and are handled on a UK basis. So, how
well is the UK government doing for us here in Scotland?

In short, it's not good.

Shortly after the 1997 election, Labour doubled the airline levy
tax,
which had been introduced by the Conservatives, from £5 to £10 per
trip. In treasury terms, of course, this is a "good tax" since it
costs almost nothing to collect.

Rail journeys are not taxed, even first class ones, but air
journeys,
even the Ryanair £1 cheapos, are. Since most business trips in
England are by rail or car, but most Scots have to get on a plane,
it is hard to escape the conclusion that this airline levy is, in
effect, a tax on doing business based in Scotland.

The treasury team that did this was Gordon Brown, Helen Liddell and
Alistair Darling. You would have thought they might have noticed.!

Airport ownership.

If an airline can't reach a good deal on operating a service into
Glasgow Airport, it can always try negotiating with Edinburgh right?
Wrong.

The same company, BAA, owns both Edinburgh and Glasgow, along with
Aberdeen, Heathrow, Gatwick, Southampton and Stansted.

Anywhere else, this is called a monopoly.

Does BAA care if we get long haul flights into Edinburgh? Not
really.
By passing you through Heathrow or Gatwick, it gets your business
twice.

Airport Infrastructure

There was a time when far-sighted local US politicians were building
airports in key locations, such as Chicago and Atlanta, to serve as
hubs for
the growing cross-continental air travel market. These developments
have
brought huge economic benefit to their regions.

While all this was going on, our leading politicians thought that
Prestwick, in a remote corner of Ayrshire, was the perfect location
for Scotland's (then) international airport. Tory Scottish
secretaries behind this policy, of course, George Younger and Ian
Lang, were Ayrshire MPs.

Scotland is actually on the flight path between much of Europe and
North America. A substantial hub airport based in Edinburgh, beside
railway links and motorways, and serviced by a major international
airline, could lead to a powerful network of services between major
US and European cities and would bring incalculable economic benefit
to Scotland along the way.

Amsterdam, Brussels and Dublin are making substantial progress doing
just that why not Edinburgh?

What a shame we never had a Scottish secretary from Edinburgh. (We
did, but he wasted the opportunity)

Protectionism

When British Airways was a state-owned airline, international
agreements were reached to protect it from competition, but now
that it is a private company they still persist, especially across
the Atlantic.

The Bermuda II negotiations between the UK and US are still
beingconducted for the benefit of British Airways.

British Midland was blocked from offering new low-cost fares from
Scotland to the US.

A Dutchman flying from Amsterdam via Heathrow to the US today will
pay
hundreds of pounds less than a Scot.

It's hard to believe that our government is actually forcing the
airlines to charge Scots higher prices, even though we are closer
to North America.

And what is this specially protected British Airways doing for the
Scot who wants to fly internationally? Well, the "world's
favourite airline" has one solitary international route from
Scotland - Edinburgh to Paris. (Hamburg has since been added)

Go anywhere else with BA, and you will first go somewhere you
didn't want to, like Birmingham. It really would be more honest if
they were called "English Airways".

It's not an impressive list of government intervention.

It seems that we Scots are condemned forever to interconnect via
other hubs to get to most European and North American destinations
adding inconvenience and costing us
all considerable time and money. And until our government
stopsprotecting the airports and carriers, and starts supporting the
passengers, it's not likely to change much.

--------------------------------------------------------

-----------------
This from David Kerr in a condensed post from

alt.airports.uk.edinburgh

This what confuses me.....it's claimed that the EDI area is one of
the wealthiest areas ("2nd biggest financial market in the UK")
yet...why does MAN & BHX have a far greater choice of scheduled
destination than at GLA and EDI combined? If airlines are carrying
these business class passengers", surely they would anticipate
introducing services to where the
"business class passenger" are going to? It's not as though the
baseline aircraft for airlines is a 737....why not fill an small
regional jet (i.e.less than 60 seats) operating on a double daily
basis which is what"business class" passengers often want.

It would appear that BAA Scotland is not doing enough to attract
airlines to
*any* of their airports, relying upon entry via LHR or LGW and the
shuttle
services (or even routing through MAN: bmi again saw large
increases in
domestic passenger numbers to Scotland from MAN). Any promotional
offering
may result in "disagreements" with (a) existing airlines offering
services
and (b) the new airlines once the "normal" charge comes into play
once their
agreement expires (witness Ryanair at MAN!).

I would also say that for Scotland to benefit from the growth of
aviation, it shouldn't rely solely upon low-cost airlines alone to
attract businesses and tourists: do you *really* want
multi-frequent services to 10 or so destinations, instead of 20 to
30 destinations ranging
from 2 or 3 weekly flights to the 2 or 3 daily services?

Underinvestment should really be the subject of some kind of enquiry
by the BAA (or even the Scottish executive) under the chairmanship
of an independent person. One would say that any funding for new
projects may well feature in charges not being lowered by dramatic
amounts in future years: investment should have been made at a time
when both environmental issues and monetary issues would have been
smaller than at present. It's not as if no-one in a planning
department could have seen the past performance of EDI and the trend
that appears to have been apparent over recent years and worked out
that sooner or later, there may be a capacity problem:
__________________________________

Acknowledgements to Paul Stokes and David Kerr..edited by Joe Curry
17th April 2007

Footnote: Continental Airways have since introduced daily New York
(EWR)
flights to Edinburgh Airport. The route is now Scotland's busiest to
New York.

Delta have also introduced daily flights from Edinburgh
to Atlanta

BAA's monopoly airport ownership has been taken over by Ferrovial.

------------

This on Monday 16th April. 2007

EDI - "unregulated monopoly"!

THE head of the biggest airline operating in Scotland has accused
BAA of failing to exploit "enormous opportunities" for tourism
because of high landing charges at Edinburgh airport.

Andy Harrison, who claimed the title for EasyJet following BA
Connect's sale to Flybe, said it might double the number of
Edinburgh-based aircraft if charges were cut.

The EasyJet chief executive told The Scotsman the airport was an
"unregulated monopoly" because of the lack of price controls or
nearby competition.

http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=579742007

--
Edinburgh Airport,Scotland's most convenient/accessible
airport.
Scotland's most profitable airport with the busiest runway
http://link.toolbot.com/germanwings.com/73280
Unhappy with BAA's Scottish airport's monopoly? Sign the petition!
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Scottishairports/