The Guvnor
25th March 2001, 13:25
From today's Sunday Times:
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Air fares 'rip-off' crusade wings it
to Westminster
Dean Nelson
Fares fair
THE campaign against the "rip-off" air fares
that Scots are charged to fly to America will
this week move to Westminster and the
Scottish parliament.
John McFall, a Labour MP for Dumbarton, has written to the
Speaker of the House of Commons calling for a debate on the
controversial "sum of sectors" rule which means that Scots are
charged £100 more to fly to the United States than passengers
flying to American cities from Amsterdam.
Members of the Scottish parliament's enterprise and lifelong
learning committee will call for a Holyrood inquiry into the
anomaly and also into the lack of direct air routes from
Scotland at an emergency meeting to discuss the tourism
crisis on Tuesday.
Their moves are in support of The Sunday Times Fares Fair for
Scotland campaign, launched last week to encourage more
direct flights to America and European cities from Scottish
airports, and for more - and cheaper - internal routes to the
Highlands and Islands.
Following the launch of the campaign, senior politicians and
leading tourism figures pledged their support and called for a
meeting to explain the issues to members of the Scottish
parliament.
George Reid, deputy presiding officer of the Scottish
parliament, said Scotland's lack of direct connections to the
outside world was highlighted by the "humiliation" of the
parliament's delegates to next month's US Tartan Day
celebrations having to fly to Washington on the Irish flag carrier
Aer Lingus.
MSPs Patricia Ferguson, Marilyn Livingstone, Kay Ullrich, Nora
Radcliffe and David McLetchie, the Tory leader, will have to wait
more than two hours in Dublin for a connecting flight to
Washington.
The Scottish Tourism Forum, which represents almost all of
Scotland's area tourism boards, Scottish airports, the British
Airports Authority and the train operator GNER, threw its
weight behind the campaign.
Ivan Broussine, the forum's chief executive, said the lack of
direct flights was not only inconveniencing Scottish tourists, it
was also restricting the potential number of incoming visitors.
In a written statement to The Sunday Times, Lord Macdonald
said the government was committed to ending the sum of
sectors rule, but would not do so until America opened up its
internal routes linking American cities to British airlines.
-----
I am Managing Director of a company that
represents brands of liquor and tobacco
throughout the United Kingdom. We operate
out of offices in Glasgow and London.
The cost of flying with either British Airways or British Midland
between our offices is extremely high. The price of both airlines
are similar. However, it is only when I visit our brand owners in
Poland, the United States or France that I realise that there is
a financial penalty to operating a business from Scotland.
The cost of a normal scheduled flight from Glasgow to
Heathrow is £286 return. British Midland operated a flight to
Warsaw in Poland from Gatwick at £149 return which is roughly
twice the distance of a flight from Glasgow to Heathrow.
I, of course, had to make my way to Gatwick at extra cost.
When travelling in the United States. I quite often make
journeys of 500 to 1,000 miles at a cost of less than $100
each.
It is difficult to compare the cost of flights by their distances. I
believe it has more to do with amount of free competition on
certain routes. British Airways has a dominant position at
Heathrow and they control the pricing for this route.
Ricky Agnew
Marblehead Brand Development
I have been travelling across the Atlantic regularly since 1975.
One year I was able to fly from Glasgow which meant a cheap
bus trip from Edinburgh rather than the expensive early morning
flight to Heathrow or Gatwick. But the flights were scrapped
because business travellers were not using them.
I want to be able to fly direct from Edinburgh to America without
having to go via London or Brussels which adds many hours to
my travel and wears a much larger hole in my pocket. I must
have spent tens of thousands of pounds extra over the years
just because I live in Scotland rather than the south of England.
Why should we Scots be penalised? We have airports perfectly
suitable for international flights in Edinburgh and Glasgow yet
we are not allowed to fly West.
I now fly a few times a year to Cincinnati with Delta Airlines and
if the flights were direct from Scotland I would not have the
many hours of delay between flights I now have just because
the Edinburgh to Gatwick flights are so infrequent. I flew
Edinburgh to Heathrow last year and had a nail biting time
wondering if the bus connection was going to make it to
Gatwick in time (it did with only half an hour before departure!).
It really annoys me that companies like British Airways and
Virgin enforce a journey time of 15 or more hours instead of
eight if I was able to fly direct from Edinburgh.
Karl Ian Ransome
4 Cleekim Road
Edinburgh EH15 3HU
[email protected]
I am glad to see that The Sunday Times has launched this
campaign, as the lack of direct international flights from
Scotland is ridiculous.
I have written to many UK and foreign airlines about this issue,
but they claim that routes from Scotland would not be
economically viable. I find this hard to believe.
How can there be no demand for nonstop flights between
Glasgow and/or Edinburgh and Milan and/or Rome, when there
is such a large Italian population in Scotland as well as many
business and tourism links?
This logic can also be applied to links with China, India, and
Pakistan, as well as major European business centres such as
Geneva, Madrid, Stockholm, and Munich.
Alan Partridge
Clarkston, Glasgow
Your article of March 18 appears to indicate that British
Airways etc. are not permitted to offer discounted or free
connections. This is not the case. British Airways clearly
indicate in various brochures for North America and the Far
East for example that free connections are included. In recent
years, we have flown from Aberdeen to Tampa with British
Airways. The two main deciding factors have been no
connection cost (BA's free connecting flight) and automatic
transfer of luggage. Virgin could do neither of these although
they were our preferred operator.
You ran an article some time ago on flight supplements from
Scotland. Some months ago we investigated Aberdeen to
Jersey. The usual supplement was about £100-£110 although
we came across one at £129 (if memory serves me correctly).
As an aside, it is well known and documented that the airports
and airspace of the south east of England are overcrowded. Yet
the airlines, airports and government appear to do very little to
alleviate the situation by developing other airports as departure
points.
Manchester and its additional runway will be quoted as an
example of regionalisation, but it is still a four or five hour drive
from the central belt of Scotland and flight connections are just
as expensive and far less frequent than to Heathrow or
Gatwick.
Ken Anderson
Your article in today's Sunday Times would have benefitted
from additional information. If Jane had flown KLM to
Amsterdam then New York, she would probably pay less than
Mearvin flying KLM from Amsterdam to New York (or indeed
her BA Edinburgh/London/New York fare). The argument works
the other way round for the Dutch.
The caption on Glasgow Airport picture is untrue. Continental
fly daily from Glasgow to New York and are often as not the
cheapest route. Air Canada fly direct Glasgow to Toronto, then
connect to North America. Icelandair have a good service
Glasgow to USA via Reykjavik, which is at least all going in the
same direction. So why don't the 58,583 business travellers
and 180,867 holidaymakers use these routes and save at least
four hours of travelling? Probably for the same reasons that
they don't travel on easyJet or Ryanair!
John Caldwell
In September 2000 I flew with Icelandair from
Glasgow-Reykjavik-Baltimore return. The fare was £346.
Two colleagues flew on the same day from
Heathrow-Reykjavik-Baltimore return.Their fare was £279.
Brian Wilson, MP, has recently raised the matter with
Icelandair, Thomas Cook and the Department of Transport.
No further action is anticipated.
Name withheld
The solution to avoiding extra charges via Heathrow is to travel
with Icelandair via Reykjavik or Aer Lingus via Dublin. I have
even found it cheaper to go with Air France via Paris.
The above only add a couple of hours onto the journey but the
average fare is approximately £220
Bob Johnstone
</font>
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Air fares 'rip-off' crusade wings it
to Westminster
Dean Nelson
Fares fair
THE campaign against the "rip-off" air fares
that Scots are charged to fly to America will
this week move to Westminster and the
Scottish parliament.
John McFall, a Labour MP for Dumbarton, has written to the
Speaker of the House of Commons calling for a debate on the
controversial "sum of sectors" rule which means that Scots are
charged £100 more to fly to the United States than passengers
flying to American cities from Amsterdam.
Members of the Scottish parliament's enterprise and lifelong
learning committee will call for a Holyrood inquiry into the
anomaly and also into the lack of direct air routes from
Scotland at an emergency meeting to discuss the tourism
crisis on Tuesday.
Their moves are in support of The Sunday Times Fares Fair for
Scotland campaign, launched last week to encourage more
direct flights to America and European cities from Scottish
airports, and for more - and cheaper - internal routes to the
Highlands and Islands.
Following the launch of the campaign, senior politicians and
leading tourism figures pledged their support and called for a
meeting to explain the issues to members of the Scottish
parliament.
George Reid, deputy presiding officer of the Scottish
parliament, said Scotland's lack of direct connections to the
outside world was highlighted by the "humiliation" of the
parliament's delegates to next month's US Tartan Day
celebrations having to fly to Washington on the Irish flag carrier
Aer Lingus.
MSPs Patricia Ferguson, Marilyn Livingstone, Kay Ullrich, Nora
Radcliffe and David McLetchie, the Tory leader, will have to wait
more than two hours in Dublin for a connecting flight to
Washington.
The Scottish Tourism Forum, which represents almost all of
Scotland's area tourism boards, Scottish airports, the British
Airports Authority and the train operator GNER, threw its
weight behind the campaign.
Ivan Broussine, the forum's chief executive, said the lack of
direct flights was not only inconveniencing Scottish tourists, it
was also restricting the potential number of incoming visitors.
In a written statement to The Sunday Times, Lord Macdonald
said the government was committed to ending the sum of
sectors rule, but would not do so until America opened up its
internal routes linking American cities to British airlines.
-----
I am Managing Director of a company that
represents brands of liquor and tobacco
throughout the United Kingdom. We operate
out of offices in Glasgow and London.
The cost of flying with either British Airways or British Midland
between our offices is extremely high. The price of both airlines
are similar. However, it is only when I visit our brand owners in
Poland, the United States or France that I realise that there is
a financial penalty to operating a business from Scotland.
The cost of a normal scheduled flight from Glasgow to
Heathrow is £286 return. British Midland operated a flight to
Warsaw in Poland from Gatwick at £149 return which is roughly
twice the distance of a flight from Glasgow to Heathrow.
I, of course, had to make my way to Gatwick at extra cost.
When travelling in the United States. I quite often make
journeys of 500 to 1,000 miles at a cost of less than $100
each.
It is difficult to compare the cost of flights by their distances. I
believe it has more to do with amount of free competition on
certain routes. British Airways has a dominant position at
Heathrow and they control the pricing for this route.
Ricky Agnew
Marblehead Brand Development
I have been travelling across the Atlantic regularly since 1975.
One year I was able to fly from Glasgow which meant a cheap
bus trip from Edinburgh rather than the expensive early morning
flight to Heathrow or Gatwick. But the flights were scrapped
because business travellers were not using them.
I want to be able to fly direct from Edinburgh to America without
having to go via London or Brussels which adds many hours to
my travel and wears a much larger hole in my pocket. I must
have spent tens of thousands of pounds extra over the years
just because I live in Scotland rather than the south of England.
Why should we Scots be penalised? We have airports perfectly
suitable for international flights in Edinburgh and Glasgow yet
we are not allowed to fly West.
I now fly a few times a year to Cincinnati with Delta Airlines and
if the flights were direct from Scotland I would not have the
many hours of delay between flights I now have just because
the Edinburgh to Gatwick flights are so infrequent. I flew
Edinburgh to Heathrow last year and had a nail biting time
wondering if the bus connection was going to make it to
Gatwick in time (it did with only half an hour before departure!).
It really annoys me that companies like British Airways and
Virgin enforce a journey time of 15 or more hours instead of
eight if I was able to fly direct from Edinburgh.
Karl Ian Ransome
4 Cleekim Road
Edinburgh EH15 3HU
[email protected]
I am glad to see that The Sunday Times has launched this
campaign, as the lack of direct international flights from
Scotland is ridiculous.
I have written to many UK and foreign airlines about this issue,
but they claim that routes from Scotland would not be
economically viable. I find this hard to believe.
How can there be no demand for nonstop flights between
Glasgow and/or Edinburgh and Milan and/or Rome, when there
is such a large Italian population in Scotland as well as many
business and tourism links?
This logic can also be applied to links with China, India, and
Pakistan, as well as major European business centres such as
Geneva, Madrid, Stockholm, and Munich.
Alan Partridge
Clarkston, Glasgow
Your article of March 18 appears to indicate that British
Airways etc. are not permitted to offer discounted or free
connections. This is not the case. British Airways clearly
indicate in various brochures for North America and the Far
East for example that free connections are included. In recent
years, we have flown from Aberdeen to Tampa with British
Airways. The two main deciding factors have been no
connection cost (BA's free connecting flight) and automatic
transfer of luggage. Virgin could do neither of these although
they were our preferred operator.
You ran an article some time ago on flight supplements from
Scotland. Some months ago we investigated Aberdeen to
Jersey. The usual supplement was about £100-£110 although
we came across one at £129 (if memory serves me correctly).
As an aside, it is well known and documented that the airports
and airspace of the south east of England are overcrowded. Yet
the airlines, airports and government appear to do very little to
alleviate the situation by developing other airports as departure
points.
Manchester and its additional runway will be quoted as an
example of regionalisation, but it is still a four or five hour drive
from the central belt of Scotland and flight connections are just
as expensive and far less frequent than to Heathrow or
Gatwick.
Ken Anderson
Your article in today's Sunday Times would have benefitted
from additional information. If Jane had flown KLM to
Amsterdam then New York, she would probably pay less than
Mearvin flying KLM from Amsterdam to New York (or indeed
her BA Edinburgh/London/New York fare). The argument works
the other way round for the Dutch.
The caption on Glasgow Airport picture is untrue. Continental
fly daily from Glasgow to New York and are often as not the
cheapest route. Air Canada fly direct Glasgow to Toronto, then
connect to North America. Icelandair have a good service
Glasgow to USA via Reykjavik, which is at least all going in the
same direction. So why don't the 58,583 business travellers
and 180,867 holidaymakers use these routes and save at least
four hours of travelling? Probably for the same reasons that
they don't travel on easyJet or Ryanair!
John Caldwell
In September 2000 I flew with Icelandair from
Glasgow-Reykjavik-Baltimore return. The fare was £346.
Two colleagues flew on the same day from
Heathrow-Reykjavik-Baltimore return.Their fare was £279.
Brian Wilson, MP, has recently raised the matter with
Icelandair, Thomas Cook and the Department of Transport.
No further action is anticipated.
Name withheld
The solution to avoiding extra charges via Heathrow is to travel
with Icelandair via Reykjavik or Aer Lingus via Dublin. I have
even found it cheaper to go with Air France via Paris.
The above only add a couple of hours onto the journey but the
average fare is approximately £220
Bob Johnstone
</font>