The London Telegraph was graced yesterday and today with articles by Grayling.
Today's contained this gem:
"Business people should be able to fly from Belfast, or Aberdeen, or Newcastle or Newquay to their markets around the world, with no more than a simple change at Heathrow. Yet all too often they have to go to the Netherlands or Germany for those connections"
A little bit of homework showed the following current schedules as far as I can tell for the first 3 of those airports on weekdays:
Belfast has 4 x BA flights to LHR and 4 Aer Lingus
To Amsterdam, there is a single KLM flight and 2 x easyjet (no through ticketing as far as I know)
There appear to be no services to Frankfurt or Munich.
Aberdeen has 5 x BA flights to LHR and 3 x flybe.
To AMS, 4 X KLM flights, and no direct Frankfurt or Munich service.
Newcastle has 5 x flights to LHR
To AMS 3 X KLM flights and no direct Frankfurt or Munich service.
So, far more flights to Heathrow to choose from than Amsterdam and nothing to Germany (unless there is an odd flight to Dusseldorf which I didn't check).
Is Mr Grayling being economical with the facts or is he just ignorant of what services operate from regional airports?
Finally, and I hesitate to mention this, but some of those passengers that allegedly have to go via the Netherlands and Germany from Belfast and Aberdeen may actually choose to fly via Manchester or Birmingham to a range of destinations, some of them long haul. However, these 2 airports don't seem to be recognised by our wonderful Secretary of State for Transport.