these phrases have been deleted from official use for many years. Perhaps your experience is different, but I've pretty much never heard ordinary people using them, particularly the latter.
If I had to cite what I see as a collective failing in Scotland it would be a lack of self esteem - it's interesting that this would appear to be the polar opposite of your impression of people believing they're "pure dead brilliant". I must stress I'm not saying either impression is wrong or right - merely that the difference is interesting.
Finally, surely an integral part of aspiration is confidence, self promotion and talking oneself up? As such, I'm not sure how Scotland can be more aspirational without indulging in the latter (albeit hopefully somewhat more eloquently than previously!). "Scotland - We're not nearly as rich as Norway", probably isn't going to cut any ice.:-)
Anyway, this is deviating from aviation somewhat......
Originally Posted by
Skipness One Foxtrot
I have never suggested Glasgow had no inbound tourism, that's a classic straw man.
And you're taking what I said as literally as possible in order to create that straw man.
Notwithstanding that, tbh the impression I've taken over the years from your posts on this matter is that you think that foreign inbound tourism to Glasgow is negligible and the city's tourism offering and appeal is similarly severely limited (and compared to london or Paris it is, but of course Glasgow is not really competing with these places, but instead the likes of Bristol, Liverpool, Hamburg, Rotterdam etc).
Obviously I've misunderstood you on this, so I'd be happy to be corrected and hear your thoughts on the matter.
Originally Posted by
Skipness One Foxtrot
GLA has relatively under-performed against a booming UK aviation market.
I'd certainly agree with that.
I think many reasons have been put forward here and the reality is that what's happened at GLA is a combination of a little bit of each. However imo the break up of the BAA hold on GLA and EDI is the main one.
There may have been some categorisation, but I don't believe it ran right up to the sale or anytime near - let's lemember that DL ran (failed) EDI-ATL and JFK services long before then.
Afaik in 2004/5 both US and EK were offered EDI, but chose GLA.
I'd suggest simply that the sale process has worked out very well for EDI and it was quickly delivered into the hands of an ambitious, well financed operator with a clear strategic vision. Meanwhile, GLA was first left with a LHR focussed BAA and then transferred to an organisation that is arguably to some extent a BAA spin out, an organisation with little in the way of new thinking, aspiration (that word again!), or strategy for growing the airport. As such it has struggled as EDI has grown and EDI's owners have cottoned onto this to target as many of GLA's pax as possible.
This isn't to say that if GLA had ended up with different owners it would be bigger than EDI, but I do suspect it would be doing a good bit better than it is now.