AN airline company hopes it will be able to fly passengers on commercial flights from Carlisle's Lake District Airport. Lakeland Airways, a relatively new aviation company, looks to put forward a positive case for the re-opening of the airport. Chief vision officer, Jon Davies, said "opportunities have been missed" by not re-opening sooner. He was responding to Cumbria's Chamber of Commerce concerns that
'the money could be better spent elsewhere'.
Managing director Suzanne Caldwell said: "There's a lot more urgent that would make much more of a difference to Cumbrian businesses that need focusing on. In terms of sorting out challenges of economy, energy prices, labour shortages and the trains, If someone's got a plan that will make behind the airport that will work, we're absolutely behind it, we're not anti-airport. We just think there's an awful lot of challenges and lots of reasons for it not to work," she said.
The founder of Lakeland Airways highlighted one thing he felt has been overlooked is the potential inbound market into
Carlisle and Cumbria that would benefit.
"The primary role of the Chamber of Commerce is to protect and represent its members interests, however, I've been spending a lot of time engaging and networking with many small to medium-sized businesses in and around Carlisle, all of whom are really supportive of my vision and want to see commercial flights operating from and to the airport - they can't and don't understand why the Chamber have taken the stance that they have or indeed why they would choose to come across so negatively about something that there's a real appetite for," Mr Davies said.