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Old 17th May 2005, 22:01
  #719 (permalink)  
682ft AMSL
 
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: Leeds
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I doubt there is any "agreement" between Multi and LBA regarding 28/10. The Southside investment has been a joint initiative on the part of LBA and Multi, with both parties contributing funding and the overall direction being to create an engineering / executive handling service. The use of 28/10 for the flying club will (rightly or wrongly) have been secondary to the investment decision.

As for this old 'reactive' rubbish again, don't people realise the airport is run as a standalone business and recieves no public subsidy of any description, nor has it done so since at least 1987. It funds expansion from out of its own profitability or by securing third party commercial lending based on its projected financial performance. In short, it gets no handouts and would be unwise (and unsuccessful) if it tried to mortgage itself to the hilt to create a facility now that could cope with 5 million passengers x number of years down the line. And of course all the growth in passenger numbers is coming from airlines that pay very little, so as a business it is actually no more profitable than it was back when there were half the number of passengers.

If the airport wants all of

1) new terminal
2) apron expansion
3) parallel taxiways
4) ILS upgrades
5) public transport / road improvements
6) etc

..then there is little alternative than to get a private investor involved with deep pockets and plently of time on their hands to wait for payback on the cash they'd be investing. This isn't the call of local management at LBA, but of the local authority shareholders and until / if they act, Ed & Co will have to fund investment as they have been doing; which incidently, they should be given a reasonable amount of credit for what they have achieved over the past few years.

682
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