In fairness to poor old MC, and I admit that I have criticised him on occasions, but if you look at what happened on his watch, it's not at all bad. More could have been done of course, but I don't think aviation has done that badly by him. We have Open Skies (and yes, that might have happened anyway, BUT had the govt not done a special deal with the US, we could have had to wait until next March to see new routes started). And there's Canada too.
I think the big fault with this govt as far as aviation is concerned is the lack of proactivity; there is still no feeling of dynamism or direction, or even interest as far as aviation is concerned. One major fault is that the DAA seems to get away with murder from FF; I'd love to see Mary Harney take Transport, but she's apparently going to stick with Health. The DAA needs competition and responsibility needs to be taken for the airport's development, which FF has always seemed unwilling to do.
On the subject of EI's future development, here's a piece from Reuters:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/busine...70613?rpc=401&
- Growth ambitions to China, F/E, SA, but these are at the the end of a 5-6 year plan; US is the key focus.
- One new city on E Coast next year (PHL? MIA?), one midwest city (DFW?).
So, despite all the talk of BKK and other Asian cities, it looks like we'll be waiting until 2011-12 for these?