Originally Posted by
Phileas Fogg
Then aviation changed .... beancounters start running airlines etc
I suspect beancounters have been running some airlines, particularly those that have stuck around, for some time now. It's those who were led by supposed visionaries, or those who had little commercial ability, who tended to run out of beans, and are thus no longer with us.
Regarding regional UK routes, the Whitehall bureaucrats, who of course never use connecting flights from the provinces on to overseas themselves, have consistently missed the plot with Heathrow They should have declared it a singular national resource (which of course it is), and allocated a limited number of slots, properly spread through the day, for routes to provincial cities. Thus they would have got far more political support for the expansion of Heathrow, if those from the rest of the country were to actually use it. How concerned is the MP for Plymouth about Heathrow if a) There is no service there and they don't use it, or b) It is seen by them and all the businesses of the area as their link through to other countries. And you can bet that BA would have embraced the operators of such routes as commuter feeders, knowing that if they did not the slot could not be used for the 50th flight of the day to New York, but would go across to Star Alliance or whoever.