The role for smaller airports
Air Salvage - a great development, well done DTV!
The UK has too many airports, but not too many airfields. Whilst it is not viable for every airport to have its own individual service to XYZ, there is a need for airfields with certain facilties to be home to industries like aircraft maintenance, salvage, storage, painting, pilot/ATC training, niche cargo, off-shore support, business GA, and (dare I say it?) aircraft manufacture!!! Our larger airports simply cannot safeguard space for this sort of activity. I think we'll increasingly see maintenance and main deck cargo moving out of Heathrow, Gatwick and to some extent Manchester. Despite the costs, airlines will be incentivised to ferry aircraft to maintenance airports or forfeit capacity expansion at their main hubs. BA have Cardiff already, there will no doubt need to be others. This is the future for the smaller and more marginal airports which cannot sustain many scheduled passenger services yet have good runways and space for hangars. This sort of operation is likely to create more skilled jobs locally than will stag weekend flights to Prague and Benidorm. The future is good for airports like DTV, just stop looking for passengers.