Airport chairman Liam Scollan has an op-ed article in todays Independent on future of "regional" air access, interesting comments in light of regional debate, particularly on raising our low tourism targets.
Fittest not fattest should survive terminal decline
...Are we to be content with small single-digit increases on current visitor numbers from a small seven million base or should we look to countries like Austria, with similar size and 22 million international visitors?
Perhaps the idea of even doubling tourism revenues in the next three years sounds daft -- almost as daft as building an airport on a foggy boggy hill! OUR own airport achieved 300pc growth in the last nine years despite the terminal decline that was predicted.
Our client airlines such as Ryanair, Flybe, Aer Lingus, and bmibaby, form a basis on which further significant tourism increases can be achieved. To get it right we have to throw out outmoded twin-track policies for state and non-state airports and replace them with policies that favour efficiency, independence and ambition.
Tourism equally needs a radical shift to recognising that the development of new routes is the real driver of tourism growth and the way to achieve a major uplift in national and regional economies.