The problem, guys, is that our politicians think pretty much like gasax. Quite a few because they don't know any better but a lot of them who actually do but feel that smashing GA is good for the votes. So they lie about it, like they lie about everything else to get a few extra votes.
It should not work that way. GA has been far too accomodating and has never made a stand for itself, out of fear that reprecussions might become even more severe. The fact that flying costs have exploded in our faces and EASA doing it's utmost to actually make the "only rich people can fly" myth a reality, should show every one of us what the writing on the wall is.
I did a 2000 NM return journey in a light plane some weeks ago and it pretty much went on schedule. Cost wise, as we were two on board, it was slightly higher than the scheduled services would have been but we took off 10 NM from our home and landed 10NM from our final destination. Total flying time was just under 15 hours, with 2 weeks in between.
Had we taken the scheduled service, we'd have ended up almost 200 NM from our destination. The airport in question not being a mainstream Easy/Ryan/Air Berlin/loco in general hub, the airlines know they can ask what the heck they want and do it with pleasure so the tickets for the two of us would have made up about 80-90% of the all up cost of the plane. BUT that would also have meant 2 additional travel days, time lost, on some of the scariest roads I am aware of in terms of accidents (not a meter worth of motorway included) and a road trip of over 300 NM as roads tend to go around things like mountains e.t.c.
Doing it by light aircraft saved us two days, which we could use to do what we had to do at our destination and in the end, considering a possible car hire e.t.c. came out pretty much equal out with the options we had otherwise. Having done this trip repeatedly by the tpa method (trains, planes, automobiles) I do know in what state you arrive after 2 days of travel.
Unfortunately, the approach gasax and others have to this is, "who do you think you are travelling in the first place?" Sorry folks, if we base the standard of living for EVERYONE on the weakest links in society and call everyone who works hard to be above this level a "filthy rich b*st*rd" then our society has descended into something I don't necessarily want a part of. Raving communists like that do unfortunately exist, but so do people who still have a sense and regard accomplishment as something desirable, not despecable. Maybe that is one of the things which make the difference why flying in the US, where accomplishment is still regardes as an aim worthy of pursuit, is regarded far mor normally as here, where everyone who has managed to climb fractionally about what is considered poverty level is regarded as a crook.