sennadog,
Here are a few links from the USA that may be of interest:
(1)
http://www.gaservingamerica.org/our_economy/economy.htm
(2)
http://www.senate.gov/~commerce/hearings/0329swa.PDF
(3)
http://www.partners-solberg.org/ga.htm
Should give you plenty of ammunition for that hypothetical pub encounter!
MLS-12D
P.S. The General Aviation Awareness Council [
www.gaac.co.uk/ga/generalaviationlowres.pdf] makes the interesting - and I believe perfectly valid - point that the great majority (85%) of scheduled air carriage is for personal pleasure, i.e. passengers jetting off on vacation and return.
So, while there is an undeniable element of truth in the argument that much of general aviation consists of pilots more or less aimlessly flying around and unproductively consuming fosil fuels, the same can be said of the airlines ... and somehow I don't anticipate that they are under any threat (except for economics, of course!).