Pulls out his copy of the DETR (or whatever it is this week)/ OEF study on the the impact of air transport ( a little off the small buzzy things thread but its good ammo)
Air Transport (in 1998) contributed £10.2 bn to the GDP (1.4% of the total)
Directlyu employed 180,000 people (with an estimated 540,000 further jobs through the supply chain)
Produced around two and ahalf times as much value added per head as the Uk industry average
Exported £6.6 bn worth of services that's 3% of all UK exports
Contributed £2.5 bn to the exchequer.
And that's from '98 it's about the same level now since the falls in traffic at the worst brought things back to '98 levels and have improved a bit since then (bout this time last year).
or take em flying and convert em