Quote: Well that can be done in the way they did with "Railtrack" in which it was a nationalization in all but name for a start, which we also did with 2 of our biggest banks, also you have to remember that we still have airports that are owned by government authorities in this country (remember most European states and even the USA have state owned airports).
It had to be done for Railtrack because of the stupid arrangements for rail privatisation (which, incidentally requires more government subsidy than the old British Rail). It had to be done for the banks, because they went belly up. It does not have to be done for airports.
Agree that privately owned airports is unusual, maybe unique, but both Conservative and Labour governments are wedded to this policy.
Quote: Also the government is effectively interfering in the running of our "private" airports by the actions they have done (like they do with the railways)
Agreed.
Quote: Its not just the runways though, you also need to build more terminals to cope with the extra traffic and those take around 5 years to build
In the long term, maybe, but at present, terminal capacity is not an issue. Today, it is the lack of rwy capacity that is critical.