How Government Works !
Interesting that although the Davies Commission does not report until after the next election, Sir Howard Davies himself has decided to report the findings already, presumably a bit of softening up to be done on the "greens".
In effect as we should have all predicted its more runways in the South East, and there is of course only one player in town so that will be Heathrow.
I think we "might" however have assumed the usual sop to "The regionals" and that Davies would have indicated that
"they s/b used to max capacity...blah blah blah".
Infact what he has said which may just come as a bit of a bombshell to MAG, is that point to point long haul travel is not environmentally friendly therefore its best if we deter these flights (see APD which is already doing a good job) and focus one 100% on a mega hub down South.
The carbon footprint of said expansion will be more than made up by deterring expansion elsewhere at these non-hubs.
I assume Manchester to be a non hub, so nowt down there then !
But wait, this comes in the same week that there has been a proposal by the Chinese to invest £650m in the somewhat ambitiously named "Airport City" project, infact Mr Osbourne is off to China this week end for a photo opportunity.
"Airport City tends to imply that you need an airport presumably with a long haul network so what now......
Whilst MAG have not exactly set the world on fire by attracting more long haul Manchester does at least have something to build on ....
Although clearly not if the Commission has its way !
Last edited by Bagso; 8th Oct 2013 at 06:23.