The irony is that there is way too little runway capacity in the SE and far too much elsewhere in the regions. Much of the latter was originally developed for military use, and is now redundant; indeed just how many of our remaining military air bases do we really need?
I think most leisure travellers' choice of departure airport is largely driven by price, and most people I know will drive at least a couple of hours to save £100-£150 in today's austere times. Take a family of 4 and maybe you're talking of a 3 hr drive to save £600.
Now put the loco bases on a map and add driving catchment areas and the justification of many non-loco served airports just isn't there. On that basis 90% of air travellers are caught by LHR, LGW, LTN, STN, MAN, SOU, BRS, BHX, NCL, EDI, INV and ABZ.
Ryanair and easyJet have demonstrably proved that you can go to the Med on a nice shiny big plane for as little as £50 one way. Unless the local airports offer that sort of deal, passengers won't compromise with old, small, or prop planes, nor will one flight a day do; they want choice of times too! Then its the killer case of the laws of diminishing returns. People drive past their 'local' airport to go to the big loco hub, so others follow. Airlines serving the local airport see a drop in numbers, so fares rise, so further drop. Airlines substitute smaller planes with far higher unit seat costs; so the routes become unprofitable; so the airlines pull out. The disparity between local and no-loco fares is so significant that its difficult to imagine any more than those 12 airports will be needed by the leisure market within the next decade.
And as we see, the business traveller is already heavily switching to the locos.
The cost of airport regulation, labour, capital equipment and maintenance is so high now for minor UK airports, there surely is no commercial future for them unless they have something special/unique in their area?
I wish it were otherwise but one has to remember: airlines are not there for providing what passengers want; they provide what passengers will pay for. And the passenger is clearly saying I want what is £100 cheaper down the road.
There is no point trying to offer daily/weekly 319/320 IT flights locally if you can't fill them and make money at hub prices. Otherwise you're playing against the market and you will lose, even as you extract local govt subsidies.
Today's pressure comes from local taxation (so cutting APD, subsidised airports etc.) and more housing. Some airports are ideal for that.
Last edited by V12; 14th Dec 2013 at 12:53.