This is fabulous stuff ...
As usual, I sit to be corrected about what I writte.
For the politicians it's a real Win - Win. It strike me as:
- politicians privatised BAA so that the market would do it's thing
- immediately hobbled the market by regulation
- their 'light touch' ensured that aiports had to become expensive shopping malls
- they also ensured that feeder flights would be squeezed out in preference for larger machine
- they also produced a market in slots, allowing carriers to make money from something that was free
20 years later?
- they are still pretending to help the passenger by limiting price rises
- but they know the prices have to rise or the aiport has to fall even further behind
- LHR is (at long last) in the midst of some real improvements and are now told they cannot get a return on their investment
- passengers continue to want to pay as little as possible (understandable)
- airlines are still not making very much money and so service standards have to fall
- the govt says this will hold ticket prices down - and so they escape any blame when prices go up as they surely must do
- regulations about flight time hours and all the rest continue
- and let's not talk about planning for expansion or anything that might really be about a free market.
I am not a fan of unfettered markets but I am REALLY not a fan of things that are neither fish nor fowl.
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning
Running rings around the moon
Written by Michel Legrand, Alan and Marilyn Bergman