Northern Echo, 26/09/2014
Peter Nears, strategic planning director at owners Peel Group... ...said: “When we lost the route down to Heathrow in 2009 it wasn’t because it wasn’t making money. It was just that a long haul route out of the same slot can make tens of millions."
Northern Echo, 19/02/2009
Peter Spencer, managing director of bmi, said a decline in demand and above-inflation cost increases at Heathrow meant the routes had become unsustainable and that unless BAA, which owns and runs Heathrow, reversed its pricing policy, there was little prospect of the routes becoming profitable in the future. Mr Spencer said: “The fact is that – due in the main to BAA’s inflation-busting increases and changes to its pricing structures that place a considerable disadvantage on short haul flights – travellers in the north of England are losing their important links to Heathrow. Instead of Heathrow, they will now have to rely on European airports such as Amsterdam, Brussels and Frankfurt to connect to worldwide destinations. BAA, through its tactics, would appear to want to completely cut itself off from the UK regions. This is a strategy that will inevitably have a negative impact upon the economic growth and inward investment in those key areas.”