Originally Posted by
All names taken
LA
I admire your enthusiasm and persistence but I think you should also know when to quit.
You've thrown a proposition out there for debate and that's your right and privilege. Fair enough.
But you've been trounced in that debate and now you should gracefully withdraw.
Summary points:
1. There are already too many airports in the North of England
2. The business case for another one cannot be made.
3. All the arguments about a Yorkshire International were previously made in respect of Finningley. The relative failure of that venture will, in itself, be enough evidence to scare off all potential investors in CF whether they are private or public.
4. LBA isn't going to just disappear.
5. If it was 'forced' to close, the owners would demand and receive very substantial compensation for their loss. The government would not be paying this, nor the Yorkshire LAs, nor a private company. So who would?
6. There is nothing stopping SAS or AF or LH serving LBA - or Yorkshire right now - nothing. They don't. Why would the existence of a so called 'proper' airport change that?
7. The Vale of York is a well known 'fog spot' in any case.
8. You are railing (with some justification) about decisions that were taken decades ago and in economic terms are practically irreversible.
9. Cost of associated infrastructure: airfield upgrade, terminal construction, new link roads, rail link (?) would run into hundreds of millions. There are better opportunities to spend the nation's wealth and better opportunities for the reduced number of private airport developers and operators too. This will never be an investment priority.
Nobody has even been able to offer any kind of counter argument to anything I've stated. I've backed up the debate with irrefutable facts and figures about connection times to Church Fenton, LBA's far from ideal runway and airfield characteristics (as I watch another RYR diverting in a gale force snow storm), why finningley cannot properly represent Yorkshire (shown by its historic downward passenger figures), how LBA is cut off from the motorways and how it can take an hour from airport to motorway. Oh and I may have mentioned Yorkshire's huge population. Everything has been covered logically so I'm not quite sure where I've been 'trounced' as you put it!?
Every one of your points I've covered ad nauseam. A businessman has stated that he intends to run scheduled European flights from Church Fenton - I think I know what he's getting at. There's one of the most popular GA airfields just 2 or 3 miles away!? Very much thin end of the wedge from here. If all goes to plan it will have a huge affect on MAN. It has been needed for years - Yorkshire has lost billions upon billions of pounds because of politicians.