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Last time I was there I watched direct flight to Chile leave with LAN and I believe Singapore go to Sao Pau so not all routed through the "empire". Do not know if LAN are still on this route but I believe SQ are, as I was talking to cabin crew who had been on that route when flying with SQ late last year.
Sam
Perhaps you should lobby as hard for Bristol as us in the North do for our regional airports, but I sympathise with the transport difficulties of your region. As for high speed rail, HS3 looks as though its been put back in the play box, and HS2 is mired in conflict / cost and is not as popular up here as you seem to think. The other thing is people are inherently lazy, and are to some degree getting worse, in that they do not want to put up with traveling to a hub airport all the time when they can go from their local airport direct, or change on route. The 787 bless it was designed around this concept of long range on thinner routes.
Regards
Mr Mac