Mining into the figures of passenger traffic at HAL.
1 in 3 are transfer pax, are these business or leisure travellers, HAL does not declare. How is a business traveller defined? I have travelled on business numerous times of behalf of the UK Govt on economy fares, so it cannot be just on the declared business fare class. I have had to use the Dubai hub to visit the far east, and an Asian carrier to NYC, both offering cheaper fares to save HMG money, both as a business traveller.
On a recent leisure trip to Barcelona for a cruise I was offered BA outbound and Vuelling in bound (both IAG group) from LHR, cheaper than gong to Gatwick (with car parking costs). Speaking to other travellers - one from Inverness, booked a cheaper fare to Gatwick, and used the agent to book the holiday from there to BCN, one took a coach from Glasgow to Manchester but discovered the flight was via AMS, the Belfast pax drove to Dublin as it was cheaper (IAG partner).
A large volume of leisure travellers throughout the UK have a wide choice of journey routes, and only the travel agents know which is the cheaper fare/route.
Middle East wealth funds have holdings in HAL, IAG and their own airline(s), the airlines part own NATS - conflict?
I recently had the opportunity of challenging HAL on why they only quote export figures of over £110bn in their promotion, how much is the import value? There reluctant reply was nearly half that value were imports.
