Pardon my spelling mistakes within my last post. This is what happens when I type fast from a mobile device and predictive text gets to work - and i don't recheck! corrected now.
DC9, very interesting commentary and when collectively summed up in one post, it is so clear the level of funds being granted to airlines and the level of subventions being paid to airports.
The question is, does the taxpayer get value for money? In most cases, I guess not. KLM gives great connectivity through AMS, but the lions share of their passengers are connecting at AMS. In many if not most cases this will be at the cost of LHR as a connecting point ( and Dublin in some cases too). If the granting bodies want to incentivise the likes of KL and SN that is all fine and well, but they need to be mindful of their LHR link. It should not be taken for granted, all too many parts of the domestic networks ex LHR have been canned, like LPL, NQY, JER, IOM, MME, BHX. We can ask reason away why these happened, but they are gone, BA bailed before. The former routes unlikely to come back soon. Bmi for its own reasons axed GLA in its last years. So the situation can be fluid. My point is there is little value to the NI taxpayer paying KL to be here. BRU, now with Brexit, the same can be said. If there is commercial viability, give them the incentives on airport costs ( available to all new routes to all airlines), but not tax payers money!
I think that strategically NI needs to have a regalar link to the US, to NYC. We need to be open for business on a direct basis. So there is some value in supporting this route. Though the question is for his long. I believe that the market may be more akin to a Norwegian type operator, with lower costs.
Ultimately, a UK outside of the EU, the shackles may come off in terms of the rules and rigour by which subventions can be paid to airlines and airports. May we see much more of this in the future?