Interesting - if not entirely informed - perspectives indeed.
Copenhagen - How would you feel if the Danish tourism industry was depending on Hamburg or Berlin to be the designated access point into Denmark, and having your external marketing message controlled by Berlin. And in such circumstances, would you be critical of the CEx of Copenhagen Airport for pointing out the obvious difficulty?
As for United from Belfast, as I understand it the Belfast route was hugely more productive on westbound point-of-sale than the equivalent routes are in Dublin. But the fact that the tourism message in America was selling Dublin effectively as the sole entry point to the whole market meant that they were picking up almost all of the higher value US fares, with the Belfast route's existence barely warranting a mention.
As for taking control of Belfast's own external sales message, well Brexit may well deliver exactly that through Visit Britain.
Only those in NI who know no better are happy with what is being delivered on northern tourism. Remember headline increases in 'visitor numbers' mean little if they are all day-trippers from Dublin. It's dwell and spend in the Northern Ireland market which is the real metric.
And as for Ryanair, and easyJet, not doing European city routes from Belfast, if the APD position in NI was levelled out with the Zero Tax position in Dublin - they'd frankly both be all over it.
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