DB6: the gains are at the London end: try getting from Stanstead to a meeting anywhere in Canary Wharf, the West End, or anywhere in the City other than just by Liverpool St Station, and any time you lost in the inconveniences you cite in EDI, are won back and more down South. Next, try over-running your meeting and rushing to Stanstead only to just miss the flight (add 16hr wait with hotel costs), when there are loads of later flights from the other airports. There must be 50 flights to London from Edinburgh. And the Stanstead Express is unreliable. As for aircraft I obviously wasn't thinking of big planes in Dundee, just the difference between flying on a quieter jet at altitude to London, over a prop; even a Dash 8 is better than the Dornier. Anyway you don't begin to justify why taxpayers should have to pay £4.5million so 30 people a day don't have to use Edinburgh.