General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
Survey indicates business travellers prefer air if rail journey is over 3 hours, even if rail is cheaper
Research by the company Hogg Robinson Group (HRG) suggests that when travelling domestically for business, air journeys are preferred to rail if the rail journey is over 3 hours, despite potential cost savings (the company is paying). But there are differences between routes. The time taken to get to the airport, and from the airport to the final destination need to be taken into account. There is recognition that useful work can be done on the train, so that is not time wasted. For trips between Manchester and Edinburgh, about 90% of business travellers go by air. Business trips from Birmingham to Edinburgh or Glasgow are generally by air. But business travellers between London and Manchester are about 3 times as likely to go by train, rather then air (journey time is 2hours 11mins by train, and about half that by air). HRG now have a phone app that enables the traveller to compare times and costs of domestic rail/air journeys.
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John Stewart, Chair of AirportWatch, on secret blacklist – which may have been why he was barred from the USA
John Stewart, a leading campaigner against Heathrow expansion, Chairman of HACAN and of AirportWatch, has found his name on a “blacklist”, fuelling claims that such secret files have been more widely used than thought. John believes this list may be behind the reason why he was barred from the US in 2011, on a speaking tour, with no reason given. He has no criminal convictions, does not belong to a trade union and worked in retail before taking up peaceful campaigning. When his plane landed in New York he was escorted off it by armed guards and sent home. John has been told by the GMB union that he was on a blacklist previously thought to have only contained names of alleged “troublemakers” and trade unionists from the building industry. The Standard comments: "If this is true, the problem becomes very disquieting indeed. It’s hard to think of anything more inimical to the modern spirit of openness and transparency than the existence of a secret blacklist circulating between employers and institutions. And if it includes people whose only offence is to hold views or conduct campaigns that some companies or institutions find troublesome, it becomes downright frightening".
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Abertis considers sale of UK airports – Luton, Cardiff and Belfast International
Abertis, the Spanish owner of Luton, Cardiff and Belfast International airports, may sell them. According to The Sunday Times, Abertis has decided to sell the 3 airports as part of a review of its €1 billion transport division, and Citi and AZ Capital have been appointed to review the division. Luton airport has been surrounded by controversy over its development plans with the local council opposing Abertis’ plans for its development. The Welsh government is reported to be on the verge of buying Cardiff airport, which has had a large drop in traffic during the past few years. Albertis' airport assets in Bolivia were nationalised by President Evo Morales last week, and it has lost money in Spain in recent years. Campaigners at Luton said the timing of the sale was unfortunate, with the airport's current planning application - for which planning permission has not been secured. The sale threatens the investment on which the airport's hugely expensive expansion plans are based.
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Airports want easier Chinese visas for the UK as Chinese spend so much at the airport
Airport owners and retailers claim Chinese tour operators are “striking Britain from their itineraries” because of the UK’s “cumbersome” visa system, which is costing the UK economy £1.2bn in lost tourist revenue. (They are not blaming APD). The Airport Operators Association and the UK Travel Retail Forum have written to 4 cabinet ministers, including George Osborne and Theresa May, outlining the problem. Airport operators and retailers say Chinese visitors spend 9 times the amount of US visitors passing through duty free. The airports etc want the Government to simplify the UK’s visa regime because at present, Chinese visitors view the UK’s visa system as “expensive, bureaucratic and lacking in transparency”, and it is easier to visit Europe (which can be done on just one visa, which is cheaper than the UK visa). Currently, Chinese nationals wishing to visit Britain on holiday have to get their fingerprints taken at one of 12 authorities in China. They also have to fill out a lengthy application form and pay more than if they were to visit the Schengen area of 26 European countries.
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British Medical Journal: Experts call for stronger action on airports and health
In an editorial in a February edition of the BMJ, Professors Jangu Banatvala and Mala Rao give a stark warning once again about the direct health impacts of aviation arising from noise, pollution and the spread of communicable disease - as well as the indirect health impacts arising from greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on climate change. The impact of noise is well documented. In particular it results in poor performance at work from interrupted sleep and impaired learning development in primary school children living near airports. Stressing the importance of Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) before any policy decisions are made on major developments, so making sure that profits do not take precedence over health, Professors Banatvala and Rao say that the Government’s record on airports is ‘disappointing’. The editorial now calls on the Department of Health and the newly designated Public Health England to make their voices heard. ‘So far they have not.’
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Cheaper BA flights if you only have hand luggage as airline takes on budget rivals
British Airways is to follow budget airline rivals by charging less if passengers travel with just hand luggage. BA said the cheaper fares – which will initially be on flights from Gatwick Airport to 5 European destinations (Amsterdam, Dubrovnik, Jersey, Tunis and Turin) – will give passengers ‘more choice’. The size of discounts will vary depending on the route but will range from £9 to £15.And BA said that holidaymakers who travel with luggage they wish to check in will not pay more to compensate for the lower ‘hand baggage only’ fares. BA is doing this in order to try to compete with Ryanair and Easyjet that charge more for passengers to check in baggage, effectively charging less for those who don’t. The director of Gatwick for BA said many holidaymakers already use the two-bag hand luggage policy. BA is looking at pleasing price-sensitive customers.
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Mango – a low-cost South African airline – has its sustainability claims rubbished
South African low-cost airline, Mango, has made a variety of sustainability claims such as "Mango's per passenger carbon footprint is the lowest in the South African skies" and that the airline is starting a "medium to long term rollout that will see Mango flights become carbon neutral within the next 5 years." On checking exactly what Mango is doing to achieve this, it appears from an article in TravelMole that they have put a bit of money into a vegetable gardening scheme. That appears to have helped a few local communities in a small way but not from any significant carbon reduction perspective. It has instead been more helpful in PR spin for Mango (and - says TravelMole - "dangerously close to the tokenism derided by the Mango CEO in relation to tree planting and offsets". The founder of The Carbon Consultancy said of Mango: "its very disappointing to find companies making apparently unsubstantiated claims for the purpose of reassuring customers. It suggests that the CEO of the company neither understands nor cares about the content of communications on the environment ."
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Sad story of Ciudad Real Airport – a massive white elephant – that sits abandoned in central Spain
Ciudad Real International Airport in central Spain opened in 2009 to much hype and fanfare. The airport, which was meant to handle overflow from Madrid's Barajas airport, cost some €1.1 billion to build, including a large amount of public funding for infrastructure. The site is next to a town of just 72,000 people on the sparsely populated Castilian plain and lies more than 140 miles from Madrid. It was even named after Don Quixote, the deluded Castilian gentleman of Cervantes’s famous novel, before wiser heads renamed it simply “Central”. Although launched by local private investors, the project has been fulsomely supported by the regional government of Castilla La Mancha and was financed by CCM, the regional savings bank, or caja. There were initially intended to be huge Don Quixote themed attraction nearby, which did not materialise. Only Vueling flew there. The airport closed, as a massively loss-making white elephant, in April 2012 and now sits almost abandoned - except for some car testing.
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Colin Matthews bothered Heathrow might be eclipsed by Dubai and Istanbul
Colin Matthews, head of Heathrow, believes the number of hub airports in Europe will in due course reduce from its current 5 down to 3. This will happen as long-haul air traffic moves to hubs in the Middle East, which are better geographically located than the UK. Airports in Dubai and Istanbul have huge projects to increase capacity, as they are in the right locations. These emerging hub airports will “over time” divert traffic from Europe. Colin Matthew says this will intensify competition between Heathrow, Amsterdam Schiphol, Frankfurt, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Madrid. For some reason, instead of logically therefore not needing larger airports here, he implies that it means the UK has to compete fiercely to remain a huge European hub. He does say “The question at some stage will be not so much shall we have two [hubs] but how on earth are we going to be sure we have one at all? There are 27 member states in the EU, most of them do not have a hub. “It is not a birthright that we have this connectivity.”
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Beja airport in Portugal – another that has virtually no passengers
Beja Airport is an unused Portuguese airport that opened its doors to civilian flights -having for years been a military base, on April 15, 2011, having scheduled several charter flights to the United Kingdom and to Cape Verde. In spite of being the only Portuguese airport in the Portuguese Alentejo region, with an area comparable to the size of Belgium, it has not attracted low cost carriers. Ryanair is not interested in it. v It has about one flight every two days at most, by one company. As of September 2012, plans to reconvert it into cargo use are under discussion. The only attractions in the area are a dam and an ostrich farm, in addition to some historical attractions in the relatively small local town. Yet another airport expanded at great cost, for passengers who did not materialise - with similarities to Castellon and Ciudad Real airports in Spain.