Of course, expansion of air travel is incompatible with environmental protection. So, investment in realistic alternatives would be better - though in the short term shifting some air traffic to other airports would be better than continuing to concentrate things at Heathrow.
Top of my list for alternative investment to replace air travel would be high speed rail. A collection of routes that connect multiple UK cities, through the Channel to the rest of Europe.
I agree. We're in the minority. It will be politically impossible for centuries.
I'd like to see supporting passenger data for a third runway at Heathrow. My instinct tells me that a significant number of people for long-haul flights are having to schlep to the south east from the Midlands and farther north, and that a more sensible solution would be to beef-up Birmingham airport so they could handle long-haul flights.
Aside from rampant corruption, there is no difference between this shower and the last. I'm grateful not to have the rampant corruption, or the sense of being governed by overcaffeinated toddlers, but this is getting ridiculous.
Why do you assume there is less corruption when you consider all the freebies they get ?
It would be easier for Eurostar to behave 'more like a train, and less like a plane' if it were not for security and passport checks required by government. And it was easier before Brexit.
A significant proportion of flights in and out of Heathrow are short haul connections to other UK airports, with a significant proportion of passengers connecting to international flights from Heathrow. More international flights direct to other airports in the UK will therefore reduce the demand for the short haul flights, and bring more economic growth that extra flights are supposed to generate to those other parts of the UK.
What do you mean by significant proportion?
Looking for the numbers of aircraft movements, I haven't yet found a short/long haul division but short haul does include most of Europe, of course. However, Heathrow's own website says that 87% of the passengers are long haul. Even allowing for the fact that long-haul flights have more passengers per flight, on average, it would suggest that UK domestic flights are a minority.
According to FlightFrom.com, Heathrow serves 219 destinations, of which on 9 are UK airports:
So it'll be around 50-60 flights per day. Heathrow says that they have an average of 650 departures per day, hence UK flights are less than 10%. Is that a significant proportion? Genuinely asking. Of course many of those passengers will be travelling to/from London and not connecting.
I'd like to see supporting passenger data for a third runway at Heathrow. My instinct tells me that a significant number of people for long-haul flights are having to schlep to the south east from the Midlands and farther north, and that a more sensible solution would be to beef-up Birmingham airport so they could handle long-haul flights.
Birmingham already has a lot of long-haul flights. Including twice daily to Dubai, and a lot of transatlantic charter flights. It is also a 24 hour airport with minimal restriction on overnight flights: much less than Heathrow. The local authority has just approved an increase in night flights, much to the chagrin of local residents. I live under the flightpath about 3 miles out, it is very loud sometimes (not that I mind, I like the convenience of being so close and fly Birmingham-Edinburgh for work about 3 times a year). However, there are definitely people who travel to Heathrow to fly around the world who would much rather get a flight from their local airport. I've connected to long distant flights through Schiphol, Frankfurt and Paris CDG, in the past, which worked really well. Of course since Brexit, it's harder in each of those. Similarly, a colleague of mine is going to the US in 6 weeks time, flying Birmingham-Dublin to connect to the transatlantic flight.
Air travel is a very small proportion of overall emissions. Whilst I am very much in favour of expanding High Speed Rail as much as possible, I don't think that the environmental cost of a third runway at Heathrow is a disaster. For reference: Aircraft, world wide contribute 2.5% of Carbon emissions. Electricity generation is in the region of 40% depending on which study you look at. (Of course, it's changing all the time as we switch off coal and use more renewables). The same is also true of aircraft. By the time, any putative runway is built, the aircraft engine efficiency will have gone up another 10-20%.* My point is, there is an environmental cost to this - of course there is - but it's a small one and does not mean the environmental targets will be missed if others things come to fruition. Intriguingly, UK government figures suggest that for a single person travelling, there isn't a huge difference in CO2 emissions between flying and driving between two UK destinations. Although the car is three times worse than the train!**
If HS-3 ever happens (probably not in my lifetime) it will likely include a link to Heathrow. Done properly, there could be direct trains from Heathrow to the continent as well...
But I'll give you one, very good reason why it should happen: A former local MP, by the name of Boris Johnson promised he would lie in front of the bulldozers. I'm all for that....
It would be easier for Eurostar to behave 'more like a train, and less like a plane' if it were not for security and passport checks required by government. And it was easier before Brexit.
The journeys I referred to were before Brexit.
The train is slower than a plane. You can get a lot of that time back if the railway station is more conveniently located than the airport (city centres vs somewhere an hour or so's drive away, perhaps), or if there's less arsing around at the departure location. On a short-haul flight, you spend more time waiting in airports than you do actually flying.
It doesn't matter, from the traveller's point of view, whether the delays are caused by government policy or anything else - what matters is "how much does this cost me, how long will it take, and how comfortable is it". If you want people to take the train in preference to the plane, then the train has to be the clear winner in at least one of those three categories, and needs to be at least not too far behind in the other two.
I do know that for far too many journeys I've taken there has been little option but to go via Heathrow. That included all my flights to Japan while I was out there a lot, some flights to the US, and even some to the rest of Europe. I did get to Cape Town with a change in Dubai. When the only way to fly to, say New York, is to connect through Heathrow there's something wrong. It's certainly a major hassle, and adds several hours to a journey.
I do know that for far too many journeys I've taken there has been little option but to go via Heathrow. That included all my flights to Japan while I was out there a lot, some flights to the US, and even some to the rest of Europe. I did get to Cape Town with a change in Dubai. When the only way to fly to, say New York, is to connect through Heathrow there's something wrong. It's certainly a major hassle, and adds several hours to a journey.
Tokyo Haneda to London Heathrow is a distance of 5,960 miles by the shortest route.
Tokyo Haneda to Edinburgh airport is 5,753 miles.
Heathrow to Edinburgh is 331 miles.
So individual flights from Tokyo to Edinburgh and London means 11,713 flight miles while a single flight to Heathrow followed by a connecting flight to Edinburgh means 6,291 flight miles. Fewer flight miles is (presumably) more efficient economically and better for the environment as it means fewer emissions (assuming total fuel usage/emissions is roughly proportional to total flight miles rather than, say, the majority of fuel usage/emissions coming from takeoff and landing). The conclusion is thus that it's better to have long-distance flights between international hubs with connecting flights from those hubs to regional airports than to have direct long-haul flights from everywhere to everywhere else.
Granted, that means less convenient journeys for people who live far from hubs and that it sucks to live near a hub. But it's better overall.
Granted, that means less convenient journeys for people who live far from hubs and that it sucks to live near a hub. But it's better overall.
Modern narrowbody planes make this better: when the long-haul aircraft you have are all massive jumbos, you lean heavily in to a hub-and-spoke network model. The more you have smaller aircraft that are safe and economical to operate, the more you can have a decentralized point-to-point model.
It would still mean considerably more flight miles though. In the example I gave above it's nearly double the total mileage - so the planes would have to be no more than half as expensive and polluting for it to work out better.
And that's with only two destinations. If you're also adding in flights from Tokyo to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds/Bradford, etc then the sums rapidly get out of hand.
Though not if you shift the flight rather than just adding a flight. If one of the several Heathrow to Tokyo flights each day instead used Manchester or Glasgow then you've cut the total mileage for people from Northern England or Scotland, and eased congestion at Heathrow so other flights aren't circling so much, and brought any economic benefits associated with those flights out of the south east and into regions of the country where a boost in the economy would be more useful. It's not as though it's that radical an idea given that the flights from Heathrow go to two different airports in Japan already why shouldn't they originate from two different airports in the UK?
1. Increase international flights to other UK airports. Modern, 2-engined wide bodies (Airbus A330Neo, A350, Boeing 787 and 777) are designed for exactly this point-to-point role. There is a trend to this anyway over the past 15-20 years. Emirates, for example fly to Heathrow a lot (6-7 flights each day) but they also fly to Gatwick, Stanstead, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh from their Dubai hub.
2. Improve high speed rail as an alternative to flying. London to Edinburgh/Glasgow/Manchester/Leeds/Newcastle could all be better by rail.
I am 100% in favour of both. Let's stipulate that we do both well and thus halve the Heathrow domestic flights, that would lead to a 5% reduction in demand for Heathrow. Not bad but a new runway (and other, related development increases capacity by 50%.
SGP policy is for a single international airport in Scotland (this would make international flights more cost effective by concentrating these flights from a single airport within Scotland), with good public transport links (so access to international flights is possible from all of mainland Scotland without connecting flights), and no expansion of any existing airport infrastructure. Our policy recognises that flights to remote islands may be more cost effective (including re: fuel use) than overland options, but otherwise would discourage domestic flights for both passengers and freight.
Also, replacing air passenger duty with frequent flyer levies that increasingly penalise those who fly more often, with exceptions for the aforementioned flights to remote and island communities where there's no viable alternative to flying. And, aviation fuel will be taxed to reflect the environmental impact of flying.
Your views on flying to Scotland seem to be rather different to your views on flying to England. And wouldn’t Scottish cities benefit from the economic boost of long haul flights the same way you say English ones would?
SGP policy is for a single international airport in Scotland (this would make international flights more cost effective by concentrating these flights from a single airport within Scotland), with good public transport links (so access to international flights is possible from all of mainland Scotland without connecting flights), and no expansion of any existing airport infrastructure. Our policy recognises that flights to remote islands may be more cost effective (including re: fuel use) than overland options, but otherwise would discourage domestic flights for both passengers and freight.
Also, replacing air passenger duty with frequent flyer levies that increasingly penalise those who fly more often, with exceptions for the aforementioned flights to remote and island communities where there's no viable alternative to flying. And, aviation fuel will be taxed to reflect the environmental impact of flying.
Because Scotland is a lot smaller than the UK. The vast majority of the population lives close to one of the potential single international airport (which, realistically will be either Glasgow or Edinburgh), and a decent train line to either connecting to Glasgow and Edinburgh and Aberdeen etc would make a single airport easily accessible. Any potential economic boost from international flights will be shared between those cities, because they are close to the airport which isn't the case for even Birmingham and Heathrow, much less Manchester or Leeds or many other UK cities.
Because Scotland is a lot smaller than the UK. The vast majority of the population lives close to one of the potential single international airport (which, realistically will be either Glasgow or Edinburgh), and a decent train line to either connecting to Glasgow and Edinburgh and Aberdeen etc would make a single airport easily accessible. Any potential economic boost from international flights will be shared between those cities, because they are close to the airport which isn't the case for even Birmingham and Heathrow, much less Manchester or Leeds or many other UK cities.
Appreciate you’re replying to Martin but is that really true for Aberdeen (or would it be given a decent train)?
I totally get the argument re Glasgow and Edinburgh being very close. But with Aberdeen, at the centre of a fairly international industry (albeit one that the Greens want to phase out) aren’t we into Birmingham-Heathrow territory?
Mischievously, part of me now wonders about closing Edinburgh and Glasgow and building a new airport in Falkirk… (though I still have doubts about Aberdeen so not to solve that)
Because Scotland is a lot smaller than the UK. The vast majority of the population lives close to one of the potential single international airport (which, realistically will be either Glasgow or Edinburgh), and a decent train line to either connecting to Glasgow and Edinburgh and Aberdeen etc would make a single airport easily accessible. Any potential economic boost from international flights will be shared between those cities, because they are close to the airport which isn't the case for even Birmingham and Heathrow, much less Manchester or Leeds or many other UK cities.
Appreciate you’re replying to Martin but is that really true for Aberdeen (or would it be given a decent train)?
I totally get the argument re Glasgow and Edinburgh being very close. But with Aberdeen, at the centre of a fairly international industry (albeit one that the Greens want to phase out) aren’t we into Birmingham-Heathrow territory?
Marvin, obviously - sorry missed the edit window but I did know who was in the conversation honest!
3 letters come to mind re. connections between English cities - HS2. I realise that this is intended eventually to bring in Edinburgh and Glasgow, but as far as I recall it's not supposed to connect them.
SGP policy is for a single international airport in Scotland (this would make international flights more cost effective by concentrating these flights from a single airport within Scotland), with good public transport links (so access to international flights is possible from all of mainland Scotland without connecting flights), and no expansion of any existing airport infrastructure. Our policy recognises that flights to remote islands may be more cost effective (including re: fuel use) than overland options, but otherwise would discourage domestic flights for both passengers and freight.
There's a clear logic to that. I can't quite remember the Glasgow arrangements but Edinburgh is an airport with a railway line right next to it and no station! A situation that is both stupid and easily fixable. Edinburgh Trams are great and good value but stop running around 11 which often means I miss the last one if my flight is a little delayed...
Originally posted by Betjemaniac: is that really true for Aberdeen
I like travelling by train, but for us (within the Aberdeen commuter belt, but not in Aberdeen itself) getting a train to Edinburgh Airport is no fun. Depending on connections it's between 3 1/2 and 4 hours by train. This morning, for example, if I wanted to arrive at Edinburgh airport by 2, I could catch the 10.30. However, it has two changes; a 19 min connection at Aberdeen and then a 6 min connection at Haymarket. The Haymarket connection is too tight for me to feel comfortable, so I'd get an earlier train, the 9.15, or be prepared to pay for a taxi at Haymarket.
The next train after the 10.30, the 11.00 would get me to Edinburgh Airport just after 3, again with two changes. There's a 14 minute connection at Aberdeen and an 11 min connection at Perth. It's always a bit stressful trying to weigh up whether you are prepared to chance the 11min change at Perth, or whether you want to be on the safe side and set off earlier. If I had to be at the airport by 3.30, I'd probably opt for the 10.30 train.
Of course, SGP policy also includes significant improvements to the rail network - including connectivity between Aberdeen, Inverness, Dumfries etc with Glasgow and Edinburgh, which would include airport connections. This would have benefits independent of changes to air travel.
Yes, I look forward to improvements. The new Inverness Airport train station opened within the last couple of years, so I don't doubt that improvements are feasible. The rail line from Aberdeen to Inverurie was dualled within the last five years; if that dualling could be extended towards Inverness, there'd be no more sitting in a stationary train at Keith or Elgin waiting for the late-running train in the opposite direction to pass!
Of course, SGP policy also includes significant improvements to the rail network - including connectivity between Aberdeen, Inverness, Dumfries etc with Glasgow and Edinburgh, which would include airport connections. This would have benefits independent of changes to air travel.
Sort of like HS3 for Aberdeen? Been a while since I looked at Scottish railway lines in any detail, but IIRC the Edinburgh-Aberdeen route is ‘difficult’ when it comes to curvature and gradient (it has in the past needed bespoke locomotion), so squeezing more speed/capacity out of it is going to be an interesting planning/engineering challenge for someone!
If the government (national) made it cheaper to land planes at Cardiff. It could take more planes. It has a full size runway.
Difficult equations though- Cardiff’s fewer than a million passengers a year. An hour away is Bristol airport, which is more like 10 million a year, should both airports be allowed to expand? should neither? Should one of them be prioritised? Etc…
If the government (national) made it cheaper to land planes at Cardiff. It could take more planes. It has a full size runway.
Difficult equations though- Cardiff’s fewer than a million passengers a year. An hour away is Bristol airport, which is more like 10 million a year, should both airports be allowed to expand? should neither? Should one of them be prioritised? Etc…
Even if they just made it possible for Cardiff to take the planes it is capable of taking it would help
If the government (national) made it cheaper to land planes at Cardiff. It could take more planes. It has a full size runway.
Difficult equations though- Cardiff’s fewer than a million passengers a year. An hour away is Bristol airport, which is more like 10 million a year, should both airports be allowed to expand? should neither? Should one of them be prioritised? Etc…
Even if they just made it possible for Cardiff to take the planes it is capable of taking it would help
Who's they and what stops it taking the planes it can take?
Cardiff has many more flights (not long-haul) prior to the collapse of FlyBe.
And, even from house in NE Cardiff and very close to the M4, it's quite a trek to Bristol Airport. There are coaches, but that would mean a long bus journey into town, followed by a good 20-25 walk. Trains aren't an option.
Actually he only gets one and a half cheers, because he hasn't mentioned Brexit, which is the problem. If Labour really want to govern, rather than just playing politics, they have to address the fact that the only workable strategy is to repair our alliance with our European neighbours. No-one else gives even a single shit, which is about as much as they do.
If the government (national) made it cheaper to land planes at Cardiff. It could take more planes. It has a full size runway.
Difficult equations though- Cardiff’s fewer than a million passengers a year. An hour away is Bristol airport, which is more like 10 million a year, should both airports be allowed to expand? should neither? Should one of them be prioritised? Etc…
Even if they just made it possible for Cardiff to take the planes it is capable of taking it would help
Who's they and what stops it taking the planes it can take?
If the government (national) made it cheaper to land planes at Cardiff. It could take more planes. It has a full size runway.
Difficult equations though- Cardiff’s fewer than a million passengers a year. An hour away is Bristol airport, which is more like 10 million a year, should both airports be allowed to expand? should neither? Should one of them be prioritised? Etc…
Even if they just made it possible for Cardiff to take the planes it is capable of taking it would help
Who's they and what stops it taking the planes it can take?
As I said national government has made landing prices high so it is expensive to land there. Therefore it doesn’t take the number of planes it could. “They”means the government.
The latest extract contains suggestions that Labour blocked Angela Rayner's plans to block political donors from foreign donors after Lord Alli intervened:
"Lord Alli, a personal friend of Starmer, is said to have intervened to stop Labour from announcing an outright ban on foreign donations when it was in opposition."
The emails show that Morgan McSweeney, now Starmer’s chief of staff, gave the policy his backing. An adviser in Rayner’s team said he wanted to present the planned legislation as an attempt to stop people who don’t have “skin in the game” from “funnelling money in British democracy”.
However, a Labour official involved in discussions on the policy said the plans were abandoned after an intervention from Alli. “With a week to go Morgan pulled it … It turned out Waheed told Morgan to pull it, and so he did.” They said it was not clear why Alli intervened, and the peer did not respond to requests for comment."
Also Angela seems to have been not exactly complimentary about Starmer’s abilities. How long he has left as Leader is now not that certain. He needs to prove he a more than a puppet. Critics are not having as much of a field day as I thought they would over this. I think they are letting the piece speak for itself.
Isn’t that someone claiming she said it, rather than her saying it?
OK you could say that about much of the stuff in the book we have been talking about. Pretty much any book if its kind really. We have to assume they are not just making it up. They claim it is true. It is up to us if we believe them.
Isn’t that someone claiming she said it, rather than her saying it?
The someone(s) being Pogrund and McGuire - political journalists with plenty of contacts in the Labour Party. The extracts contain a number of quotes from various people, all of whom are at liberty to deny them.
Though 2032 is an incredibly optimistic timescale. Currently there are no SMRs ready to go - the various options (including the Rolls Royce, which isn't strictly an SMR at all, that Boris was pushing) exist as blueprints and computer models. To take one or two of those designs to a prototype in 7 years would be optimistic. To then go from prototype to production model, and importantly satisfy all the approvals for safety etc, would be at least 10y beyond that. I would like to see design approval to include the full life cycle - so including fuel fabrication and most importantly have plan for how to decommission the reactors and deal with spent fuel and other nuclear waste that they will generate. Given that we (the UK) still don't have a means for disposal of the nuclear waste generated over the last 70 years of nuclear power I wouldn't place bets on anything being available (even at the point of a site selected and construction started) in 10 years let alone before any SMRs come online.
We should just get on and go for deep underground disposal. The waste already exists, we have to do something with it. Making more doesn't make the problem any worse.
Comments
I agree. We're in the minority. It will be politically impossible for centuries.
What do you mean by significant proportion?
Looking for the numbers of aircraft movements, I haven't yet found a short/long haul division but short haul does include most of Europe, of course. However, Heathrow's own website says that 87% of the passengers are long haul. Even allowing for the fact that long-haul flights have more passengers per flight, on average, it would suggest that UK domestic flights are a minority.
According to FlightFrom.com, Heathrow serves 219 destinations, of which on 9 are UK airports:
Edinburgh, (7-14 per day)
Glasgow, (10-13)
Manchester, (7-9)
Aberdeen, (6-9)
Newcastle, (5-7)
Belfast, (5-7)
Derry, (2-3)
Dundee, (0-2)
Inverness. (1-2).
So it'll be around 50-60 flights per day. Heathrow says that they have an average of 650 departures per day, hence UK flights are less than 10%. Is that a significant proportion? Genuinely asking. Of course many of those passengers will be travelling to/from London and not connecting.
Birmingham already has a lot of long-haul flights. Including twice daily to Dubai, and a lot of transatlantic charter flights. It is also a 24 hour airport with minimal restriction on overnight flights: much less than Heathrow. The local authority has just approved an increase in night flights, much to the chagrin of local residents. I live under the flightpath about 3 miles out, it is very loud sometimes (not that I mind, I like the convenience of being so close and fly Birmingham-Edinburgh for work about 3 times a year). However, there are definitely people who travel to Heathrow to fly around the world who would much rather get a flight from their local airport. I've connected to long distant flights through Schiphol, Frankfurt and Paris CDG, in the past, which worked really well. Of course since Brexit, it's harder in each of those. Similarly, a colleague of mine is going to the US in 6 weeks time, flying Birmingham-Dublin to connect to the transatlantic flight.
Air travel is a very small proportion of overall emissions. Whilst I am very much in favour of expanding High Speed Rail as much as possible, I don't think that the environmental cost of a third runway at Heathrow is a disaster. For reference: Aircraft, world wide contribute 2.5% of Carbon emissions. Electricity generation is in the region of 40% depending on which study you look at. (Of course, it's changing all the time as we switch off coal and use more renewables). The same is also true of aircraft. By the time, any putative runway is built, the aircraft engine efficiency will have gone up another 10-20%.* My point is, there is an environmental cost to this - of course there is - but it's a small one and does not mean the environmental targets will be missed if others things come to fruition. Intriguingly, UK government figures suggest that for a single person travelling, there isn't a huge difference in CO2 emissions between flying and driving between two UK destinations. Although the car is three times worse than the train!**
If HS-3 ever happens (probably not in my lifetime) it will likely include a link to Heathrow. Done properly, there could be direct trains from Heathrow to the continent as well...
But I'll give you one, very good reason why it should happen: A former local MP, by the name of Boris Johnson promised he would lie in front of the bulldozers. I'm all for that....
AFZ
*Possibly more. There is a lot of talk in the industry about game-changing engine designs at the start of the next decade.
**https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/transport-and-environment-statistics-2023/transport-and-environment-statistics-2023 - Figure 2 is particularly interesting in terms of how CO2 from energy production has fallen since 1990. (As these figures go to 2021, they're slightly distorted by the pandemic years).
The journeys I referred to were before Brexit.
The train is slower than a plane. You can get a lot of that time back if the railway station is more conveniently located than the airport (city centres vs somewhere an hour or so's drive away, perhaps), or if there's less arsing around at the departure location. On a short-haul flight, you spend more time waiting in airports than you do actually flying.
It doesn't matter, from the traveller's point of view, whether the delays are caused by government policy or anything else - what matters is "how much does this cost me, how long will it take, and how comfortable is it". If you want people to take the train in preference to the plane, then the train has to be the clear winner in at least one of those three categories, and needs to be at least not too far behind in the other two.
I do know that for far too many journeys I've taken there has been little option but to go via Heathrow. That included all my flights to Japan while I was out there a lot, some flights to the US, and even some to the rest of Europe. I did get to Cape Town with a change in Dubai. When the only way to fly to, say New York, is to connect through Heathrow there's something wrong. It's certainly a major hassle, and adds several hours to a journey.
Isn't it fortunate that you can fly direct to New York from Edinburgh, then?
Tokyo Haneda to London Heathrow is a distance of 5,960 miles by the shortest route.
Tokyo Haneda to Edinburgh airport is 5,753 miles.
Heathrow to Edinburgh is 331 miles.
So individual flights from Tokyo to Edinburgh and London means 11,713 flight miles while a single flight to Heathrow followed by a connecting flight to Edinburgh means 6,291 flight miles. Fewer flight miles is (presumably) more efficient economically and better for the environment as it means fewer emissions (assuming total fuel usage/emissions is roughly proportional to total flight miles rather than, say, the majority of fuel usage/emissions coming from takeoff and landing). The conclusion is thus that it's better to have long-distance flights between international hubs with connecting flights from those hubs to regional airports than to have direct long-haul flights from everywhere to everywhere else.
Granted, that means less convenient journeys for people who live far from hubs and that it sucks to live near a hub. But it's better overall.
Modern narrowbody planes make this better: when the long-haul aircraft you have are all massive jumbos, you lean heavily in to a hub-and-spoke network model. The more you have smaller aircraft that are safe and economical to operate, the more you can have a decentralized point-to-point model.
And that's with only two destinations. If you're also adding in flights from Tokyo to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds/Bradford, etc then the sums rapidly get out of hand.
Fair enough. It's not nothing.
Let's follow the logic through.
1. Increase international flights to other UK airports. Modern, 2-engined wide bodies (Airbus A330Neo, A350, Boeing 787 and 777) are designed for exactly this point-to-point role. There is a trend to this anyway over the past 15-20 years. Emirates, for example fly to Heathrow a lot (6-7 flights each day) but they also fly to Gatwick, Stanstead, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh from their Dubai hub.
2. Improve high speed rail as an alternative to flying. London to Edinburgh/Glasgow/Manchester/Leeds/Newcastle could all be better by rail.
I am 100% in favour of both. Let's stipulate that we do both well and thus halve the Heathrow domestic flights, that would lead to a 5% reduction in demand for Heathrow. Not bad but a new runway (and other, related development increases capacity by 50%.
AFZ
What is the Scottish Green Party’s stance on significant regional airport expansion?
(Absolutely genuine question, btw, not trying to be clever)
Also, replacing air passenger duty with frequent flyer levies that increasingly penalise those who fly more often, with exceptions for the aforementioned flights to remote and island communities where there's no viable alternative to flying. And, aviation fuel will be taxed to reflect the environmental impact of flying.
Thanks
Appreciate you’re replying to Martin but is that really true for Aberdeen (or would it be given a decent train)?
I totally get the argument re Glasgow and Edinburgh being very close. But with Aberdeen, at the centre of a fairly international industry (albeit one that the Greens want to phase out) aren’t we into Birmingham-Heathrow territory?
Marvin, obviously - sorry missed the edit window but I did know who was in the conversation honest!
There's a clear logic to that. I can't quite remember the Glasgow arrangements but Edinburgh is an airport with a railway line right next to it and no station! A situation that is both stupid and easily fixable. Edinburgh Trams are great and good value but stop running around 11 which often means I miss the last one if my flight is a little delayed...
is that really true for Aberdeen
I like travelling by train, but for us (within the Aberdeen commuter belt, but not in Aberdeen itself) getting a train to Edinburgh Airport is no fun. Depending on connections it's between 3 1/2 and 4 hours by train. This morning, for example, if I wanted to arrive at Edinburgh airport by 2, I could catch the 10.30. However, it has two changes; a 19 min connection at Aberdeen and then a 6 min connection at Haymarket. The Haymarket connection is too tight for me to feel comfortable, so I'd get an earlier train, the 9.15, or be prepared to pay for a taxi at Haymarket.
The next train after the 10.30, the 11.00 would get me to Edinburgh Airport just after 3, again with two changes. There's a 14 minute connection at Aberdeen and an 11 min connection at Perth. It's always a bit stressful trying to weigh up whether you are prepared to chance the 11min change at Perth, or whether you want to be on the safe side and set off earlier. If I had to be at the airport by 3.30, I'd probably opt for the 10.30 train.
Sort of like HS3 for Aberdeen? Been a while since I looked at Scottish railway lines in any detail, but IIRC the Edinburgh-Aberdeen route is ‘difficult’ when it comes to curvature and gradient (it has in the past needed bespoke locomotion), so squeezing more speed/capacity out of it is going to be an interesting planning/engineering challenge for someone!
Difficult equations though- Cardiff’s fewer than a million passengers a year. An hour away is Bristol airport, which is more like 10 million a year, should both airports be allowed to expand? should neither? Should one of them be prioritised? Etc…
Who's they and what stops it taking the planes it can take?
And, even from house in NE Cardiff and very close to the M4, it's quite a trek to Bristol Airport. There are coaches, but that would mean a long bus journey into town, followed by a good 20-25 walk. Trains aren't an option.
Actually he only gets one and a half cheers, because he hasn't mentioned Brexit, which is the problem. If Labour really want to govern, rather than just playing politics, they have to address the fact that the only workable strategy is to repair our alliance with our European neighbours. No-one else gives even a single shit, which is about as much as they do.
As I said national government has made landing prices high so it is expensive to land there. Therefore it doesn’t take the number of planes it could. “They”means the government.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/keir-starmers-not-driving-the-train-confessions-of-his-inner-circle-mq2kbg39x
https://x.com/patrickkmaguire/status/1886485831625662597
https://www.thetimes.com/article/3bb4e0e0-77cf-4671-aa3b-95e94dfb0ecb
From the article:
"Lord Alli, a personal friend of Starmer, is said to have intervened to stop Labour from announcing an outright ban on foreign donations when it was in opposition."
The emails show that Morgan McSweeney, now Starmer’s chief of staff, gave the policy his backing. An adviser in Rayner’s team said he wanted to present the planned legislation as an attempt to stop people who don’t have “skin in the game” from “funnelling money in British democracy”.
However, a Labour official involved in discussions on the policy said the plans were abandoned after an intervention from Alli. “With a week to go Morgan pulled it … It turned out Waheed told Morgan to pull it, and so he did.” They said it was not clear why Alli intervened, and the peer did not respond to requests for comment."
What did they say? What did Rayner say, to which @Hugal possiblyy alludes?
Here is what she said
OK you could say that about much of the stuff in the book we have been talking about. Pretty much any book if its kind really. We have to assume they are not just making it up. They claim it is true. It is up to us if we believe them.
The someone(s) being Pogrund and McGuire - political journalists with plenty of contacts in the Labour Party. The extracts contain a number of quotes from various people, all of whom are at liberty to deny them.
Reason...Not because he's innocent....Because it happened over 3 years ago.