"Robin" wrote in message
...
On 29/02/2020 07:46, tim... wrote:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 14:54:44 on Fri, 28 Feb
2020, tim... remarked:

It therefore cannot possibly be argued that this increased
opportunity for air travel is necessary for the overall good of the
UK economy (except in the trivial amount that air side purchases form
of the economy)

You still banging on about that? The economic benefits of passengers
(and cargo) in transit go *way* beyond people buying a cup of coffee.

really

show your working,

cos I don't believe it

Every passenger in transit uses up two seats, and all the supporting
logistics for two seats. Not just at the airport, but all the service
industries whose customers are Heathrow based.

And it's not just a handful of seats on the planes, 35% of passengers
are doing transit.

but it's still a tiny amount of effect on total UK economy

Also not just all that extra money being spent locally to facilitate
their flights, but in many cases there very presence is what support the
number of destinations served, and in some cases the number of days a
week those flights operate.

but that not, of itself, an improvement for the UK Economy.

It's just an "Opportunity" benefit. (one that wont be accepted as
overriding the environmental dis-benefit)

In other news, a statistics from the news this week: 40% of all our
exports (to countries outside the EU - they sometimes forget to make
that qualification) go out of Heathrow. That's by value rather than
volume, of course.

but freight doesn't *need* to go from LHR.

That freight is presumably there because suitable passenger flights with
space in the hold, are currently there

and when the flights (to wherever it is) go from someone else (LGW for
example), International freight goes from that somewhere else.

and in many cases dedicated freight flights are set up from less used,
but strategically placed, airports as in the DHL hub at East Mids.

there's no pull factor from freight to fly from LHR, and no benefit to UK
GDP to move it there from where it currently flies from.

The biggest destination is the USA, which isn't surprising, not because
of the size of the market, but shipping something by sea to Seattle or
Los Angeles is a bit time consuming, and to Dallas or Chicago really
quite difficult. Whereas the planes can land anywhere just as easily.

That contradicts just about everything the Airports Commission had to say
about freight in its final report. It also contradicts what the air
freight industry said. One of their points was that some services are
simply not economic if flights (and all the overheads of freight handling)
are distributed among several airports. They require the diversity of
destinations at a hub and the concentration of functions there.

Can you not see that that's contradictory

"We want all of *our* flights to go from one airport

but we want to be able to ship stuff to multiple airports"

But then shippers at the other end probably wants all their shipments to go
from one airport and ship to multiple destinations.

they can't both be satisfied (unless loads of aircraft are going to fly
around empty on return legs).

Of course UK reps are going to say in some governmental committee meeting,
with none of the foreign representatives present, that they want that. But
out in the real world, it's impossible to give it to them (that's logically
impossible not physically/financially impossible)

tim