In message
, at
08:06:21 on Fri, 16 Jan 2009, Mizter T remarked:

The issue here isn't flights to popular destinations like NYC (where you
can also fly to from Manchester, as well as dozens of direct flights
already from LHR). Obviously, the more places are served direct from
London, the less people have to hop over to FRA if that's the only place
with an onward service.

And those direct flights from London need to be supported by transit
passengers from elsewhere in Europe (that don't have their own direct
flights).

This is ultimately what it's all about, is it not? Basically the idea
is that London and hence Britain benefit from being the crossroads to
anywhere (or at least the air travel equivalent of such!).

Just like people who happen to live in the Kings Cross area benefit from
the "rail station to Europe" on their doorstep - and there aren't enough
of them to justify it without lots of other people travelling to
Stp/Kings Cross to change trains.

(Though I suppose to an extent there is a separate but connected
argument of there being a critical mass of passengers from the UK
using Heathrow as opposed to flying direct from a regional airport -
of course those regional airports generally don't offer flights to
more obscure destinations, but the critical mass of passengers using
LHR may well mean that the frequency of flights to less-obscure
destinations is greater.)

Generally, we are talking about a different set of destinations from the
regional airports - holiday places; whereas Heathrow has more of the
business destinations. You can see a lot of this in the seasonality of
the schedules.

I haven't looked recently, but the only place with anything like 365 day
service to Lisbon 2 years ago was London, plus some regional airports
only in the summer.

I certainly understand this transfer passenger argument and by no
means do I discount it, but I guess essentially my take on it is a bit
different - which is basically ok, so London will lose (or never get
in the first place) some direct flights to obscurer destinations in
the world, but to what extent does that matter? How badly would this
really affect business in Britain? I wouldn't suggest it would have no
effect, but I can't help but think that the supposed ill-effects on
British business are simply overblown.

You'd be surprised how disruptive it is to a business schedule to
discover you need to go somewhere with flights only 3 or 4 days a week.
Especially if getting to a Monday meeting means leaving on Saturday! Or
alternatively doing what people here seem to hate, taking a hop via AMS,
CDG or FRA instead.

What's more I would further put forward the argument that there is a
quality-of-life versus (big) business calculus in play here, and if
some of these travellers to obscurer destinations were not in fact to
make that trip at all (as opposed to making it via a transfer as AMS,
CDG or wherever) then there is also a environmental effects versus
(big) business calculus in play as well.

Few people fly anywhere on business unless they *have* to - that's my
experience anyway. It gets pretty boring pretty quickly, and costs a lot
of money as well.

--
Roland Perry