A View From Middle England - Conservative with a slight libertarian touch - For Christian charity and traditional belief - Free Enterprise NOT Covert Corporatism

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Birmingham and the bmibaby blues

Birmingham Airport has made much of vast numbers of passengers wanting to go on flights all around the world. That is the reason for their desire to expand. Sometimetimes I think the management can only see as far as the end of the not yet extended runway. Yes, we in the area have a lot to thank them for, but are we being taken for a ride?

bmibaby is not so sure that passenger numbers stack up. They say that on five routes they have seen a weakening of consumer demand. So you can't blame them for not wanting to fly empty planes. The airline is not a charity. And think of the unnecessary fuel wastage and pollution if they did.

However, the airport is still hoping to have planes on these routes. It's a kind of "management with rosy specs on" which has got us where we are. Birmingham Airport has responded by suggesting that they are trying to reinstate the routes, although they recognise the economic downturn has meant challenging times are ahead.

The truth is that these 30 million passengers are never going to materialise because people will not take the trips required to sustain the numbers, fuel costs will always be a concern, and the green issues will not go away.

We need to get away from pie in the sky economics and management dreams and provide the flying public with truthful information about what will be best for all of us.

0 comments:

Post a Comment