In response to Manchester
Airport plans to expand its Fly Manchester campaign into the region,
the chairman of the chamber’s transport policy group is urging the
airports to talk to one another.
Colin Leighfield, who is a
director of B E Wedge Holdings, said: “There are too many groups
claiming to know what Black Country businesses want in terms of access
to air travel. We have the CBI saying that businesses support the
extension of Heathrow and Heathrow itself proclaiming that it is the
nation’s asset when it comes to air travel.
“When I talk to local
businesses two things become clear: firstly the lack of joined up
thinking in the whole aviation debate. Businesses are fed up with
negative publicity and point scoring. They want to see Birmingham, their
local airport, developing a joint strategy with other airports to
ensure that Black Country businesses get a better service than they have
now in terms of both freight and passenger travel.
“Very few local
businesses want their employees or their wagons having to drive to
Heathrow or Gatwick in order to travel abroad or fulfil an export
order.”
Mr Leighfield said the
chamber’s new manifesto pushed for a combined UK transport
infrastructure body that ensures the UK and international travel not
only receives the appropriate funding it needs but that transport
strategy is integrated.
“We are fed up with the
‘free for all’ approach with airports competing with each other rather
than working with each other strategically to deliver a significantly
improved service to passengers and freight users and then working with
other transport partners to deliver an access strategy that positively
benefits users.
“The Davies Commission
advocacy of a hub and spoke model fails to take into account
technological advances in aircraft design and can be seen, once again,
as having a South East centric focus. This runs counter to the strategy
for HS2 which aims, as one of its benefits, to rebalance the national
economy. It is therefore nonsense to have an air and a rail strategy
that contradict each other.
“The local businesses I
talk to want all their services from Birmingham Airport with improved
access and they want the DaviesCommission to hear that they want a
strategy that supports a network of strong airports for our great
cities, not a single hub,” added Mr Leighfield.
Birmingham Airport, which
is celebrating its 75th anniversary, had the busiest month in its
history during August with more than a million passengers through its
gates.
The figure of 1,104,831 passengers smashed the previous monthly record, which was achieved back in August 2008, by 2.3 percent.
It was the fifth
consecutive record-breaking month for the airport, as April, May, June
and July also saw previous records for the month smashed.
Last month’s passenger numbers were also an increase of 5.2 percent over August last year.
It saw a one percent
increase in long haul passenger traffic with flights operating to
Beijing, Dubai, Delhi, Egypt, Islamabad, Jamaica, Mexico, New York and
Toronto in August.
Birmingham airport chief
executive Paul Kehoe said: “Achieving the busiest month in the airport’s
75-year history is a proud moment, especially as it follows four
consecutive months where passenger records have been broken.
“Passengers are voting
with their feet and more and more are choosing to fly from Birmingham.
The demand is clearly there, but we want to make sure that this trend
continues.
“We’ve invested
significantly in recent years, including a newly-extended runway, which
allows departing aircraft to fly to more long haul destinations than
ever before.
“The capability to serve
more long haul destinations will play a key role in attracting more
passengers and support future growth.”
Scheduled traffic in
August accounted for 77.3 percent of passengers with charter flights
making up the remaining 22.7 percent at the airport which is the UK’s
third largest outside London and the UK’s seventh largest overall
handling nine million passengers a year.
The airport is owned by seven local authorities including Wolverhampton, Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall.
It currently serves 143 direct scheduled and charter routes and offers an additional 279 possible connections worldwide.
The new extension to the
runway at the airport was opened in July this year allowing bigger
aircraft to operate out of Birmingham.
Among the airlines with operations at Birmingham are Flybe, Monarch, Ryanair, Lufthansa and Thomas Cook Airlines.
As part of the proposed
High Speed Two rail project a new railway station would be built to
serve both the airport and the nearby National Exhibition Centre.
- Source: http://www.expressandstar.com
No comments:
Post a Comment