It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Sadly, everything which goes through the tunnel requires security checks on baggage, which means full security at Birmingham and Manchester. So Schengen helps, but it's not a magic wand. You'd still need physically separated, secure "airside" areas of each railway station, with full xray facilities and staff.
Of course, it's also not clear what the demand would be, given the increased journey time. Manchester to Amsterdam would be about six hours, and pricey.
Some publisher has obviously just handed him the memoir advance!
HarperCollins have reportedly offered an advance of £6m
I remember predicting exactly this on PB when he resigned. That his memoirs alone would make him £10m+
With this offer, he will easily exceed that. Even if the £6m is for worldwide English language rights, he will make millions more from translation rights into German, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, French, etc
Then there is serialisations, book clubs, audio deals, paperback options, plus potential millions for TV and/or movie rights
I was told on here by many people that ACTUALLY he was a busted flush and a proven liar who would struggle to earn a halfpenny. What a bunch of twits. I shall not embarrass them by naming them
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
Hold on, I thought the risk of having to join Schengen was one of the things that meant that full-fat rejoin would never happen?
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
Does anyone know why we bother to count people out at St Pancras and Dover, given we don't bother at airports? Juxtaposed controls don't require it. The US doesn't do exit controls either, and their entry controls (at least for legal entry) are very strong (I have never not been asked questions).
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Sadly, everything which goes through the tunnel requires security checks on baggage, which means full security at Birmingham and Manchester. So Schengen helps, but it's not a magic wand. You'd still need physically separated, secure "airside" areas of each railway station, with full xray facilities and staff.
Of course, it's also not clear what the demand would be, given the increased journey time. Manchester to Amsterdam would be about six hours, and pricey.
How long does it take by air, city centre to city centre? Probably fractionally quicker but I doubt there would be much in it once you have faffed around. And rail is much more pleasant and less agg queueing and changing modes.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
It would also go a long way to assuaging the indignation felt by some Remainers at being made to feel like second class Europeans at airports.
I’m in a French hotel in Bangkok. Novotel. It’s very nice. Indeed it might be the perfect hotel
High quality 4 star. Always the best compromise. So you get the excellent facilities of a lower level 5 star - nice rooftop pool, jolly good food (but no foie gras nonsense), a really brilliant gym. A peerless location - literally the best place to be in Bangkok if you want to chill and have fun in a languid way. Plenty of attentive staff but no idiotic grovelling and gold plated furniture etc
So you pay £60 a night rather than £260 for a five star
ANYWAY one place where they do scrimp is the TV. No mainstream English news channels - no BBC, CNN, Fox, Sky, CBS, NBC, nothing
I rely entirely on Al Jazeera English for my TV news which gives a fascinating perspective. Conclusion: Britain is not massively important, I am sad to say. But then, neither is Germany, France, Spain, etc. It is a lesson in the diminishing importance of European nations. Britain in particular comes across as a mildly troubled rich nation with a lot of history, still a lucky country in several ways. Cold and grey however, and in need of a pick me up. But also with tons of soft power (subtly conveyed through other issues)
The EU (taken as a whole) looms a lot larger. A weird superpower in the making
America is seen as declining, but still very powerful. China is a massive potent enigma. Inscrutable (I am aware of these cliches). Russia is mad and mainly bad
Africa gets a lot of attention. Fucked but there is real hope. Ditto Latin America
The one place they over obsess about is Israel/Palestine of course. I ignore it in general, but the journalism is not useless. The journalism from Ukraine is incredible. Highly courageous (British-born journalists mainly)
The reporting on MENA is maybe the most revelatory. Iraq is viewed as an actual democracy with normal (if deeply serious) democratic problems
On the whole it is quite heartening, and very different from the relentless negativity of western news
It's often good to get an opportunity to see things from a different perspective. I've always thought AJE's coverage was great when I've caught it. Less bland than the BBC, smarter and less insular than the US networks.
It’s actually better than BBC World, I think, certainly more insightful and interesting these last ten days I’ve been watching. Ironically they use a lot of British journos
Yes, I've found much the same.
By the way, the Eurocentric view of World History is remedied by reading Peter Frankopan's 'The Silk Road' which makes you appreciate how recent and anomolous Europe's prominence in World Affairs really is.
Some years ago, I was present as a fascinating discussion as to what might’ve happened If the Norsemen had allied themselves with the native Americans they met inVinland and built up trading links across the north Atlantic.
Given the record of Norsemen elsewhere you'd have to guess this would not have ended happily.
Another similar question though, and one which I cannot find addressed anywhere. What if the Chinese/Japanese peoples of East Asia had 'discovered' America first and colonised it from the Continent's West Coast? And why is there no evidence of attempts to do so?
Were they just naturally hearth-loving, or were their ships too primitive to make it a practical proposiiton?
There's a fascinating book on that subject called, "1421. The Year China Discovered The World" which contends that China took its first steps in doing precisely that, but a stop was put to it for political reasons. You could then make the argument that it was European political disunity, and the consequent competition between European states, that drove that contingent to global preeminence, while the more unified polity of China prioritised stability to ensure its survival.
But I think there's some suggestion the book is better suited to the fiction section. An interesting read nevertheless.
Thanks LP. That is by some distance the best and most direct answer I have ever had on the subject!
Frankopan certainly gives the impression that it was largely opportunism and adventurism that drove the 'discovery' of the Americas.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
Hold on, I thought the risk of having to join Schengen was one of the things that meant that full-fat rejoin would never happen?
What exactly is the point of being outside Schengen? It seems to add lots of red tape with few demonstrable benefits.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
It would also go a long way to assuaging the indignation felt by some Remainers at being made to feel like second class Europeans at airports.
But how does Schengen work without freedom of movement? If the EU won't even reciprocate our 180/365, it's hard to see how they would go for "365/365 but you can't take a job".
I’m in a French hotel in Bangkok. Novotel. It’s very nice. Indeed it might be the perfect hotel
High quality 4 star. Always the best compromise. So you get the excellent facilities of a lower level 5 star - nice rooftop pool, jolly good food (but no foie gras nonsense), a really brilliant gym. A peerless location - literally the best place to be in Bangkok if you want to chill and have fun in a languid way. Plenty of attentive staff but no idiotic grovelling and gold plated furniture etc
So you pay £60 a night rather than £260 for a five star
ANYWAY one place where they do scrimp is the TV. No mainstream English news channels - no BBC, CNN, Fox, Sky, CBS, NBC, nothing
I rely entirely on Al Jazeera English for my TV news which gives a fascinating perspective. Conclusion: Britain is not massively important, I am sad to say. But then, neither is Germany, France, Spain, etc. It is a lesson in the diminishing importance of European nations. Britain in particular comes across as a mildly troubled rich nation with a lot of history, still a lucky country in several ways. Cold and grey however, and in need of a pick me up. But also with tons of soft power (subtly conveyed through other issues)
The EU (taken as a whole) looms a lot larger. A weird superpower in the making
America is seen as declining, but still very powerful. China is a massive potent enigma. Inscrutable (I am aware of these cliches). Russia is mad and mainly bad
Africa gets a lot of attention. Fucked but there is real hope. Ditto Latin America
The one place they over obsess about is Israel/Palestine of course. I ignore it in general, but the journalism is not useless. The journalism from Ukraine is incredible. Highly courageous (British-born journalists mainly)
The reporting on MENA is maybe the most revelatory. Iraq is viewed as an actual democracy with normal (if deeply serious) democratic problems
On the whole it is quite heartening, and very different from the relentless negativity of western news
It's often good to get an opportunity to see things from a different perspective. I've always thought AJE's coverage was great when I've caught it. Less bland than the BBC, smarter and less insular than the US networks.
It’s actually better than BBC World, I think, certainly more insightful and interesting these last ten days I’ve been watching. Ironically they use a lot of British journos
Yes, I've found much the same.
By the way, the Eurocentric view of World History is remedied by reading Peter Frankopan's 'The Silk Road' which makes you appreciate how recent and anomolous Europe's prominence in World Affairs really is.
Some years ago, I was present as a fascinating discussion as to what might’ve happened If the Norsemen had allied themselves with the native Americans they met inVinland and built up trading links across the north Atlantic.
Given the record of Norsemen elsewhere you'd have to guess this would not have ended happily.
Another similar question though, and one which I cannot find addressed anywhere. What if the Chinese/Japanese peoples of East Asia had 'discovered' America first and colonised it from the Continent's West Coast? And why is there no evidence of attempts to do so?
Were they just naturally hearth-loving, or were their ships too primitive to make it a practical proposiiton?
There's a fascinating book on that subject called, "1421. The Year China Discovered The World" which contends that China took its first steps in doing precisely that, but a stop was put to it for political reasons. You could then make the argument that it was European political disunity, and the consequent competition between European states, that drove that contingent to global preeminence, while the more unified polity of China prioritised stability to ensure its survival.
But I think there's some suggestion the book is better suited to the fiction section. An interesting read nevertheless.
Thanks LP. That is by some distance the best and most direct answer I have ever had on the subject!
Frankopan certainly gives the impression that it was largely opportunism and adventurism that drove the 'discovery' of the Americas.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
Does anyone know why we bother to count people out at St Pancras and Dover, given we don't bother at airports? Juxtaposed controls don't require it. The US doesn't do exit controls either, and their entry controls (at least for legal entry) are very strong (I have never not been asked questions).
No idea, "pointless British red tape" covers most queries though.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
Does anyone know why we bother to count people out at St Pancras and Dover, given we don't bother at airports? Juxtaposed controls don't require it. The US doesn't do exit controls either, and their entry controls (at least for legal entry) are very strong (I have never not been asked questions).
IIRC, airports’ outbound immigration control is done electronically via flight manifests. In other words, outsourced to the airlines. You’ll not be able to leave if you’re on the wanted list, will get picked up at some point on your journey through the airport.
I suspect that the Eurostar doesn’t have the same passenger ID requirement as the airlines, at least not at the time of booking, but it might just be a contractual issue. For the ferry/tunnel, you book by the vehicle not by the person.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Sadly, everything which goes through the tunnel requires security checks on baggage, which means full security at Birmingham and Manchester. So Schengen helps, but it's not a magic wand. You'd still need physically separated, secure "airside" areas of each railway station, with full xray facilities and staff.
Of course, it's also not clear what the demand would be, given the increased journey time. Manchester to Amsterdam would be about six hours, and pricey.
How long does it take by air, city centre to city centre? Probably fractionally quicker but I doubt there would be much in it once you have faffed around. And rail is much more pleasant and less agg queueing and changing modes.
Oh, I would take the train. Unfortunately, the dutch authorities are planning long-term to move all international services including eurostar to Amsterdam Zuid, so no more city centre to city centre, alas.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
Does anyone know why we bother to count people out at St Pancras and Dover, given we don't bother at airports? Juxtaposed controls don't require it. The US doesn't do exit controls either, and their entry controls (at least for legal entry) are very strong (I have never not been asked questions).
IIRC, airports’ outbound immigration control is done electronically via flight manifests. In other words, outsourced to the airlines. You’ll not be able to leave if you’re on the wanted list, will get picked up at some point on your journey through the airport.
I suspect that the Eurostar doesn’t have the same passenger ID requirement as the airlines, at least not at the time of booking, but it might just be a contractual issue. For the ferry/tunnel, you book by the vehicle not by the person.
The following hilarious situation happens at Dover when taking the coach to Paris. The driver collects all your passports in a tray to hand to the ferry company. The ferry company does something with them and hands them back. The driver then drives towards passport control, as one or two passengers are pressganged into attempting to return 60 passports to 60 passengers on two levels of a coach by shouting out surnames in as short a time as possible...
I’m in a French hotel in Bangkok. Novotel. It’s very nice. Indeed it might be the perfect hotel
High quality 4 star. Always the best compromise. So you get the excellent facilities of a lower level 5 star - nice rooftop pool, jolly good food (but no foie gras nonsense), a really brilliant gym. A peerless location - literally the best place to be in Bangkok if you want to chill and have fun in a languid way. Plenty of attentive staff but no idiotic grovelling and gold plated furniture etc
So you pay £60 a night rather than £260 for a five star
ANYWAY one place where they do scrimp is the TV. No mainstream English news channels - no BBC, CNN, Fox, Sky, CBS, NBC, nothing
I rely entirely on Al Jazeera English for my TV news which gives a fascinating perspective. Conclusion: Britain is not massively important, I am sad to say. But then, neither is Germany, France, Spain, etc. It is a lesson in the diminishing importance of European nations. Britain in particular comes across as a mildly troubled rich nation with a lot of history, still a lucky country in several ways. Cold and grey however, and in need of a pick me up. But also with tons of soft power (subtly conveyed through other issues)
The EU (taken as a whole) looms a lot larger. A weird superpower in the making
America is seen as declining, but still very powerful. China is a massive potent enigma. Inscrutable (I am aware of these cliches). Russia is mad and mainly bad
Africa gets a lot of attention. Fucked but there is real hope. Ditto Latin America
The one place they over obsess about is Israel/Palestine of course. I ignore it in general, but the journalism is not useless. The journalism from Ukraine is incredible. Highly courageous (British-born journalists mainly)
The reporting on MENA is maybe the most revelatory. Iraq is viewed as an actual democracy with normal (if deeply serious) democratic problems
On the whole it is quite heartening, and very different from the relentless negativity of western news
It's often good to get an opportunity to see things from a different perspective. I've always thought AJE's coverage was great when I've caught it. Less bland than the BBC, smarter and less insular than the US networks.
It’s actually better than BBC World, I think, certainly more insightful and interesting these last ten days I’ve been watching. Ironically they use a lot of British journos
Yes, I've found much the same.
By the way, the Eurocentric view of World History is remedied by reading Peter Frankopan's 'The Silk Road' which makes you appreciate how recent and anomolous Europe's prominence in World Affairs really is.
Some years ago, I was present as a fascinating discussion as to what might’ve happened If the Norsemen had allied themselves with the native Americans they met inVinland and built up trading links across the north Atlantic.
Given the record of Norsemen elsewhere you'd have to guess this would not have ended happily.
Another similar question though, and one which I cannot find addressed anywhere. What if the Chinese/Japanese peoples of East Asia had 'discovered' America first and colonised it from the Continent's West Coast? And why is there no evidence of attempts to do so?
Were they just naturally hearth-loving, or were their ships too primitive to make it a practical proposiiton?
There's a fascinating book on that subject called, "1421. The Year China Discovered The World" which contends that China took its first steps in doing precisely that, but a stop was put to it for political reasons. You could then make the argument that it was European political disunity, and the consequent competition between European states, that drove that contingent to global preeminence, while the more unified polity of China prioritised stability to ensure its survival.
But I think there's some suggestion the book is better suited to the fiction section. An interesting read nevertheless.
Thanks LP. That is by some distance the best and most direct answer I have ever had on the subject!
Frankopan certainly gives the impression that it was largely opportunism and adventurism that drove the 'discovery' of the Americas.
Plus the fishing off the Grand Banks.
Noted, although I think Christopher Colombus wasn't looking for fish.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
The beauty of LCY is that you spend less than 20 mins airside so who cares what the shops and bars are like. I used to enjoy watching members of the public attempt to use the Bloomberg terminals, I haven't been through LCY in a while so not sure if they've still got them or they got taken out during lockdown.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
It's good if you live on the east side of London, eg for us in SE14 it's by far the easiest airport to get to. The connection from the Jubilee Line to the DLR at Canning Town is very simple. And who doesn't love Greggs?
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
In the same way that Concorde never had flat bed massage seats. What they are selling is the convenience. No-one spends any time there, and that’s the whole point.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
The beauty of LCY is that you spend less than 20 mins airside so who cares what the shops and bars are like. I used to enjoy watching members of the public attempt to use the Bloomberg terminals, I haven't been through LCY in a while so not sure if they've still got them or they got taken out during lockdown.
Didnt’ you once do the BA A318 LCY>SNN>JFK? That sort of thing is exactly where City Airport just works.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
It's good if you live on the east side of London, eg for us in SE14 it's by far the easiest airport to get to. The connection from the Jubilee Line to the DLR at Canning Town is very simple. And who doesn't love Greggs?
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
The beauty of LCY is that you spend less than 20 mins airside so who cares what the shops and bars are like. I used to enjoy watching members of the public attempt to use the Bloomberg terminals, I haven't been through LCY in a while so not sure if they've still got them or they got taken out during lockdown.
London City was lovely to use when Thing 1 was tiny, because the journey from the front entrance to the airplane was so short. Though getting to the entrance was surprisingly fiddly from most directions.
Southend airport was promising for a while, with a similarly simple setup. But hardly anyone bothered running flights from there. (Airline/airport relationships are one of the many things I don't remotely understand but can't help thinking don't smell right.)
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
The beauty of LCY is that you spend less than 20 mins airside so who cares what the shops and bars are like. I used to enjoy watching members of the public attempt to use the Bloomberg terminals, I haven't been through LCY in a while so not sure if they've still got them or they got taken out during lockdown.
Didnt’ you once do the BA A318 LCY>SNN>JFK? That sort of thing is exactly where City Airport just works.
Yeah, did that a few times, it was a great little flight. Think they've canned it now though.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
It would also go a long way to assuaging the indignation felt by some Remainers at being made to feel like second class Europeans at airports.
But how does Schengen work without freedom of movement? If the EU won't even reciprocate our 180/365, it's hard to see how they would go for "365/365 but you can't take a job".
Besides it is exactly the wrong way round. What we want is freedom of movement but not Schengen. Freedom of movement means people can travel, work and live where they like but we still have security at the borders to deal with crime and terrorism. It allows us to keep a check on people entering and leaving the country but prevents the state from interfering with that unless they pose a specific risk or are wanted by the police. Schengen without freedom movement has all the downsides but none of the upsides.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Sadly, everything which goes through the tunnel requires security checks on baggage, which means full security at Birmingham and Manchester. So Schengen helps, but it's not a magic wand. You'd still need physically separated, secure "airside" areas of each railway station, with full xray facilities and staff.
Of course, it's also not clear what the demand would be, given the increased journey time. Manchester to Amsterdam would be about six hours, and pricey.
Six hours isn't too bad, it's similar to London to Dundee. No good for a one day business trip but okay for other purposes expecially if an overnight option is available.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
It would also go a long way to assuaging the indignation felt by some Remainers at being made to feel like second class Europeans at airports.
But how does Schengen work without freedom of movement? If the EU won't even reciprocate our 180/365, it's hard to see how they would go for "365/365 but you can't take a job".
Border control and residency rights don't have to be in alignment. As long as we agreed to the data sharing and admin aspects of Schengen then I don't think there would be a problem.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
It would also go a long way to assuaging the indignation felt by some Remainers at being made to feel like second class Europeans at airports.
But how does Schengen work without freedom of movement? If the EU won't even reciprocate our 180/365, it's hard to see how they would go for "365/365 but you can't take a job".
Besides it is exactly the wrong way round. What we want is freedom of movement but not Schengen. Freedom of movement means people can travel, work and live where they like but we still have security at the borders to deal with crime and terrorism. It allows us to keep a check on people entering and leaving the country but prevents the state from interfering with that unless they pose a specific risk or are wanted by the police. Schengen without freedom movement has all the downsides but none of the upsides.
I'd argue the opposite - Schengen lets you concentrate your resources on intelligence-led crime prevention instead of wasting money counting every single person in and out. I don't see it flying politically though, people are too invested in the illusion of security created by making people queue up at the border.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
In the same way that Concorde never had flat bed massage seats. What they are selling is the convenience. No-one spends any time there, and that’s the whole point.
This is true, but so is Leon's point about proximity. Unless you are starting from, or going to, somewhere on or close to the DLR it's a bad airport to get to.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
It would also go a long way to assuaging the indignation felt by some Remainers at being made to feel like second class Europeans at airports.
But how does Schengen work without freedom of movement? If the EU won't even reciprocate our 180/365, it's hard to see how they would go for "365/365 but you can't take a job".
Besides it is exactly the wrong way round. What we want is freedom of movement but not Schengen. Freedom of movement means people can travel, work and live where they like but we still have security at the borders to deal with crime and terrorism. It allows us to keep a check on people entering and leaving the country but prevents the state from interfering with that unless they pose a specific risk or are wanted by the police. Schengen without freedom movement has all the downsides but none of the upsides.
But we have a physical border, so we'd effectively be in a permanent state of having the kind of temporary controls that countries like France periodically implement.
I’m in a French hotel in Bangkok. Novotel. It’s very nice. Indeed it might be the perfect hotel
High quality 4 star. Always the best compromise. So you get the excellent facilities of a lower level 5 star - nice rooftop pool, jolly good food (but no foie gras nonsense), a really brilliant gym. A peerless location - literally the best place to be in Bangkok if you want to chill and have fun in a languid way. Plenty of attentive staff but no idiotic grovelling and gold plated furniture etc
So you pay £60 a night rather than £260 for a five star
ANYWAY one place where they do scrimp is the TV. No mainstream English news channels - no BBC, CNN, Fox, Sky, CBS, NBC, nothing
I rely entirely on Al Jazeera English for my TV news which gives a fascinating perspective. Conclusion: Britain is not massively important, I am sad to say. But then, neither is Germany, France, Spain, etc. It is a lesson in the diminishing importance of European nations. Britain in particular comes across as a mildly troubled rich nation with a lot of history, still a lucky country in several ways. Cold and grey however, and in need of a pick me up. But also with tons of soft power (subtly conveyed through other issues)
The EU (taken as a whole) looms a lot larger. A weird superpower in the making
America is seen as declining, but still very powerful. China is a massive potent enigma. Inscrutable (I am aware of these cliches). Russia is mad and mainly bad
Africa gets a lot of attention. Fucked but there is real hope. Ditto Latin America
The one place they over obsess about is Israel/Palestine of course. I ignore it in general, but the journalism is not useless. The journalism from Ukraine is incredible. Highly courageous (British-born journalists mainly)
The reporting on MENA is maybe the most revelatory. Iraq is viewed as an actual democracy with normal (if deeply serious) democratic problems
On the whole it is quite heartening, and very different from the relentless negativity of western news
It's often good to get an opportunity to see things from a different perspective. I've always thought AJE's coverage was great when I've caught it. Less bland than the BBC, smarter and less insular than the US networks.
It’s actually better than BBC World, I think, certainly more insightful and interesting these last ten days I’ve been watching. Ironically they use a lot of British journos
Yes, I've found much the same.
By the way, the Eurocentric view of World History is remedied by reading Peter Frankopan's 'The Silk Road' which makes you appreciate how recent and anomolous Europe's prominence in World Affairs really is.
Some years ago, I was present as a fascinating discussion as to what might’ve happened If the Norsemen had allied themselves with the native Americans they met inVinland and built up trading links across the north Atlantic.
Given the record of Norsemen elsewhere you'd have to guess this would not have ended happily.
Another similar question though, and one which I cannot find addressed anywhere. What if the Chinese/Japanese peoples of East Asia had 'discovered' America first and colonised it from the Continent's West Coast? And why is there no evidence of attempts to do so?
Were they just naturally hearth-loving, or were their ships too primitive to make it a practical proposiiton?
There's a fascinating book on that subject called, "1421. The Year China Discovered The World" which contends that China took its first steps in doing precisely that, but a stop was put to it for political reasons. You could then make the argument that it was European political disunity, and the consequent competition between European states, that drove that contingent to global preeminence, while the more unified polity of China prioritised stability to ensure its survival.
But I think there's some suggestion the book is better suited to the fiction section. An interesting read nevertheless.
Thanks LP. That is by some distance the best and most direct answer I have ever had on the subject!
Frankopan certainly gives the impression that it was largely opportunism and adventurism that drove the 'discovery' of the Americas.
Plus the fishing off the Grand Banks.
Noted, although I think Christopher Colombus wasn't looking for fish.
I’m in a French hotel in Bangkok. Novotel. It’s very nice. Indeed it might be the perfect hotel
High quality 4 star. Always the best compromise. So you get the excellent facilities of a lower level 5 star - nice rooftop pool, jolly good food (but no foie gras nonsense), a really brilliant gym. A peerless location - literally the best place to be in Bangkok if you want to chill and have fun in a languid way. Plenty of attentive staff but no idiotic grovelling and gold plated furniture etc
So you pay £60 a night rather than £260 for a five star
ANYWAY one place where they do scrimp is the TV. No mainstream English news channels - no BBC, CNN, Fox, Sky, CBS, NBC, nothing
I rely entirely on Al Jazeera English for my TV news which gives a fascinating perspective. Conclusion: Britain is not massively important, I am sad to say. But then, neither is Germany, France, Spain, etc. It is a lesson in the diminishing importance of European nations. Britain in particular comes across as a mildly troubled rich nation with a lot of history, still a lucky country in several ways. Cold and grey however, and in need of a pick me up. But also with tons of soft power (subtly conveyed through other issues)
The EU (taken as a whole) looms a lot larger. A weird superpower in the making
America is seen as declining, but still very powerful. China is a massive potent enigma. Inscrutable (I am aware of these cliches). Russia is mad and mainly bad
Africa gets a lot of attention. Fucked but there is real hope. Ditto Latin America
The one place they over obsess about is Israel/Palestine of course. I ignore it in general, but the journalism is not useless. The journalism from Ukraine is incredible. Highly courageous (British-born journalists mainly)
The reporting on MENA is maybe the most revelatory. Iraq is viewed as an actual democracy with normal (if deeply serious) democratic problems
On the whole it is quite heartening, and very different from the relentless negativity of western news
It's often good to get an opportunity to see things from a different perspective. I've always thought AJE's coverage was great when I've caught it. Less bland than the BBC, smarter and less insular than the US networks.
It’s actually better than BBC World, I think, certainly more insightful and interesting these last ten days I’ve been watching. Ironically they use a lot of British journos
Yes, I've found much the same.
By the way, the Eurocentric view of World History is remedied by reading Peter Frankopan's 'The Silk Road' which makes you appreciate how recent and anomolous Europe's prominence in World Affairs really is.
Some years ago, I was present as a fascinating discussion as to what might’ve happened If the Norsemen had allied themselves with the native Americans they met inVinland and built up trading links across the north Atlantic.
Given the record of Norsemen elsewhere you'd have to guess this would not have ended happily.
Another similar question though, and one which I cannot find addressed anywhere. What if the Chinese/Japanese peoples of East Asia had 'discovered' America first and colonised it from the Continent's West Coast? And why is there no evidence of attempts to do so?
Were they just naturally hearth-loving, or were their ships too primitive to make it a practical proposiiton?
There's a fascinating book on that subject called, "1421. The Year China Discovered The World" which contends that China took its first steps in doing precisely that, but a stop was put to it for political reasons. You could then make the argument that it was European political disunity, and the consequent competition between European states, that drove that contingent to global preeminence, while the more unified polity of China prioritised stability to ensure its survival.
But I think there's some suggestion the book is better suited to the fiction section. An interesting read nevertheless.
Thanks LP. That is by some distance the best and most direct answer I have ever had on the subject!
Frankopan certainly gives the impression that it was largely opportunism and adventurism that drove the 'discovery' of the Americas.
Plus the fishing off the Grand Banks.
Noted, although I think Christopher Colombus wasn't looking for fish.
True, although Canarian fishermen apparently spoke of “something “to the west!
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
In the same way that Concorde never had flat bed massage seats. What they are selling is the convenience. No-one spends any time there, and that’s the whole point.
This is true, but so is Leon's point about proximity. Unless you are starting from, or going to, somewhere on or close to the DLR it's a bad airport to get to.
You can change to the DLR at Canning Town, Stratford or Woolwich.
From where I am in Ilford, you just change once, at Stratford.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
In the same way that Concorde never had flat bed massage seats. What they are selling is the convenience. No-one spends any time there, and that’s the whole point.
This is true, but so is Leon's point about proximity. Unless you are starting from, or going to, somewhere on or close to the DLR it's a bad airport to get to.
You can change to the DLR at Canning Town, Stratford or Woolwich.
From where I am in Ilford, you just change once, at Stratford.
Right, yes, that would count as "close to" the DLR. But I wouldn't recommend anyone changing at Woolwich if they have luggage.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
It would also go a long way to assuaging the indignation felt by some Remainers at being made to feel like second class Europeans at airports.
But how does Schengen work without freedom of movement? If the EU won't even reciprocate our 180/365, it's hard to see how they would go for "365/365 but you can't take a job".
Besides it is exactly the wrong way round. What we want is freedom of movement but not Schengen. Freedom of movement means people can travel, work and live where they like but we still have security at the borders to deal with crime and terrorism. It allows us to keep a check on people entering and leaving the country but prevents the state from interfering with that unless they pose a specific risk or are wanted by the police. Schengen without freedom movement has all the downsides but none of the upsides.
I'd argue the opposite - Schengen lets you concentrate your resources on intelligence-led crime prevention instead of wasting money counting every single person in and out. I don't see it flying politically though, people are too invested in the illusion of security created by making people queue up at the border.
It’s totally do-able with political leadership. Schengen is essentially a technical detail. People just want to know we have “control”; arguably today we have the worst of all worlds.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
The beauty of LCY is that you spend less than 20 mins airside so who cares what the shops and bars are like. I used to enjoy watching members of the public attempt to use the Bloomberg terminals, I haven't been through LCY in a while so not sure if they've still got them or they got taken out during lockdown.
I flew from LCY to Florence in the summer. Getting there from North/Central London with luggage is a mare, and the catering situation really is shite
It should be a tiny shuttle airport for finance boys going to Frankfurt/Paris/Amsterdam etc. At which it is great (I remember it fondly as that)
But they are now marketing it for summer hols with kids. NO NO NO
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
In the same way that Concorde never had flat bed massage seats. What they are selling is the convenience. No-one spends any time there, and that’s the whole point.
This is true, but so is Leon's point about proximity. Unless you are starting from, or going to, somewhere on or close to the DLR it's a bad airport to get to.
Shortest time by public transport from Green Park is 32 minutes to LCY and 38 minutes to LHR.
https://mobile.twitter.com/g900ap/status/1617215165321060353 This is Olesya Krivtsova, she is 19 years old. She posted on Instagram about the war, she criticized Russia for its warmongering. Two fellow students reported her to the authorities. She is now charged with terrorism. She may get 10 years in jail.
Russia isn't a democratic state (though I suppose it doesn't really claim to be). But states were there is only one rule: "Don't annoy the guy in charge." never do particularly well in the long run.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
In the same way that Concorde never had flat bed massage seats. What they are selling is the convenience. No-one spends any time there, and that’s the whole point.
This is true, but so is Leon's point about proximity. Unless you are starting from, or going to, somewhere on or close to the DLR it's a bad airport to get to.
You can change to the DLR at Canning Town, Stratford or Woolwich.
From where I am in Ilford, you just change once, at Stratford.
Right, yes, that would count as "close to" the DLR. But I wouldn't recommend anyone changing at Woolwich if they have luggage.
The place to change is Canning Town, from Elizabeth Line to DLR.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
It would also go a long way to assuaging the indignation felt by some Remainers at being made to feel like second class Europeans at airports.
But how does Schengen work without freedom of movement? If the EU won't even reciprocate our 180/365, it's hard to see how they would go for "365/365 but you can't take a job".
Besides it is exactly the wrong way round. What we want is freedom of movement but not Schengen. Freedom of movement means people can travel, work and live where they like but we still have security at the borders to deal with crime and terrorism. It allows us to keep a check on people entering and leaving the country but prevents the state from interfering with that unless they pose a specific risk or are wanted by the police. Schengen without freedom movement has all the downsides but none of the upsides.
I'd argue the opposite - Schengen lets you concentrate your resources on intelligence-led crime prevention instead of wasting money counting every single person in and out. I don't see it flying politically though, people are too invested in the illusion of security created by making people queue up at the border.
It would be a heck of a jump, given that we weren't in Schengen when we were in the EU.
It might be a sensible jump, a jump where the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, but it's not the moodspace where the UK has been in the past, or is right now.
Way Off Topic - asked before, but (maybe) didn't hang around long enough to get any nibbles -
Can any PBers recommend a reasonable hotel (or alternative) on Island of Oahu, toward budget end of scale? Am thinking of starting at Waikiki, then branching out, during one-week visit in Feb.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
In the same way that Concorde never had flat bed massage seats. What they are selling is the convenience. No-one spends any time there, and that’s the whole point.
This is true, but so is Leon's point about proximity. Unless you are starting from, or going to, somewhere on or close to the DLR it's a bad airport to get to.
Possibly true, it’s a small airport with a small catchment area - but that catchment area includes the City and Canary Wharf, from where there’s a steady stream of people going to a small number of similar financial cities - Paris, Frankfurt, Zurich, Dublin, Amsterdam, Edinburgh etc. Many of their customers are on a day trip with no bags, and the time saving can be a couple of hours each way vs going to Heathrow.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
The beauty of LCY is that you spend less than 20 mins airside so who cares what the shops and bars are like. I used to enjoy watching members of the public attempt to use the Bloomberg terminals, I haven't been through LCY in a while so not sure if they've still got them or they got taken out during lockdown.
I flew from LCY to Florence in the summer. Getting there from North/Central London with luggage is a mare, and the catering situation really is shite
It should be a tiny shuttle airport for finance boys going to Frankfurt/Paris/Amsterdam etc. At which it is great (I remember it fondly as that)
But they are now marketing it for summer hols with kids. NO NO NO
Camden Town to Bank (Northern line) Bank to LCY (DLR)
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
The beauty of LCY is that you spend less than 20 mins airside so who cares what the shops and bars are like. I used to enjoy watching members of the public attempt to use the Bloomberg terminals, I haven't been through LCY in a while so not sure if they've still got them or they got taken out during lockdown.
I flew from LCY to Florence in the summer. Getting there from North/Central London with luggage is a mare, and the catering situation really is shite
It should be a tiny shuttle airport for finance boys going to Frankfurt/Paris/Amsterdam etc. At which it is great (I remember it fondly as that)
But they are now marketing it for summer hols with kids. NO NO NO
Camden Town to Bank (Northern line) Bank to LCY (DLR)
Is Schenegen gambit, with both UK and ROI joining in, perhaps an option that is being explored in discussions between the two, the EU and (lest we forget) the US?
Is Schenegen gambit, with both UK and ROI joining in, perhaps an option that is being explored in discussions between the two, the EU and (lest we forget) the US?
It’s bizarre that the Elizabeth Line does not go to LCY when it runs very near.
It re-uses the railway through Silvertown (closed 2006), which was a few minutes' walk away. There is space for platforms on the Lizzie Line for future provision.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
The beauty of LCY is that you spend less than 20 mins airside so who cares what the shops and bars are like. I used to enjoy watching members of the public attempt to use the Bloomberg terminals, I haven't been through LCY in a while so not sure if they've still got them or they got taken out during lockdown.
I flew from LCY to Florence in the summer. Getting there from North/Central London with luggage is a mare, and the catering situation really is shite
It should be a tiny shuttle airport for finance boys going to Frankfurt/Paris/Amsterdam etc. At which it is great (I remember it fondly as that)
But they are now marketing it for summer hols with kids. NO NO NO
It requires a change of mindset. The airport isn’t part of the journey, it’s simply the gateway. Forget that you’re catching a plane, and pretend that you’re catching a luxury coach. You’re supposed to turn up 10 minutes before it leaves, not two hours before.
It’s bizarre that the Elizabeth Line does not go to LCY when it runs very near.
Yes, a major miss
However there are rumours the Powers That Be want to close LCY. Doesn’t make much money, doesn’t add much to the economy, sits on major real estate, and prevents super tall skyscrapers nearby
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
I used to live near Tower Bridge, and would regularly catch the 7:50am Air France flight to Paris. I would frequently leave my house at 7am, and make my plane without stress.
LCY is a great idea but doesn’t quite work in reality unless you live very close
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
In the same way that Concorde never had flat bed massage seats. What they are selling is the convenience. No-one spends any time there, and that’s the whole point.
This is true, but so is Leon's point about proximity. Unless you are starting from, or going to, somewhere on or close to the DLR it's a bad airport to get to.
You can change to the DLR at Canning Town, Stratford or Woolwich.
From where I am in Ilford, you just change once, at Stratford.
Right, yes, that would count as "close to" the DLR. But I wouldn't recommend anyone changing at Woolwich if they have luggage.
The place to change is Canning Town, from Elizabeth Line to DLR.
Stratford, the Elizabeth Line doesn't go via Canning Town.
It’s bizarre that the Elizabeth Line does not go to LCY when it runs very near.
Yes, a major miss
However there are rumours the Powers That Be want to close LCY. Doesn’t make much money, doesn’t add much to the economy, sits on major real estate, and prevents super tall skyscrapers nearby
So the miss might be deliberate
Boris Island always seemed like the best strategic option. It might even have positive levelling up effect as well because Birmingham would become a more natural air hub for the Thames valley.
I love Schengen. We civilised folks glide through airports. We occasionally catch glimpses of the wounded wee lions in their glass cages, which always causes a little ripple of Schadenfreudic mirth.
It’s bizarre that the Elizabeth Line does not go to LCY when it runs very near.
Yes, a major miss
However there are rumours the Powers That Be want to close LCY. Doesn’t make much money, doesn’t add much to the economy, sits on major real estate, and prevents super tall skyscrapers nearby
So the miss might be deliberate
Lizzie Line re-uses the railway through Silvertown station (closed 2006), which was a few minutes' walk away. There is space for platforms on the Lizzie Line for future provision.
It was a deal, a steal, sale of the f##king century...
His predecessor Carwyn Jones paid £52m to nationalise Cardiff Airport in 2013 and it has subsequently been necessary to write off more than £40m of taxpayer loans to keep the business afloat.
No longer able to support the business with state loans, Mr Drakeford’s administration has opted to bankroll the business through government grants.
Cardiff Airport is now being labelled the “biggest money-pit of all” after Mr Drakeford enraged opposition leaders by injecting huge sums into a series of widely-criticised public initiatives.
The airport's £8.9m grant for the year to March 2022 was significantly higher than the £2.5m received in the previous year.
See also Teesside airport - but you have to remember that you need a regional airport to encourage businesses to invest. A lot of firms won't look at anywhere which requires them driving further than absolutely necessary.
Hence Cardiff has an airport because without it no-one would invest in Wales. Likewise (thinking of the Friday flights from Schiphol) Norwich, Southampton and Exeter all of whom had 80 people who needed to fly from there on a Monday and back on a Friday.
And one could argue that Cardiff - which has a potential catchment of over 1m - is much more deserving of its own airport than any of the others.
Except that, as one of the big airline bosses recently stated again in the press, Cardiff Airport is in the wrong place. Stuck out in the sticks in the Vale of Glamorgan when it really needs to be located next to the main railway line and the M4. It's not even convenient for the people of Cardiff, let alone all the well-heeled residents of Bristol and the Cotswolds that it would need to be serving to have any chance of breaking even.
It's a classic example of a vanity project, and of the perils of throwing good money after bad. A failed enterprise that the Welsh Government daren't pull the plug on, because it would then be pilloried for the enormous waste of limited and desperately needed funds on a white elephant, and because of the affront to national pride. Thus the subsidies continue.
Regional aviation is totally screwed by LHR not having that new runway a decade ago. Small planes don’t have a cat in Hell’s chance of a landing slot, so everyone drives miles instead.
Somewhere like Teeside could be revolutionised with a flight to London every couple of hours.
From an environmental perspective, this is madness. I used to fly Edinburgh - London City quite a lot and I'm still not over the shame of it.
A lot of the traffic would be transfers through LHR, going to New York or Milan. Serving Heathrow from regional airports, makes those regions more attractive places to live.
LCY is the best airport in the world! Five minutes from the taxi rank to the gate, and rarely more than 10 in the other direction!
Just suggest high speed rail to Heathrow. Or more direct flights from regional airports (Edinburgh is now quite good for this!)
Both rail and air have a role to play.
Air’s advantage is that it’s easier and cheaper to scale up or down with demand.
Yes, HS2 should have gone to Heathrow, and yes it should have linked with HS1.
The link to the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common will make it very quick and easy to connect from HS2 to Heathrow. The link to HS1 would have been sensible but the case would be a lot stronger if we were inside Schengen and could run direct trains from Manchester and Brum to Paris and Amsterdam.
Of course we could join Schengen without rejoining the EU or even the EEA and without having free movement of labour. Just like Switzerland.
Always seemed like the oddest thing to have opted out of, other than simply because we were an island. A massive boost for tourism in both directions, and it would free up border (and security) capacity at the ports to manage freight and monitor smuggling.
Yes, I agree
We barely count people coming in or out, so we might as well join Schengen
Would help with the Irish border as well
Not a bad idea. I'll admit I had never thought of that.
It would also go a long way to assuaging the indignation felt by some Remainers at being made to feel like second class Europeans at airports.
But how does Schengen work without freedom of movement? If the EU won't even reciprocate our 180/365, it's hard to see how they would go for "365/365 but you can't take a job".
Besides it is exactly the wrong way round. What we want is freedom of movement but not Schengen. Freedom of movement means people can travel, work and live where they like but we still have security at the borders to deal with crime and terrorism. It allows us to keep a check on people entering and leaving the country but prevents the state from interfering with that unless they pose a specific risk or are wanted by the police. Schengen without freedom movement has all the downsides but none of the upsides.
I'd argue the opposite - Schengen lets you concentrate your resources on intelligence-led crime prevention instead of wasting money counting every single person in and out. I don't see it flying politically though, people are too invested in the illusion of security created by making people queue up at the border.
And yet the first time there is an incident in a Schengen country they shut the borders - so they obviously consider it something worth doing. The ability to move around the EU without checks at borders aids both crime and terrorism. This is not an illusion. It is a fact.
Doesn't this prove that many Asian societies are just as conformist as they ever were in the past. Recently we may have persuaded ourselves into believing that maybe they were becoming less so but it wasn't true.
To be honest I find almost all restaurant burgers underwhelming compared to homemade burgers. Even Yay Burgers aren't quite as good, even if they are better than the rest.
It’s bizarre that the Elizabeth Line does not go to LCY when it runs very near.
Yes, a major miss
However there are rumours the Powers That Be want to close LCY. Doesn’t make much money, doesn’t add much to the economy, sits on major real estate, and prevents super tall skyscrapers nearby
So the miss might be deliberate
As with the Cardiff example, the question is makes money for whom?
Even in 2023, service exports are correlated with the ability of people to go places and sell.
LCY may well be a significant asset to UK PLC, even if it is delivering disappointing returns for its entirely foreign based (Canadian pension funds and the Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund) ownership.
I love Schengen. We civilised folks glide through airports. We occasionally catch glimpses of the wounded wee lions in their glass cages, which always causes a little ripple of Schadenfreudic mirth.
Is that when you are fleeing the bombs, grenades, kidnaps, murders, and mass ethnic gang rapes of Malmo, Stockholm and elsewhere?
I love Schengen. We civilised folks glide through airports. We occasionally catch glimpses of the wounded wee lions in their glass cages, which always causes a little ripple of Schadenfreudic mirth.
Is that when you are fleeing the bombs, grenades, kidnaps, murders, and mass ethnic gang rapes of Malmo, Stockholm and elsewhere?
Was surprised to see Sweden as (along with the USA) one of the most polarised countries in the West.
LCY definitely isn’t what it once was. A small, easy to navigate glorified bus station with a couple of pleasant bars. Then it expanded and became an awkward hybrid of a proper hub airport (bit with no business lounges) and bus station.
Can be quite unpleasant early on a Monday morning or a Thursday evening.
A headteacher at an all‑girls' school in London has warned her pupils "don’t allow a lone policeman to approach you, at any time". Do you think this advice is appropriate or inappropriate?
It’s bizarre that the Elizabeth Line does not go to LCY when it runs very near.
Yes, a major miss
However there are rumours the Powers That Be want to close LCY. Doesn’t make much money, doesn’t add much to the economy, sits on major real estate, and prevents super tall skyscrapers nearby
So the miss might be deliberate
As with the Cardiff example, the question is makes money for whom?
Even in 2023, service exports are correlated with the ability of people to go places and sell.
LCY may well be a significant asset to UK PLC, even if it is delivering disappointing returns for its entirely foreign based (Canadian pension funds and the Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund) ownership.
I’m just not convinced it is worth the real estate, tho
And the tall buildings blight is a real issue. East London/City/Docklands needs to go UP to cater for growing populations. LCY prevents that for… what? A few dozen flights a day?
Developing Southend - or an entirely new place on the Liz Line - makes more sense and would revive chunks of Essex. Scrap LCY. Build a heliport if needs be
I love Schengen. We civilised folks glide through airports. We occasionally catch glimpses of the wounded wee lions in their glass cages, which always causes a little ripple of Schadenfreudic mirth.
Is that when you are fleeing the bombs, grenades, kidnaps, murders, and mass ethnic gang rapes of Malmo, Stockholm and elsewhere?
Was surprised to see Sweden as (along with the USA) one of the most polarised countries in the West.
We never hear any of that from Indy McSwedeface.
One of the first genuinely hard right coalition governments in Europe. More so than Italy
I love Schengen. We civilised folks glide through airports. We occasionally catch glimpses of the wounded wee lions in their glass cages, which always causes a little ripple of Schadenfreudic mirth.
Is that when you are fleeing the bombs, grenades, kidnaps, murders, and mass ethnic gang rapes of Malmo, Stockholm and elsewhere?
Was surprised to see Sweden as (along with the USA) one of the most polarised countries in the West.
We never hear any of that from Indy McSwedeface.
One of the first genuinely hard right coalition governments in Europe. More so than Italy
It’s bizarre that the Elizabeth Line does not go to LCY when it runs very near.
Yes, a major miss
However there are rumours the Powers That Be want to close LCY. Doesn’t make much money, doesn’t add much to the economy, sits on major real estate, and prevents super tall skyscrapers nearby
So the miss might be deliberate
As with the Cardiff example, the question is makes money for whom?
Even in 2023, service exports are correlated with the ability of people to go places and sell.
LCY may well be a significant asset to UK PLC, even if it is delivering disappointing returns for its entirely foreign based (Canadian pension funds and the Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund) ownership.
I’m just not convinced it is worth the real estate, tho
And the tall buildings blight is a real issue. East London/City/Docklands needs to go UP to cater for growing populations. LCY prevents that for… what? A few dozen flights a day?
Developing Southend - or an entirely new place on the Liz Line - makes more sense and would revive chunks of Essex. Scrap LCY. Build a heliport if needs be
Needs to be a bit closer than Southend but could be close to Tilbury or Thurrock, and expand to be a properly large airport. Not the hub, because public transport isn’t good enough (though could of course be improved, and the M25 is nearby). Could be as big as Gatwick.
Then turn the whole LCY area into high density tall buildings. It’s brownfield, there’s little green space or old architecture to lose, and this would also trigger more building and economic activity around Dartford/Thurrock.
Comments
Of course, it's also not clear what the demand would be, given the increased journey time. Manchester to Amsterdam would be about six hours, and pricey.
Been on the market since October, maybe they will take an offer.
I remember predicting exactly this on PB when he resigned. That his memoirs alone would make him £10m+
With this offer, he will easily exceed that. Even if the £6m is for worldwide English language rights, he will make millions more from translation rights into German, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, French, etc
Then there is serialisations, book clubs, audio deals, paperback options, plus potential millions for TV and/or movie rights
I was told on here by many people that ACTUALLY he was a busted flush and a proven liar who would struggle to earn a halfpenny. What a bunch of twits. I shall not embarrass them by naming them
In practice, Ireland would join as well.
Frankopan certainly gives the impression that it was largely opportunism and adventurism that drove the 'discovery' of the Americas.
I suspect that the Eurostar doesn’t have the same passenger ID requirement as the airlines, at least not at the time of booking, but it might just be a contractual issue. For the ferry/tunnel, you book by the vehicle not by the person.
It has terrible transport links (compared to the marvel of somewhere like Heathrow: Tube, Liz Line, HXP, or even Luton) and it has ghastly shite catering and shopping
It should be high end. Caviar and oysters for City boys. Yet weirdly it’s Greggs and a shuttered branch of Nando’s. Dismal
Another good week for the Tories.
Southend airport was promising for a while, with a similarly simple setup. But hardly anyone bothered running flights from there. (Airline/airport relationships are one of the many things I don't remotely understand but can't help thinking don't smell right.)
Yet another reason he should never be PM again
https://twitter.com/MichaelTakeMP/status/1617504258911522817
From where I am in Ilford, you just change once, at Stratford.
Schengen is essentially a technical detail.
People just want to know we have “control”; arguably today we have the worst of all worlds.
It should be a tiny shuttle airport for finance boys going to Frankfurt/Paris/Amsterdam etc. At which it is great (I remember it fondly as that)
But they are now marketing it for summer hols with kids. NO NO NO
But states were there is only one rule:
"Don't annoy the guy in charge."
never do particularly well in the long run.
It might be a sensible jump, a jump where the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, but it's not the moodspace where the UK has been in the past, or is right now.
Can any PBers recommend a reasonable hotel (or alternative) on Island of Oahu, toward budget end of scale? Am thinking of starting at Waikiki, then branching out, during one-week visit in Feb.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/east-asias-mask-obsession-is-a-catastrophe-the-west-must-avoid/
Bank to LCY (DLR)
Sorted!
Just asking.
Some sort of face covering might help.
Schen(an)egen!
However there are rumours the Powers That Be want to close LCY. Doesn’t make much money, doesn’t add much to the economy, sits on major real estate, and prevents super tall skyscrapers nearby
So the miss might be deliberate
https://unherd.com/2023/01/why-gamers-cant-play-politics/
https://www.cityam.com/national-express-wins-880m-contract-to-run-german-rail-lines/
Must be desperate.
To be honest I find almost all restaurant burgers underwhelming compared to homemade burgers. Even Yay Burgers aren't quite as good, even if they are better than the rest.
https://twitter.com/danneidle/status/1617452052170539008?s=46&t=TKUwcpD8igQXrRaAqMB4Vw
Even in 2023, service exports are correlated with the ability of people to go places and sell.
LCY may well be a significant asset to UK PLC, even if it is delivering disappointing returns for its entirely foreign based (Canadian pension funds and the Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund) ownership.
https://twitter.com/DanNeidle/status/1617461026718642176
Will be out soon, and not fair for me to to say more at this point. But I will add that the MP is not a Conservative.
We never hear any of that from Indy McSwedeface.
Can be quite unpleasant early on a Monday morning or a Thursday evening.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/23/conservative-health-minister-stake-covid-nick-markham-cignpost-investments
Appropriate: 50%
Inappropriate: 30%
Don't know: 20%
yougov.co.uk/topics/politic…
https://twitter.com/yougov/status/1617547821632086022?s=46&t=TKUwcpD8igQXrRaAqMB4Vw
Tory carelessness costs lives and livelihoods.… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1617564189228240896
And the tall buildings blight is a real issue. East London/City/Docklands needs to go UP to cater for growing populations. LCY prevents that for… what? A few dozen flights a day?
Developing Southend - or an entirely new place on the Liz Line - makes more sense and would revive chunks of Essex. Scrap LCY. Build a heliport if needs be
Sweden. Of all places. It is a fucking disaster
6 Conservative British nationalists
4 Lib Dem British nationalists
1 Labour British nationalist
So, statistically unlikely it is one of them. But, yes, it would be utterly hilarious. And entirely in character.
Then turn the whole LCY area into high density tall buildings. It’s brownfield, there’s little green space or old architecture to lose, and this would also trigger more building and economic activity around Dartford/Thurrock.