You think the government would let the countries busiest airport shut because the owners go bust? Of course they wouldn't. Therefore the companies 'investment' is ultimately underwritten by the taxpayer.how much taxpayers money is to go towards the third runway at Heathrow?
Except that Heathrow is 90% foreign owned - largely Spain and Qatar- so probably pays little or no corporation tax in the UK
In 2016 Heathrow paid £24m in corporation tax despite having paid dividends to its foreign owners over previous years of >£2bn.Do you have a source for this suggestion?
I can't say I have any knowledge of the ownership structure of Heathrow Airport Holdings Ltd, but I suspect if there was a story here we probably would have heard it by now.
In 2016 Heathrow paid £24m in corporation tax despite having paid dividends to its foreign owners over previous years of >£2bn.
I do not pretend to understand our tax system but Heathrow claim the deferment of £1bn corporation tax (which will ultimately be paid to HMRC) has enabled them to invest £11bn in the airport.
I don't see how anyone can claim Heathrow's catchment area is confined the London & South East area. On several occasions I have assisted people book train tickets to Heathrow from places well outside the LSE area.Always a messy subject about whether London infrastructure is publicly or privately funded but the point is that it's London and the South East's hub - not Britain's.
ThI don't see how anyone can claim Heathrow's catchment area is confined the London & South East area. On several occasions I have assisted people book train tickets to Heathrow from places well outside the LSE area.
I don't see how anyone can claim Heathrow's catchment area is confined the London & South East area. On several occasions I have assisted people book train tickets to Heathrow from places well outside the LSE area.
I would argue that Heathrow's catchment area is not even confined to England let alone South East England. I'm not even sure it is confined to the UK - people probably travel to it from the Isle of Man and the Republic of Ireland.
"Mancunians" have always had a great "propensity to fly" which is presumably why Manchester Airport has grown so rapidly over the last 80 years (give or take 12 days).
A recent survey suggested Manchester was losing over 4 million international passengers to Heathrow for various reasons.
Manchester happens to be in the right place as there are a lot of people nearby yet it is sufficiently far from London. Birmingham airport is too near to London and especially Heathrow to rival Manchester.
Manchester's catchment extends way beyond the Greater Manchester boundary. It could be argued that other northern airports are losing passengers to Manchester.
Heathrow is easily avoided and Amsterdam is a more relevant hub for much of the UK, regardless of an expanded Heathrow. I live less than 50 miles from Heathrow but hardly ever use it, as cheaper fares are usually available elsewhere.
The Heathrow - Manchester situation is arguably a lot less "unfair" than the Amsterdam - Rotterdam situation. There are actually more people in the Rotterdam/The Hague area than in the Amsterdam area, yet Amsterdam airport has at least 30 times the passengers.
Not really; The Hague is as close to Schiphol as Liverpool is to Manchester Airport and Rotterdam is only slightly further away. Plus, you would be the first to say how wonderful public transport is in the Netherlands, noting that frequent trains from The Hague & Rotterdam call at Schiphol on the way to Amsterdam. And I seem to recall from my last visit (many years ago) Rotterdam Airport has/had a pretty good bus service to the city, given the Airport's moderate size.
Further, Amsterdam/Schiphol is centrally located in the Netherlands, whilst London is right down in the bottom right hand corner of our scepter'd isle - albeit, at least Heathrow is west of London.
The north of England may complain about being neglected compared to the south-east, but would people in the north choose to pay south-east house prices in return for similarly prosperity?
But this is the classic conundrum of the Free Market. Surely the fundamental reason that SE house prices are so much more expensive is because we have an over centralised Economy. That in turn is further excarbated by the massive investment in Transport and other infrastructure down there, along with higher rates of per capita spending on such as Education and Health. The latter, in turn attracts the "best" Teachers and Doctors, and then we wonder why Londoners (particularly from poorer backgrounds according to recent, widely publicised studies) are better educated and have better health*.
I always remember a BBC documentary on this subject some years ago, which (I think it was this way round), featured a Fireman "from" Swansea and a School teacher "from" Doncaster. Both were complaining about the high cost of living/commuting in London. These sort of things make me wonder if there is a parrallel universe; Don't they have Fires in Swansea or children in Doncaster????
There are a number of reasons for Heathrow (and more recently, Stansted & Luton's) "false demand". In the old days the main one was Travel Agents trying to persuade people to fly via the SE through Northern Supplements or other financial "incentives" or even denying the existence of direct flights from other, more convenient Airports. More recently, some airlines European (overseas airlines are far less discriminatory) still slap on massive hikes from major regional Airports, although to some extent they will argue its Market Forces. For instance, back in 2012, I was planning a trip to Frankfurt and had the whole Summer to choose from (as in any 3-4 days therin). Detailed searching Lufthansa's website showed widespread availability of return fares around £89 from Heathrow throughout June, July and August. Apart from the odd evening flight out/crack of dawn flight back, the cheapest fares from Manchester were £505-530. In the end I scrapped the idea and went to Dusseldorf (with flybe) instead.
I don't know how true it is overall, but I heard a while back from someone who occasional flies aboard on Business that it is standard policy for British businesses to automatically fly all staff via Heathrow instead of direct (where applicable) to meetings. One wonders how much business Britain loses/lost because their Reps turned up for meetings in such as the States, jet lagged, and/or how much money these companies waste on otherwise unnecessary Accomodation costs.
Other personal examples; way before last decades bank-initiated Recession, I was entered into a draw through the Royal Bank of Scotland - who at the time had my current account. This was for a "free" break in Paris, with Air France. At the time the RBS was based in Edinburgh (!) and Air France flew regular schedules from no less than 16 UK Airports (and probably still do). However, reading the small print, I discovered that the "free" flights had to be from Heathrow. So, I withdrew my entry in the draw and immediately set about transferring my account to another bank. More generally, with all these Banks, Magazines, TV companies etc doing the same thing, it just makes you ask how genuine the demand is for flights from Heathrow. Meanwhile, I have flown from/to Manchester best part of a 100 times (return) but remember very few flights with more than half a dozen empty seats. A recent survey suggested Manchester was losing over 4 million international passengers to Heathrow for various reasons. And presumably, the principle applies to Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast and probably, Cardiff, Newcastle etc. Although, it has been said that for "cultural" (meterological, more like - lol), "Mancunians" have always had a great "propensity to fly" which is presumably why Manchester Airport has grown so rapidly over the last 80 years (give or take 12 days).
More recently, but when I was still in good health, I planned a RTW trip, and whichever "Alliance" I used I would be stung for flying directly from Manchester, rather than via Heathrow. Predictably, "OneWorld" were the worst with a full 50% mark up.
As we all know, virtually all websites are financed by adverts, but the vast majority have an "AdChoice" icon, which in theory, means you can tell them why you don't want to see their advert. However, I have *never* been given the choice to opt out of receiving British Airways adverts. Why?