Aviation Discussion

[daikilo]

BA is a Spanish airline, headquarters in Spain and run by a Spaniard. It is a relevant factor in whether the economic benefits actually pass through to the British people who will pay for the airport expansion and who will suffer the environmental consequences of the airport expansion.

As far as I am aware, BA is registered in the UK and headquartered in the UK (and run by a Spaniard). BA is however a subsidiary of IAG which is headquartered in Spain and run by an Irishman.

Heathrow airport is a holding company with no UK ownership at all (as far as I can see). In addition, it is likely that any new runway would be funded by them (at least principally).

 

[AndyW33]

BA is a Spanish airline, headquarters in Spain and run by a Spaniard. It is a relevant factor in whether the economic benefits actually pass through to the British people who will pay for the airport expansion and who will suffer the environmental consequences of the airport expansion.

As far as I am aware, BA is registered in the UK and headquartered in the UK (and run by a Spaniard). BA is however a subsidiary of IAG which is headquartered in Spain and run by an Irishman.

Heathrow airport is a holding company with no UK ownership at all (as far as I can see). In addition, it is likely that any new runway would be funded by them (at least principally).

Spot on. BA is a UK registered company operating flights under a UK AOC, and run from offices at Waterside, Harmondsworth, near Heathrow.
It is a wholly owned subsidiary of IAG, a company whose registered office is in Madrid but whose operational headquarters are in fact at, wait for it, Waterside, Harmondsworth, near Heathrow. IAG is quoted on the London and Madrid stock exchanges, the largest single shareholder is Qatar Airways with 20% of the shares. Yes, the CEO of IAG is Irish, the same man who has in the past run BA as a standalone airline, and before that Aer Lingus (now another IAG airline). Hard to think of a more genuinely multi-national airline group, really.
Apart from the Irish Willie Walsh, standalone BA also had in its past the Australian Rod Eddington as CEO. I really fail to see what the nationality of the CEO has to do with the "nationality" of an airline; if having a British citizen at the helm is the qualification for an airline to be British, then welcome to Sir Tim Clark's Emirates Airlines as Britain's flag carrier.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It is a wholly owned subsidiary of IAG, a company whose registered office is in Madrid

Indeed it is.

My point is that the profitability, or otherwise, of a Spanish airline group owned by the Qataris has precisely zero impact on the financial or economic situation in the UK.

Yes, and I wish BA hadn't completely pulled out of MAN (the JFK-MAN flight was great), but take care to compare like with like.

Virgin are offering point-to-point bucket-and-spade long-haul routes from these airports, on high-density aircraft. BA could do this, but it's not their business model (and this will become more difficult with the rise of the like of Norwegian).

I have seen it said on here that BA's domestic routes do not exist to provide domestic transport, they exist to connect people into BA's long-haul routes, specifically their trans-atlantic routes.

Having said all that, shipping an A320 full of people down to Heathrow to ship them on to the US seems a teensy bit of a waste of landling slots at Heathrow. The solution may well be to set up a smaller hub at Manchester or Glasgow for some routes, to take the pressure off Heathrow.

"Bucket and spade" long-haul routes may not be Heathrow BA's main trade, but it definitely is BA's main trade from Gatwick.

Quite simply, I don't think expanding Heathrow is a solution to anything. The real and genuine solution is expanding traffic from major provincial airports. Here I should really mumble something or other about the Northern Powerhouse.

 

[stut]

The real and genuine solution is expanding traffic from major provincial airports. Here I should really mumble something or other about the Northern Powerhouse.

I agree, but it's a risky venture.

Finnair, for example, have had some good success expanding their Asian operation with their new A350s. Good connecting traffic, well positioned for the overnight eastbounds, but a lot of investment required.

Let's say the investment is put into Manchester. How do you get Haçienda Airways up and running and competing with the big boys, without the premium O&D traffic that London commands? US pre-clearance like DUB? Efficient transfers like MUC? Free hotpots on every flight? It's a difficult proposition. It would be great to make it work, though. However, I suspect the current mob (as with many before them) can barely see beyond the M25, let alone further north...

Or maybe EDI is a good target, with its strong banking centre. Indyref2 Airways with its souvenir bags of Embra Rock and excellent in-flight catering. Would you like the Salmon or the Sturgeon, sir?

 

[Tetchytyke]

It's not so much getting new airlines to compete with existing airlines, more about getting existing airlines to use the capacity that is available at Manchester and at Edinburgh and/or Glasgow.

I understand that it's easier for airlines (e.g. Emirates) who have the UK at the spoke end of their hub-and-spoke network. But Edinburgh and/or Glasgow and Manchester should be able to support direct flights to the USA, Canada and the Middle East, and encouraging the UK domestic traffic northwards will allow more room for people heading to London.

I simply don't believe Heathrow needs expanding whilst we have unused capacity at our big provincial airports.

 

[Tim R-T-C]

Plus cutting down domestic flights into LHR that serve international flights that might have moved elsewhere would free up more space at Heathrow for other operations.

 

[telstarbox]

Is it not relevant that while there may be a market for Manchester / Glasgow to Florida, the vast majority of those people will fly the route at most once a year in economy, whereas the highly profitable passengers who fly London <> New York every month in business class tend to live nearer the London airports, so their money talks?

Haçienda Airlines does sound like fun, if not necessarily profitable...

 

[atillathehunn]

Guys why are we ruling out the free hotpots on every flight so fast?

On a more serious note, I think characterising the flights from the north of England as bucket and spade and those from Heathrow as business is stretching things.

There are regular flights to places like PHL (not a sun spot), HKG (okay probably half and half), Beijing, DXB, AUH, DOH etc etc that are full each day, plus all the connecting services to other destinations.

In reality, regardless of government action, Manchester is engineering itself as a domestic connection hub. Flybe's ties with Air France, Emirates and Etihad means their domestic network is being exploited to fill long haul seats via a connection in Manchester off a Flybe flight. Market forces are beginning to act, and we are seeing a natural drift towards this. Much like Schiphol, Manchester has capacity and is pretty well positioned. Both in terms of geography, space, and public transport connections. I've heard rumours that US pre-clearance is coming.

 

[stut]

PHL is an AA hub, HKG a CX hub, DOH a QR hub... You get the pattern. Getting feeder flights from regional airports to overseas airlines' hubs works.

It's not that the northern airports are all bucket-and-spade, it's that having non-hub long-haul flights isn't really viable unless you have a low-cost operation (like DY), a holiday operation (like VS or TOM) or significant, expensive freight.

Like it or not, London has exceptionally high premium O&D traffic, in large part thanks to route deals in the Financial Services sector. With the best will in the world, business traffic elsewhere in the UK simply doesn't have this - hence the non-London growth being LCC or feeder.

It'll be interesting to see how the DY model pans out.

 

[WatcherZero]

Davies wrote a letter in the Telegraph today which was quite informative.

Said Cameron was stalling perpetually and a decision would never have been made while he was in office. That Heathrow is the overwhelming choice, that Heathrow and Gatwick both being done would provide too much capacity and would be open to environmental challenge and that there was an understanding when Birmingham and Stansted didn't make the shortlist that they would be able to bid for the next runway to be built in the UK. If Gatwick was expanded too they would be able to legally challenge that process. He also says he thinks the next airport to get a runway should be Birmingham because of HS2.

 

[atillathehunn]

PHL is an AA hub, HKG a CX hub, DOH a QR hub... You get the pattern. Getting feeder flights from regional airports to overseas airlines' hubs works.

It's not that the northern airports are all bucket-and-spade, it's that having non-hub long-haul flights isn't really viable unless you have a low-cost operation (like DY), a holiday operation (like VS or TOM) or significant, expensive freight.

Like it or not, London has exceptionally high premium O&D traffic, in large part thanks to route deals in the Financial Services sector. With the best will in the world, business traffic elsewhere in the UK simply doesn't have this - hence the non-London growth being LCC or feeder.

It'll be interesting to see how the DY model pans out.

That wasn't entirely my point, though. I was highlighting that the traffic is not just bucket and spade by highlighting the huge number of flights to often/mostly business destinations. Aware the ME3 are taking Kangaroo route and Thailand traffic, but there's a lot of business travellers on those flights.

The second part of my point was rather more important. Than there are already 'hubs' forming through market forces outside of LHR. Sure, a nation's capital often has the major hub airport in a country. But the fact market forces - like Flybe's operation - are telling us there is demand for traffic which doesn't have to touch London. Whether that be a passenger from Exeter who is using the Flybe connection to jump onto a long haul EK flight from MAN, or just someone heading to the north of England through MAN.

It's not quite, therefore, true to say EK etc are true 'spoke' ends of a hub and spoke operation.

This has been the point before in other posts: traffic which does currently touch London doesn't have to.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

PHL is an AA hub, HKG a CX hub, DOH a QR hub... You get the pattern. Getting feeder flights from regional airports to overseas airlines' hubs works.

It's not that the northern airports are all bucket-and-spade, it's that having non-hub long-haul flights isn't really viable unless you have a low-cost operation (like DY), a holiday operation (like VS or TOM) or significant, expensive freight.

Like it or not, London has exceptionally high premium O&D traffic, in large part thanks to route deals in the Financial Services sector. With the best will in the world, business traffic elsewhere in the UK simply doesn't have this - hence the non-London growth being LCC or feeder.

It'll be interesting to see how the DY model pans out.

(my bold)

Earlier I caught part of a re-run of one of the airport fly-on-the-wall series. While featuring Emirates' lounge they mentioned that Heathrow has more departing passengers traveling first class than any other airport in the world. That's what BA is about and how they make their money. And they can't do it flying long-haul from the provinces, the money just isn't there.

 

[stut]

That wasn't entirely my point, though. I was highlighting that the traffic is not just bucket and spade by highlighting the huge number of flights to often/mostly business destinations. Aware the ME3 are taking Kangaroo route and Thailand traffic, but there's a lot of business travellers on those flights.

Fair enough. My point was more that the regional non-hub routes from UK airlines out of regional airports tend to be more leisure focused, not that there was more business traffic.

(In fact, I've used QR quite a lot for business travel to South Asia - great for reaching obscure parts of South India...)

The second part of my point was rather more important. Than there are already 'hubs' forming through market forces outside of LHR. Sure, a nation's capital often has the major hub airport in a country. But the fact market forces - like Flybe's operation - are telling us there is demand for traffic which doesn't have to touch London. Whether that be a passenger from Exeter who is using the Flybe connection to jump onto a long haul EK flight from MAN, or just someone heading to the north of England through MAN.

It's not quite, therefore, true to say EK etc are true 'spoke' ends of a hub and spoke operation.

This has been the point before in other posts: traffic which does currently touch London doesn't have to.

Fair point, Flybe are running a hybrid low-cost/traditional model (albeit with appalling reliability on certain routes, so I'm not sure I'd want to rely on them too much - much as I've enjoyed obscure flights like EXT-NWI and NQY-MAN).

What's really interesting is what EY are doing with their alliances and ownership of regional and national airlines in Europe - from Alitalia to Air Berlin to Darwin. This model will allow for the creation of feeder/mini-hub hybrids, which will allow for secondary airport growth (presumably part of the aim).

I know bmi did their best to feed their long-haul flights out of Manchester, then tried to rely on partners for their Heathrow long-hauls, but it didn't quite work out.

And then, there are European airlines that operated a multi-hub model - SK and LH, to give two examples. In both cases with a dominant hub (CPH, FRA).

So there are options. But none will have the sheer demand of London and the SE. Not for now, anyway.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Like it or not, London has exceptionally high premium O&D traffic, in large part thanks to route deals in the Financial Services sector. With the best will in the world, business traffic elsewhere in the UK simply doesn't have this - hence the non-London growth being LCC or feeder.

My point isn't that London business traffic will suddenly move to Manchester or Birmingham. My point is that there is significant connecting traffic from BA's domestic flights and that connecting traffic doesn't need to go through Heathrow.

It's hard to get concrete stats, for obvious reasons, but it seems that about 65% of Manchester-Heathrow passengers are connecting on to a long-haul flight, and about 55% of Leeds and Newcastle to Heathrow passengers are.

BA made a conscious decision to move all their long-haul traffic to Heathrow, but I think things have changed since then. If you can take a good chunk of the connecting domestic traffic out of Heathrow then that frees up capacity that can be used for traffic going to London. It won't always work, some flights will not be sustainable away from Heathrow, but with the catchment area of Glasgow or Manchester an airline should be able to sustain flights to places like New York JFK. You'd expect most of those connecting passengers to be going to BA's primary destinations. Even back in the 90s when I was flying to Australia we chose to fly Cathay Pacific and Singapore because they went from Manchester, rather than BA/Qantas and having to deal with Heathrow. I'm sure a lot of people still feel the same, hence Emirates' regional success.

Virgin Atlantic manage to sustain traffic to JFK and to Atlanta, which is their partner Delta's hub. There's no reason why BA couldn't manage the same to JFK, or even Newark, and Philadelphia.

But Heathrow is about more than BA. As Emirates are finding with Birmingham, a lot of passengers (and freight) that fall into Heathrow's catchment area would be more than happy to use a different airport because it is more convenient. Emirates can't get more slots at Heathrow, so they expanded operations at an airport that has a significant overlap with Heathrow's catchment area.

LH have a main hub at Frankfurt, but manage plenty of long-haul traffic from places like Munich. Greater Manchester is about twice the size of Munich.

 

[Groningen]

Third runway at Heathrow cleared for takeoff by ministers.

 

[radamfi]

Greater Manchester is about twice the size of Munich.

The Munich urban area has a population of 2.6 million, very similar to Greater Manchester.

 

[zoneking]

Right decision. Anything is better than Gatwick.

 

[Airline Man]

I wouldn't hold your breath on the third runway. Right decision, but it comes years too late. It won't get built in most of our lifetimes, if at all.

I guess we'll see more interviews on the news of politicians and protestors outside the Five Bells in Harmondwsorth bemoaning that their 'village' is going to be bulldozed. In fact that part of Harmondsworth is more or less tucked away in a glorified cul-de-sac and whilst some parts were clearly a medieval village, most of the area is urban sprawl.

Interestingly, BA's newish head office is scheduled for demolition as well.

 

[radamfi]

Right decision. Anything is better than Gatwick.

Gatwick expansion will happen regardless as it doesn't require taxpayers' money.

 

[pompeyfan]

Why are people so against Gatwick expansion? I can understand NIMBY complaints, but surely for the general public Gatwick wouldn't have been a terrible decision?

 

[BananaRepublic]

Gatwick expansion will happen regardless as it doesn't require taxpayers' money.

Both Heathrow and Gatwick proposals are private projects, which the private owners will have to find funding for.
It's the amount of public infrastructure associated with each development that falls under taxpayer funding, subject to the degree to which the airport owners will be required to fund, or part fund.

The Gatwick option purports to require less, or no taxpayer funding for public transport infrastructure, but I personally believe that rather underplays the amount of money that would be really be required to provide adequate rail capacity and to address the impact on the M23, M25 and other trunk roads.

e.g. Upgrades to the BML will not provide anywhere near the extra capacity needed.




--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Why are people so against Gatwick expansion? I can understand NIMBY complaints, but surely for the general public Gatwick wouldn't have been a terrible decision?

Gatwick will still need another runway within a few years, regardless (it could do with it now at peak times), unless there's a downturn in traffic.

The Davies Commission report (and the government decision) completely fails to address the issue of Gatwick reaching capacity, citing available capacity at other London airports.
The report forecasts that Gatwick would be handling 43 million ppa by 2030, but they reached that figure this year (2016), only a mere 14 years early.

 

[freetoview33]

Heathrow has been at near capacity for a while
Gatwick is at capacity!

Gatwick takes 43M people on one runway which is amazing. If it did have a 2nd runway that could be used independently is there any reason they couldn't handle 86M? Other than other transport improvements?

I must admit I don't know how it works but is there any reason Heathrow couldn't handle an extra 10M now? (Well once T2 is finished)

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

My point isn't that London business traffic will suddenly move to Manchester or Birmingham. My point is that there is significant connecting traffic from BA's domestic flights and that connecting traffic doesn't need to go through Heathrow.

It's hard to get concrete stats, for obvious reasons, but it seems that about 65% of Manchester-Heathrow passengers are connecting on to a long-haul flight, and about 55% of Leeds and Newcastle to Heathrow passengers are.

BA made a conscious decision to move all their long-haul traffic to Heathrow, but I think things have changed since then. If you can take a good chunk of the connecting domestic traffic out of Heathrow then that frees up capacity that can be used for traffic going to London. It won't always work, some flights will not be sustainable away from Heathrow, but with the catchment area of Glasgow or Manchester an airline should be able to sustain flights to places like New York JFK. You'd expect most of those connecting passengers to be going to BA's primary destinations. Even back in the 90s when I was flying to Australia we chose to fly Cathay Pacific and Singapore because they went from Manchester, rather than BA/Qantas and having to deal with Heathrow. I'm sure a lot of people still feel the same, hence Emirates' regional success.

It seems you are continuing to ignore the fact that the number of first class passengers using UK provincial airports is very small compared to London. BA gave up on long-haul from Manchester for that very reason. Without the premium revenue the routes didn't make sufficient profit. Sad but true.

Virgin Atlantic manage to sustain traffic to JFK and to Atlanta, which is their partner Delta's hub. There's no reason why BA couldn't manage the same to JFK, or even Newark, and Philadelphia.

See the above. Also BA would need to feed into American Airlines' hubs which are Miami, Chicago, Dallas and LAX. Philadelphia is a secondary hub, as are Charlotte and Phoenix. BA couldn't even sustain MAN-JFK, a destination with some appeal in its own right, they won't be re-starting trans-Atlantic routes from MAN.

But Heathrow is about more than BA. As Emirates are finding with Birmingham, a lot of passengers (and freight) that fall into Heathrow's catchment area would be more than happy to use a different airport because it is more convenient. Emirates can't get more slots at Heathrow, so they expanded operations at an airport that has a significant overlap with Heathrow's catchment area.

And where do you think Emirates' passengers are going? Not that many to Dubai. They're mostly going to South Asia or Aus/NZ. Of no interest to BA because there's no premium revenue to be had.

LH have a main hub at Frankfurt, but manage plenty of long-haul traffic from places like Munich. Greater Manchester is about twice the size of Munich.

But Munich is home to blue chip companies. Manchester isn't.

 

[anme]

Virgin Atlantic manage to sustain traffic to JFK and to Atlanta, which is their partner Delta's hub. There's no reason why BA couldn't manage the same to JFK, or even Newark, and Philadelphia.

That's not necessarily true. It might be that Virgin already take all the available traffic. Adding more flights would not necessarily bring more passengers.

The aviation market between the EU and the US is fairly open and Manchester has spare capacity. If there was really more demand, I expect some airline would have filled it.

LH have a main hub at Frankfurt, but manage plenty of long-haul traffic from places like Munich. Greater Manchester is about twice the size of Munich.

As was said by others, being honest Bavaria is a more significant business destination than the north of England (and Brexit is not going to help). Also there are a lot of other airports in the north, e.g. Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, East Midlands, Newcastle, Humbership. Maybe if some of these were closed there would be enough critical mass for better flights from Manchester.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The justification for Heathrow's third runway is, allegedly, to provide additional capacity for domestic flights connecting into the Heathrow hub. Insert the standard waffle about the Northern Powerhouse.

This leaves us two options. Either there is significant connecting domestic traffic, or Heathrow and the government are lying about the real reason for expanding Heathrow.

If there is significant connecting traffic, simple logic dictates that there is sufficient connecting traffic to justify direct flights on the key corridors. This won't always apply- Manchester of course couldn't ever support the same breadth of routes as Heathrow- but for key routes it should apply. Manchester is an hour away from Liverpool and Leeds and has excellent transport links to both, with the combined business power of Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester it should be able to support more routes than it does.

BA pulled out of Manchester when they got their hands on Terminal 5, and I think that had more to do with it than anything else.

Other airlines have more than enough premium traffic to support their routes, including Virgin Atlantic, and trying to argue an airport that has Harrogate, York and Wilmslow in its catchment area doesn't have premium traffic is ridiculous. I suspect what BA really mean is that premium passengers no longer use BA, as BA domestic flights are economy-class only.

Quite simply, I don't think Heathrow is the best option for delivering the expansion that is needed in the UK. I don't think the huge cost of delivering the third runway- and I'll bet my house that HAL come crawling to the government for cash before long- nor the significant disruption it will cause to the people of West London is justified.

 

[anme]

The justification for Heathrow's third runway is, allegedly, to provide additional capacity for domestic flights connecting into the Heathrow hub. Insert the standard waffle about the Northern Powerhouse.

This leaves us two options. Either there is significant connecting domestic traffic, or Heathrow and the government are lying about the real reason for expanding Heathrow.

If there is significant connecting traffic, simple logic dictates that there is sufficient connecting traffic to justify direct flights on the key corridors. This won't always apply- Manchester of course couldn't ever support the same breadth of routes as Heathrow- but for key routes it should apply. Manchester is an hour away from Liverpool and Leeds and has excellent transport links to both, with the combined business power of Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester it should be able to support more routes than it does.

BA pulled out of Manchester when they got their hands on Terminal 5, and I think that had more to do with it than anything else.

Other airlines have more than enough premium traffic to support their routes, including Virgin Atlantic, and trying to argue an airport that has Harrogate, York and Wilmslow in its catchment area doesn't have premium traffic is ridiculous. I suspect what BA really mean is that premium passengers no longer use BA, as BA domestic flights are economy-class only.

Quite simply, I don't think Heathrow is the best option for delivering the expansion that is needed in the UK. I don't think the huge cost of delivering the third runway- and I'll bet my house that HAL come crawling to the government for cash before long- nor the significant disruption it will cause to the people of West London is justified.

I don't want to argue too much in favour of expanding Heathrow, because I'm not actually in favour of it.

But it's much easier to get slots at MAN than LHR, and still airlines don't choose to operate many long haul flights from there. It's not just BA - there are plenty of other large airlines in the US, Europe and elsewhere which have suitable planes and suitable operating licenses and could do so if they chose. I assume they know their stuff. York, Harrogate and Wilmslow may be comparatively rich but they are also comparatively small and don't have large banking industries with large expense accounts which are really what drives premium traffic.

As I said, maybe it makes sense to close other airports in the north such as Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, etc to try to build a critical mass around Manchester. Maybe even Birmingham could close - that's relatively large and must indeed suck traffic from Manchester.

Anyone willing to take up Arctic Troll's offer to bet his/her house?

 

[Butts]

I don't want to argue too much in favour of expanding Heathrow, because I'm not actually in favour of it.

But it's much easier to get slots at MAN than LHR, and still airlines don't choose to operate many long haul flights from there. It's not just BA - there are plenty of other large airlines in the US, Europe and elsewhere which have suitable planes and suitable operating licenses and could do so if they chose. I assume they know their stuff. York, Harrogate and Wilmslow may be comparatively rich but they are also comparatively small and don't have large banking industries with large expense accounts which are really what drives premium traffic.

As I said, maybe it makes sense to close other airports in the north such as Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, etc to try to build a critical mass around Manchester. Maybe even Birmingham could close - that's relatively large and must indeed suck traffic from Manchester.

Anyone willing to take up Arctic Troll's offer to bet his/her house?

Forget that I regularly fly from EDI/GLA to BHX

 

[Tetchytyke]

As I said, maybe it makes sense to close other airports in the north such as Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, etc to try to build a critical mass around Manchester.

Liverpool and Leeds-Bradford don't do long-haul, both airports really are bucket-and-spade LCC operations to the Canaries or Greece for a week's sunshine.

I've just seen that HAL are proposing ringfencing paths to Durham Tees Valley from the expanded Heathrow. Presumably it'll be a little bit more binding than the "ringfencing" that was imposed on BA when they bought BMI, ringfencing that BA have just completely ignored. That cheered me up no end, though. DTV will be a housing estate long before the third runway gets built at Heathrow. They really will say anything.

 

[ivanhoe]

Crikey, closing airports in the north and Midlands is not going to solve the issues of the South East. Liverpool, East Midlands et al are for specific markets and do not impact on the debate.
As for closing BHX, come on, you're having a laugh. Manchester is the key airport for the north and will grow as the region prospers but it will not be at the expense of Heathrow nor Gatwick.
If you live in Marseilles or Lyon in France, you will be more likely be going via Charles De Gaulle to get to New York . Very few countries in Europe offer direct flights from a range of their cities to North America or the Far East.Thats the issue we have in the UK and why a solution is required for the South East.

 

[anme]

I'm not necessarily in favour of closing airports in the north. But if you want more long haul flights from Manchester, it needs enough critical mass. Airports such as Leeds just suck passengers from Manchester and make it easier for people to go via Heathrow. Closing other airports in the north will force more people to use Manchester, and this may create more opportunities for airlines to offer long haul flights.

Similarly, closing short haul airports such as Liverpool and moving those flights to Manchester will create more transfer traffic in Manchester and make it more of a hub. That will also help.

Another option is to ban or heavily tax flights between Manchester and Heathrow, and maybe other major hubs such as Schiphol. That might also create more demand for long haul flights from Manchester.

Any other ideas?