In message , at 18:19:02 on Sun,
14 Mar 2010, Paul Terry remarked:

Of course, the airport I mentioned was a small regional one. Lots more
places to try to serve if you are attempting to replace flights from
Heathrow.

However, Paris is (by a considerable margin) the most popular
destination from Heathrow, with 60 flights a day (despite Eurostar).

Second most popular are Amsterdam and Dublin (50 flights), after which
comes Frankfurt (40 flights), New York (42 flights), Edinburgh (40
flights), Manchester (36 flights), Brussels (30 flights), Glasgow (28
flights) and Aberdeen (also 28 flights).

Looking at the continental destinations, this emphasises the
hub-and-spoke nature of airline operations. Apart from Brussels (are you
sure of that figure - it seems very high), they are all places where
people routinely catch onwards flights.

But what is really needed to reduce flights from Heathrow is a direct
train service (HS2) to Edinburgh, Manchester, Glasgow and possibly
Aberdeen, since a very large amount of Heathrow's traffic is actually
domestic.

About half of BA's domestic passengers to Heathrow are catching an
onward flight, so you need to make sure the through-ticketing and
baggage is as painless as when flying.
--
Roland Perry