In message , Roland Perry
writes

In message , at 06:25:39 on Mon,
15 Mar 2010, Paul Terry remarked:

The figures are from a HACAN report of 2006. I think you're right in
suspecting that they include codeshares - no doubt to bolster their
case

They are so wrong that all they do is invalidate the argument of anyone
relying upon them.

I wouldn't go that far: numerous other authorities give much the same
list of destinations as the most popular from Heathrow, even though the
precise order depends on the counting system used (just departures, or
departures and arrivals, and whether by number of flights or by
passenger numbers).

The point is that, of the most popular destinations, many are domestic,
hence the need for HS2 to serve Heathrow. Of the rest (and excluding
Dublin and New York that obviously can't be served by rail), a direct or
easy connection to Eurostar would be useful for Paris and Brussels, plus
possibly Amsterdam and Frankfurt. But airline traffic to other European
cities that could instead be potentially reached by rail from Heathrow
is relatively small scale.

--
Paul Terry