"Stimpy" wrote
but hang on i thought WE owned the banks
No, we have a stake in the banks.
That's a VERY different thing to owning them.

Very different indeed. basically, we've assumed their debts in exchange for
a large share, which interestingly gives the taxpayer what politicians call
'bugger all' control.

And our leaders have chosen not to exercise what little control they have,
anyway.

Not what I'd call a good deal, but nobody consulted me - they took advice
from merchant bankers, and most of them were the ones responsible for the
mess.

That's democracy, apparently ;o)
--

Andrew

On 16 Jan, 08:36, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 21:22:31 on Thu, 15
Jan 2009, tim..... remarked:

International transfer business doesn't provide a lot to the UK
economy.

It "tops up" the long haul flights that wouldn't have been economic to run
otherwise. So the transfer passengers are assisting UK residents ability
to fly almost anywhere in the world daily.

I don't buy this argument.

Most of the places that business people want to fly to, that are currently
served from LHR, would have have more than enough frequency if they were
supported by the UK demand alone. *I accept that there are one or two places
(like say, Nairobi) that need connecting pax but most don't.

I disagree. It's not hard to find destinations with less than one flight
a day (ie 3 or 4 per week), or where it's clear that a service can only
be supported from major hub cities (with transfer passengers feeding
in).

A recent example is Hyderabad (India's Silicon Valley) where until the
end of last year the only direct flights from Europe were one a day from
AMS and FRA, but BA has now added a daily flight from LHR.

Claiming that we need 10 flights a day to FRA so that Germans can connect
onto flights to NYC (or Americans in the reverse direction) is a nonsense,
yet because of the way that tickets are sold, I bet quite a few do.

The issue here isn't flights to popular destinations like NYC (where you
can also fly to from Manchester, as well as dozens of direct flights
already from LHR). Obviously, the more places are served direct from
London, the less people have to hop over to FRA if that's the only place
with an onward service.

And those direct flights from London need to be supported by transit
passengers from elsewhere in Europe (that don't have their own direct
flights).


This is ultimately what it's all about, is it not? Basically the idea
is that London and hence Britain benefit from being the crossroads to
anywhere (or at least the air travel equivalent of such!).

(Though I suppose to an extent there is a separate but connected
argument of there being a critical mass of passengers from the UK
using Heathrow as opposed to flying direct from a regional airport -
of course those regional airports generally don't offer flights to
more obscure destinations, but the critical mass of passengers using
LHR may well mean that the frequency of flights to less-obscure
destinations is greater.)

I certainly understand this transfer passenger argument and by no
means do I discount it, but I guess essentially my take on it is a bit
different - which is basically ok, so London will lose (or never get
in the first place) some direct flights to obscurer destinations in
the world, but to what extent does that matter? How badly would this
really affect business in Britain? I wouldn't suggest it would have no
effect, but I can't help but think that the supposed ill-effects on
British business are simply overblown.

What's more I would further put forward the argument that there is a
quality-of-life versus (big) business calculus in play here, and if
some of these travellers to obscurer destinations were not in fact to
make that trip at all (as opposed to making it via a transfer as AMS,
CDG or wherever) then there is also a environmental effects versus
(big) business calculus in play as well.

Incidentally the quality-of-life argument basically revolves around
how many people would be affected by aircraft noise (the far broader
quality-of-life relating to environmental damage from CO2 emission
argument is really part of the latter calculus concerning
environmental effects), and also by the levelling of a town to make
way for the runway. There are some quite different takes on this -
John B's take in a previous discussion was basically that only a
relatively small number of people are affected by this, whilst I
essentially fundamentally disagreed with this and think the noise has
a far wider effect over a lot of London and western Home Counties (if
you really want you can read what we both had to say in this recent
uk.r thread [1]).

Of course I could be wrong. I guess at least part of the counter
argument runs like this - Britain is just a small island in northern
Europe which essentially has to survive and has prospered on it's
wits. It is significantly helped in this regard by the fact that
English is a 'world language' (or should that be pure accident of
English being a world language?!), but it has no intrinsic right to
find itself to the forefront of world affairs and business. In order
to maintain and grow on its position and success it has to stay on the
ball and ensure that it remains in the game - securing Heathrow as one
of the major crossroads of the world means that London and Britain
benefit from this.

As I said above, I'm simply not entirely convinced by this argument.
For example, everyone said Frankfurt would become the European centre
of finance after the Euro was established and London would be left out
in the cold - this didn't happen (and instead it was many fine British
minds that helped to devise house of cards style financial instruments
but we'll leave that point well aside!). That said, there are some
speculating that Frankfurt the understudy is waiting in the wings
ready to pounce on London as soon as the global economy gets back on
the up, and perhaps better air connections to Frankfurt would help in
this regard when for example a company is choosing where to locate. (A
further argument some might come out with is something like
'whatever', let Frankfurt play host to the financial services circus
instead - but then we'd kind of need to work out what we could do to
replace that sector in Britain, though of course in many ways perhaps
we need to be looking at being good at doing some other sorts of stuff
anyway!)

What happens at Heathrow does rather seem to depend upon who wins the
next general election - and I dare say the present government's
decision to press ahead on the third runway may be a contributory
factor in them not being re-elected - though of course how big the
'Heathrow factor' will be in the eyes of the electorate remains to be
seen - will it just be a very local issue, or will it be a factor for
a rather larger number of voters. This last question can basically be
seen as a variant on the disagreement that John B and I had over how
will be affected by the expansion of Heathrow - he might say that it's
only really a niche issue, I would respond by saying it's a rather
wider concern than that. (Though I don't really want to put words into
John's mouth as he's perfectly capable of speaking for himself!)


-----
[1] "Gatwick second runway again" - uk.r thread from December '08:
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk....06bd255bb0d0e/

In message
, at
08:06:21 on Fri, 16 Jan 2009, Mizter T remarked:

The issue here isn't flights to popular destinations like NYC (where you
can also fly to from Manchester, as well as dozens of direct flights
already from LHR). Obviously, the more places are served direct from
London, the less people have to hop over to FRA if that's the only place
with an onward service.

And those direct flights from London need to be supported by transit
passengers from elsewhere in Europe (that don't have their own direct
flights).

This is ultimately what it's all about, is it not? Basically the idea
is that London and hence Britain benefit from being the crossroads to
anywhere (or at least the air travel equivalent of such!).

Just like people who happen to live in the Kings Cross area benefit from
the "rail station to Europe" on their doorstep - and there aren't enough
of them to justify it without lots of other people travelling to
Stp/Kings Cross to change trains.

(Though I suppose to an extent there is a separate but connected
argument of there being a critical mass of passengers from the UK
using Heathrow as opposed to flying direct from a regional airport -
of course those regional airports generally don't offer flights to
more obscure destinations, but the critical mass of passengers using
LHR may well mean that the frequency of flights to less-obscure
destinations is greater.)

Generally, we are talking about a different set of destinations from the
regional airports - holiday places; whereas Heathrow has more of the
business destinations. You can see a lot of this in the seasonality of
the schedules.

I haven't looked recently, but the only place with anything like 365 day
service to Lisbon 2 years ago was London, plus some regional airports
only in the summer.

I certainly understand this transfer passenger argument and by no
means do I discount it, but I guess essentially my take on it is a bit
different - which is basically ok, so London will lose (or never get
in the first place) some direct flights to obscurer destinations in
the world, but to what extent does that matter? How badly would this
really affect business in Britain? I wouldn't suggest it would have no
effect, but I can't help but think that the supposed ill-effects on
British business are simply overblown.

You'd be surprised how disruptive it is to a business schedule to
discover you need to go somewhere with flights only 3 or 4 days a week.
Especially if getting to a Monday meeting means leaving on Saturday! Or
alternatively doing what people here seem to hate, taking a hop via AMS,
CDG or FRA instead.

What's more I would further put forward the argument that there is a
quality-of-life versus (big) business calculus in play here, and if
some of these travellers to obscurer destinations were not in fact to
make that trip at all (as opposed to making it via a transfer as AMS,
CDG or wherever) then there is also a environmental effects versus
(big) business calculus in play as well.

Few people fly anywhere on business unless they *have* to - that's my
experience anyway. It gets pretty boring pretty quickly, and costs a lot
of money as well.

--
Roland Perry

On Jan 16, 1:40*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 15 Jan 2009, EE507 wrote:
Then there's the small issue of the net present value of carbon
emissions. If the 2003 White Paper's ambitions are realised in full,
the cost will be minus £18bn, excluding additional radiative forcing
[1]. Wonderful for UK Plc, coming on top of the perverse subsidies for
aviation resulting from a lack of taxation on fuel and tickets.

Wasn't the Climate Change Act enacted last year too? Which sectors are
expected to make cuts of 80% to allow aviation's to increase?

Bloody hell, our only hope is the Tories getting in and sticking to
their pledges.

So basically, we're ****ed, then?

tom

Well, quite.

On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:00:11 +0000, Andrew Heenan wrote
"Stimpy" wrote
but hang on i thought WE owned the banks
No, we have a stake in the banks.
That's a VERY different thing to owning them.

Very different indeed. basically, we've assumed their debts in exchange for
a large share, which interestingly gives the taxpayer what politicians call
'bugger all' control.

And our leaders have chosen not to exercise what little control they have,
anyway.

Not what I'd call a good deal, but nobody consulted me - they took advice
from merchant bankers, and most of them were the ones responsible for the
mess.

That's democracy, apparently ;o)

My thoughts exactly

Stimpy wrote:
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:41:45 +0000, dave hill wrote
The one (and only) good thing about this decision, is that it isn't a
decision to spend their (aka our) money, but to allow a PLC to spend its
money.

If there is no business case for the plan, the banks wont lend BAA the
funds.

but hang on i thought WE owned the banks

No, we have a stake in the banks. That's a VERY different thing to owning
them


well according to the BBC we (government) have about a 60% stake in
Royal Bank of Scotland that would mean on the Stock market that there
would have to be a bid for the whole schee bang IF it was just another
company building up a stake of that magnitude

And it looks as though more might be needed - where all this money
is coming from god knows

"Recliner" wrote

The Class 395 trains are six cars long, but I don't know if they'll be
running doubled up for some services. If so, I assume the Kent platforms
can handle 12 trains.

AIUI the peak trains will be 12 cars, apart from the Rochester - St Pancras
service which will be a single unit because of short platforms. The trains
via Ashford will consist of separate portions from Thanet via Canterbury
West and Dover, joining at Ashford.

Peter

"Neil Williams" wrote

Why St P? Most people don't want to go there either. Crossrail is
about as ideal a service to be joined to it as you can get.

We had an earlier thread about the usefulness of HEx once Crossrail starts.
ISTM that an HEx terminus at Paddington will lose a lot of passengers to
Crossrail, and I was considering another practical terminus for HEx. Even
with HS2 there'll be a lot of passengers into Euston, St Pancras and Kings
Cross, a not insignificant proportion of whom will want to get to Heathrow.

Peter