Who's asking 'why'?

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In another sign of the extent to which the Labour government is engaged in continuity politics rather than facilitating real change, it was announced this week that London City airport would be allowed to expand its number of flights, and that the government was ‘open’ to bids from other airports to increase the number of flights as well, and expand their facilities to permit that. It’s true, of course, that expansion of aviation will add to GDP growth (at least, to the extent that it doesn’t simply redirect expenditure from other sectors), but it highlights the danger of setting GDP growth as an over-riding objective, with no consideration as to whether it’s the ‘right type’ of economic growth, i.e. growth which meets other objectives, such as environmental ones. Balancing growth with meeting environmental obligations and targets is much, much harder. So hard, in fact, that it appears that they’re not even going to attempt it.

Here in Wales, the Welsh government seems to be similarly minded when it comes to Cardiff Airport, with its plans to pump in hundreds of millions of pounds in the coming years in an attempt to grow traffic from the airport. Interestingly, the Conservative opposition in the Senedd opposes this expenditure and proposes instead that the airport should be transferred back to private ownership. Given past experience – the airport was only taken back into public ownership because it was failing badly under its private owners – just how putting private owners back in charge would help is unclear, and the Tories’ proposal was remarkably light on detail in respect of that. There is only one way that I can think of in which private ownership of such a prime piece of land on the outskirts of Cardiff could turn a decent profit in the short to medium term, and that’s to close the airport and develop the land for other purposes. Perhaps that’s what the Tories want, but a call for a sell-off isn’t an entirely honest way of calling for closure.

What Wales needs in terms of airport coverage is something of a taboo subject. Because of the airport’s location, and the population distribution in Wales, it’s never likely to be able to compete with Manchester or Liverpool for travellers from the north of Wales, or with Birmingham for travellers from the Welsh midlands. And in the south-east of Wales, passengers have a realistic choice between Cardiff and Bristol, meaning that the only real ‘captive’ market, for which using Cardiff if flights are available will almost always make more sense than going elsewhere, is Glamorgan and most of Dyfed. It’s not a large market, but experience shows that it’s enough to sustain regular holiday flights to a range of popular destinations. Based on population growth, and assuming an increased level of affluence which has not exactly been visible recently, there is potential for slow but solid growth in the number of such flights and the range of destinations served.

However, a strategy based on a large and rapid increase in passenger numbers depends on rather more than that. Effectively, that means persuading carriers to use Cardiff instead of other airports (such as Bristol and Birmingham), either for existing flights or for any increase in flights in the future – and then persuading passengers, including those from outside Wales, to use those flights. The proposition that it could become a significant international airport with a large range of destinations being served depends on an increase in scheduled flights, rather than flights by holiday operators. It seems that the prestige of becoming that sort of international airport is what drives the Welsh government, and there are plenty of others as well who will argue that without that, Wales is somehow not a proper nation. But the extent to which becoming such an airport will drive wider economic growth is arguable at best; the idea seems to be based more on blind faith in ‘the markets’ than any real analysis of potential. For the foreseeable future, at least, it would also depend on an ongoing level of public subsidy – whether to the airport or to the carriers is irrelevant here – about which there is a lack of honesty and transparency. The latest £200 million will not be the last.

How do we measure ‘success’ for the airport? For UK Labour, it seems to be in terms of turnover and the contribution that makes to GDP; for Welsh Labour it’s the number of passengers and flights; for the Tories it’s eliminating any cost to the public purse, even if the logical conclusion is complete closure. None of those seem to be based on any thought-through assessment of whether Wales needs an airport in Cardiff, and for what. Yet the answer to those questions provides the only sound basis for assessing success. We are a small country – having pretensions beyond our capabilities is merely aping the UK’s approach. Maybe slow, organic growth serving the needs of passengers in a limited area of Wales should be enough.