Thursday 22 August 2024

Who's asking 'why'?

 

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.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"It seems that the prestige of becoming that sort of international airport is what drives the Welsh government,"
Could well be the case for the current Welsh government as for them there isn't any prestige with being an independent country.

"and there are plenty of others as well who will argue that without that, Wales is somehow not a proper nation."
I think that argument is more likely to be one that those who are anti-independence would like to have in their toolbox.

John Dixon said...

"I think that argument is more likely to be one that those who are anti-independence would like to have in their toolbox." Maybe; although I've heard it more from independentistas for whom 'proper' nationhood requires a 'proper' international airport.

CapM said...

However there's a difference between thinking that a 'proper' nation should have an international airport and thinking a nation is not a 'proper' nation if it does not have an international airport.

I think the second version is the one those who are anti-independence hang on to and hence their continual criticism and running down of Cardiff airport.

Jonathan said...

What Wales should do is get a Severnside Airport. See well-argued article, link below. What interests me is why it dropped off the Welsh Agenda. It used to be prominent/commonplace. You were high up in Plaid at the time, Borthlas, and lived near Cardiff Airport. Was it that airports did not appeal to Greens? Or timidity in the face of Bristol? Why no Severnside?
https://www.business-live.co.uk/opinion-analysis/need-look-again-new-international-28528854

John Dixon said...

Jonathan,

The idea was certainly considered by Plaid's National Council at one stage, on the basis of a proposal from Madoc Batcup, as I recall. And it had some high-profile supporters as well, including some who surprised me at the time. Whilst there are undoubtedly some still arguing that it's the 'right' solution, agreeing the solution, difficult though that might be, isn't the issue. I've long felt that the issue is more about defining what the problem is that closing two airports and building one new one might be solving. Economic analysis of the pros and cons is inevitably based on the priors of the people doing the analysis. Is it about responding to a pre-existing demand, or about helping to create that demand? Is more flying by more people to more destinations something we want to encourage or not? Does having more flights to more destinations really help to grow the economy (other than the aviation sector itself of course)? What sort of growth do we want anyway? It's really hard to evaluate the extent to which any proposed 'solution' is the best one without first defining the criteria against which it is to be measured. And whilst the analysis to which you kindly pointed me is interesting, it is clearly based on a number of assumptions about the objective, which aren't really made clear.

Spirit of BME said...

I must congratulate you on an excellent post , it clearly tells the sad tale of this money eating failure.
Under the current regime the only way to keep this patient alive is to pump taxpayers’ money into the corpse in the hope it will get new life by some miracle. HMG in Wales have no other powers , but a cash transfusion that takes money away from far more deserving cases.
Aviation is a highly regulated industry, and you have to move a lot of people to make a very thin living. The establish airline quite like this model as it as it creates a barrier to entry. Part of the regulatory machinery is called ICAO where airline and government sit down and – how shall I say it nicely- ‘design the framework of operational costs'. Wales is represented by the English government , who see the priority as the S.E.England which is the only game in town and why should they view it in any other way.
Until Wales get a proper government and gets to sit at these tables we will just have to ‘enjoy’ the privileges of our annexation.