Newsstand - Heathrow Critics `Insult' Britain, BA's Walsh Says

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&refer=conews&tkr=BAY:LN&sid=aFZw3iGth0Lo

June 25 (Bloomberg) -- Opponents of expansion at London
Heathrow airport who say the terminal's transfer passengers
don't benefit the U.K. are misguided, British Airways Plc
Chief Executive Officer Willie Walsh said.
``This suggestion is extremely insulting to the millions
of U.K. residents in the north of England, Scotland and Northern
Ireland who regularly fly to Heathrow to catch connections to
distant parts of the globe to win or maintain business and jobs
for Britain,'' Walsh said in remarks he plans to deliver today
at a transportation conference in London.

Of course, if he'd shown more concern for those passengers when annihilating the direct services out of those airports, then we wouldn't need to transit through LHR hell :rolleyes:

I hope the answer isn't to tax pasengers away from LHR as it's often not our choice to transit there. :rolleyes:

This suggestion is extremely insulting to the millions
of U.K. residents in the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland who regularly fly to Heathrow to catch connections to distant parts of the globe to win or maintain business and jobs for Britain
And who increasingly are using other hub airports to avoid using LHR because of delays and cancellations of those flights

Of course, if he'd shown more concern for those passengers when annihilating the direct services out of those airports, then we wouldn't need to transit through LHR hell :rolleyes:

Exactly, the UK government must recognize that residents in other parts of the country have a right to nonstop services to more cities in Europe and across the Atlantic. Concentrating the country's legacy air services at LHR is a prescription for disaster on so many fronts -- as has been shown every time that airport screws up (T5 opening, carry-on changes, Bush visit) -- and to think we pay the most expensive immigration/airport services fee in the world to get into or through LHR!

Never mind the expansion opponents and tax authorities -- the job Willie Walsh's airline has done to embarrass Great Britain takes some beating.

The Thoughts of Chairman Branson (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4237390.ece)

AMS, and the legacy of Air UK and KLM UK, awaits the British regions with open arms. One could spend the extra 20 minutes flying across the North Sea, or sitting in the stacks above the capital.