See article in
The Times
Here's an extract frfom the begining
A third runway at Heathrow is against Britain’s economic interests. It is being driven by BAA, the Spanish-owned airport operator, and the misguided aspirations of British airlines. It is likely, in the long term, to prove a costly mistake.
The government’s “economic case” presented in the white paper is fairly clear - it wants to create a global “hub and spoke” network centred on Heathrow to compete with rivals on the continent. It envisages a huge passenger interchange.
This is a classic exercise in misguided central planning. What Ruth Kelly, the transport secretary, and the government do not see is that the transfer passengers, for whom such a hub would be built, spend no money in Britain, at least little beyond the price of a cup of tea, and Heathrow as an interchange is already so far behind its rivals that it is out of the game.
The article goes on to say that connecting passengers are loss making, hubs are not the way forward (since low-cost airlines are so much more successful) & that expansion of Heathrow won't be used by the Brits but by passengers passing though & contributing to the UK Economy "
little beyond the price of a cup of tea".
There are some obvious contradictions here. I guess Bob Ayling knows BA inside out, but he left the company in 2000 (?) so how will he know if today's connecting traffic is losing them money? The BA network if built first & foremost around London's O&D demand & the connections are simply scheduled in. Take India for example:- The flights arrive & depart places such as Bangalore at some ungodly hour in order to meet connections to destinations such as SFO. If connections didn't matter, then surely a later schedule would be flown? Low cost airlines don't hub, but have bases where they concentrate operations - everything like a hub, but they don't encourage interlining.
The Times also goes on to say that hub operations have contributed to the bankruptcy of almost every major US airline. Well without hubs, what would they do? The US simply doesn't have the population density to support mass scale point-to-point routes. How would one fly Anchorage-Tampa? Furthermore, connecting passengers contribute money to the UK economy through landing fees, airline tickets & assosiated costs - however, since BAA is spanish owned.