Heathrow Protesters are Knuckleheads
People who are going to be protesting at Heathrow are knuckleheads. They have got their priorities completely backwards. Instead of attempting to stop the construction of a third runway, they should be lobbying Boeing and Airbus to manufacture more environmentally friendly aircrafts (which both have committed themselves to BTW).
Aviation currently contributes only 3% of green house gases (according to any newspaper article I have read). Road transport and industry should receive the highest attention in terms of forcing them to have better green credentials.
To reinforce the obvious, aviation has created global connectivity in an unprecendented level over the last few years. Heathrow is now facing stiff competition from other European and Gulf based airports in terms of transit passengers. If anyone interested looks at the possible city pairs that are now seemlessly connected by BA or Emirates through their respective hubs, you will be amazed how the world has become smaller.
These connections are directly contributing to the economies in question. Needless to say that third world countries have much to gain from more flights to their destinations (should there be a demand). It is all fine for tree huggers from the west to shout planet earth and line up on one of Heathrow's runways. What they don't realise is that by not allowing the likes of British Airways and Virgin Atlantic to create more links from the Americas to Europe, Asia and Africa, they are preventing masses of people from potentially achieving a gradual improvement in their lives. With the tax regime that the British Government has now imposed on aviation, it seems that authorities are more concerned about appeasing to populist demand than sound business.
posted by Riaz @ 3:05 pm
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