Multi-slot owning BMI threatens Heathrow over new passenger levy
Saturday, 25 Jan, 2011
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BMI has told Scottish MPs that it could well have to pull its Heathrow to Glasgow route after the London hub puts up domestic passenger charges on April 1.
The airline’s chief executive officer Wolfgang Prock-Schauer was addressing a briefing meeting for MSPs which was hosted by the Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association (SPAA) which has fought the new charges since they were announced last year.
The airport plans to raise the domestic passenger charge for flights leaving Heathrow from £13.43 to £20.25 per passenger.
Mr Prock-Schauer told the meeting that the increase in the airline’s already critical level of Glasgow-London direct operating costs could be a catalyst for a partial or complete withdrawal of the service.
MSP Charlie Gordon followed this news with a Parliamentary Motion that parliament regards the threatened reduction in Anglo-Scottish air services as a “potentially serious blow to the Scottish economy”.
Fellow MSP Jamie McGrigor put forward a series of parliamentary questions, adding “All of us should be working to ensure there is no reduction in the level or frequency of services”. He also asked the Scottish Executive what it planned to do on the issue and what it had achieved to date.
SPAA President Brian Potter added: “Having direct and recent experience of the immediate and serious impact on our corporate clients when volcanic ash, strike action and adverse weather caused disruption to, and cancellation of Anglo-Scottish air services, the SPAA has for some time been seriously concerned for the future of these services.
“They are vital to Scottish corporate and leisure travellers and we believe they are vital to Heathrow Airport, too, since its focus is on developing as a hub for the future, rather than a point-to-point airport – exactly the focus that Scotland’s travellers are looking for. Losing UK domestic air services will hardly assist LHR in pursuit of that objective.”
He continued “Scotland’s economy needs these routes in an environment in which the mooted high-speed rail links between Scotland, London and Europe via the Channel Tunnel are still many years away – even if they are eventually commissioned by the UK Government.
"Scotland’s business and leisure travellers need and deserve to have a real choice when planning their travel to and through London – one that will no longer exist on the Glasgow-Heathrow route, should BMI be forced to downsize or withdraw its service.”
by Dinah Hatch
Dinah
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