Staying Connected
This important comment is taken from the www.GlobalWales.com website and written by my good friend Peter Phillips,there are lessons hwere for all of us! ”
STAYING CONNECTED…
Sometimes we Welsh are accused of being parochial, focussing on ourselves without seeing the big picture. Hopeful, GlobalWales goes a long way towards rebutting this criticism, showing that we are a truly international nation.
On the other hand, there are certainly examples of blinkered thinking around in Welsh society. Take the continuing controversy about an air route between Anglesey and Cardiff.
The service is one of the few UK air routes that are subsidised. The EU has made it illegal for Governments to subsidise commercial passenger flying (although it’s okay to subsidise commercial rail travel) except under one scheme. This is called “Public Service Obligation†or PSO. It means what it says: a Government can provide a subsidy sourced from European funds if it can show that there is an obligation to provide a socially desirable public service on a route.
PSO routes are intended to connect communities that are too remote, too small or too poor to sustain profitable flights by airlines. A good idea from the EU, among many far sillier rules they’ve imposed on air transport.
Some countries tweak the system. The Irish, for example, apply PSO status to connections between Dublin and most of the country’s larger cities. The French decided that flights to the popular holiday island of Corsica should get PSO funding. The Norwegians have helped their main regional airline’s turnover with a whole raft of PSO cash.
In Wales, however, our national newspaper seems to be looking for any opportunity to knock our only intra-Wales air connection. Two political parties have taken against it, moaning about the usual “waste of taxpayers’ money†– even though it’s Euro-money that might otherwise go to Ireland, France or Norway for their airlines. A bunch of nay-sayers spread nonsense about two hour check-ins (actually it’s 20 minutes) and an hour to get from Cardiff to the airport (are they going by horse and cart?) just to put people off using the flight.
Yet, all the statistics show that this is a flight that is definitely “socially desirable†and Europe is obligated to support it. At last there is rapid transit between North and South, based on an environmentally efficient 19-seater turbo-prop. Frankly, even if the service had not ticked all the boxes as it has, we should still want PSO status – why let the rest of Europe grab the cash?
Highland Airways also provide an unexpected extra benefit. So many of the travellers on their North-South service now know each other that it’s become something of a business club. Contacts are made, deals are done, wheels are oiled. Great!
What on Earth is wrong with Wales having the same infrastructure as other countries?
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