30 . Glasgow Business August 2014
TAKEOVER FLIES IN FACE OF FAIRNESS
Government decision may spark airport wars between Prestwick and Glasgow T
he decision by the Scotish Government to take over the loss-making Prestwick
Airport has thrown up some interesting issues for Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and its members. Chief Executive Stuart Patrick
has writen to Nicola Sturgeon, the Deputy First Minister, expressing the Chamber’s concern about the “odd set of circumstances” over Prestwick’s move into public hands, with fears surrounding the commercial impact of future developments. “We are in an evolving story
around this but it does seem rather uneasy considering there is no national aviation strategy for the commercial airports in the central belt of Scotland,” he said. While Mr Patrick was raising
these concerns, Ryanair announced a new base at Glasgow, with significant expansion also at Prestwick and Edinburgh, in £360m of investment in Scotland. Te Irish low-cost carrier affirmed its long-standing commitment to Prestwick as its major maintenance facility, but the investment in Glasgow signals an interesting change in direction. Despite the Ryanair
commitment, the Chamber remains unclear what the Scotish Government is going to do with Prestwick Airport, which is 45 minutes by rail from Central Station. “We had no idea of the
intentions of the Scotish Government for central Scotish airports. It wasn’t a problem before the nationalisation by the government because they were all competing airports. But now that the Scotish Government does own one of the airports it does mater, especially for Glasgow Airport,” he said.
Prestwick Aiport is set to benefit from a £10 million government investment
Te Chamber is seeking more
information on how air route development funding will work and surface access by public transport to Glasgow Airport, given that the previous rail link scheme was shelved by Scotland’s Nationalist Government. “Nicola has been making a big
deal of the direct rail connection to Prestwick. We don’t know what will be done with commercially confidential information given that the airports have worked together with Transport Scotland to share information about possible new routes,” he explained. Prestwick Airport will not be
rebranded as Robert Burns Airport but it will be given £10 million for improvements. Te Scotish Government announcement says that Prestwick’s strategy will be to grow passenger numbers and will
be run by an ‘arm’s-length’ body with separate governance to ensure commercial propriety in the activities. “All-in-all, it feels a litle
uncomfortable and we are not convinced that passenger traffic at Prestwick can grow without it being at the disadvantage of Glasgow specifically, but Edinburgh as well. It looks like Prestwick will be going head-to- head with Glasgow for passenger traffic. We are vigorously against this,” he added. “We had come to an agreement
with Nicola Sturgeon that she would get the government agencies to talk with us about air strategy. Tey’ve just started to do this, but there remains the issue that we do not have a cohesive air strategy for central Scotland.” Meanwhile, a recent report
“We are not convinced that passenger traffic at Prestwick can grow without it being at the disadvantage of Glasgow specifically…”
by York Aviation and Oxford Economics, commissioned by Transport for London, suggests that Glasgow would benefit from the creation of a new four-runway airport providing four extra flights a day from Glasgow by 2050. Te new analysis illustrates
how poorly Heathrow serves the nations and regions of the UK and suggests that only a new hub would ensure regular connections to London would be maintained. If no expansion is undertaken, Scotland will lose more daily flights to Heathrow. Te Heathrow route from
Glasgow has suffered significant erosion in recent years as bmi pulled off the route and BA has not fully filled the void. Te report estimates Glasgow
would gain 2,620 jobs in the same sector and £358m in additional GVA if a new hub was built. Daniel Moylan, the mayor
of London’s chief adviser on aviation, said: “Tis is a decision that maters to the whole of the UK and it’s ludicrous that Amsterdam Airport provides more than three times the number
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