Hoon hovers over Stansted and drops a bombshell!

Geoff Hoon only got his feet under the desk as Transport Secretary this week. He now comes up with the idea that expansion is a good thing for Stansted Airport. That remains to be seen, but none of this airport growth is joined up. Each airport is competing with the next for passengers, most of whom will come out of thin air in order to make the numbers game work.

If you added up all the passengers that are supposed to be rushing though UK airports in 2020 you would have around 500 million. Just like all the baloney babble that the banks have been talking about, so the airport industry comes up with the same sort of nonsense.

Birmingham Airport talks of 30 million, Stansted is slightly more conservative at 35 million, and the rest keep piling on the numbers. If it all really did add up we'd be forced onto planes just to make up the passenger totals. A kind of pressganging for airlines!

Common sense? Doesn't it tell you that in the present financial climate, people are going to cut back on air travel (just a bit?)? It's all so crazy. Airlines are going out of business, people are cutting back on holidays, but Geoff Hoon and the airport chiefs are on the yellow-brick road!