Airport traffic
Once again, Edinburgh airport
is beating Glasgow:
Passenger numbers at Edinburgh airport increased by 4.8% in August, one of the few airports which recorded growth.The figures from airport operator BAA showed that Glasgow had the sharpest decrease in traffic with a fall of 13.4%
Unlike some residents of the capital I am a fan of Glasgow. Scotland needs a prosperous Glasgow. Clearly Edinburgh's benefited from the Festival, which seemed to be busier than ever this year, and Glasgow depends on outward holiday traffic to greater extent than Edinburgh.
I fear that the SNP administration is making the same mistakes as its Labour predecessor. This remains typical of the Scottish government's mindset:
Mr Swinney questioned the drinks firm's claim that the rescue package was not viable."There's two points of basic economics at stake in this," he said.
"The first point is the fact that the Kilmarnock economy will be devastated and the Scottish Government and the UK Government will have to pick up the pieces, at a cost we estimate at £14m a year.
"The second point of basic economics is that when you come to a proposal with a financial gap of let's say £3 to £4m, and a company is making profits of £2bn, I don't think it's an unreasonable proposition to say to the company you have a corporate social responsibility to protect communities that have served you well."
The Kilmarnock economy will only be "devastated" to the extent that new entrepreneurs fail to make up for the lost Diageo jobs. Instead of government "picking up the pieces" why not remove the barriers to entrepreneurship? That's what will make the west of Scotland prosperous and help Glasgow airport boom again. And Prestwick of course.
posted by David Farrer at 20:40
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