Businesses must support Birmingham Airport's runway plans
Dec 12 2008 Agenda
much easier my job would be in making the case for the Midlands, which has so much going for it in terms of its workforce and skillbase, if we had a more impressive destination map for the region’s main airport.
It would appear that the next great battleground for routes is likely to be the Far East with the dramatic economic growth of China and India encouraging companies in these countries to internationalise their operations to take advantage of the benefits of globalisation.
Our own experience of the Tata investment in Jaguar / Land Rover and the Shanghai Automotive Group’s decision, to base its new European R&D headquarters in Leamington Spa, is testament to this.
The Midlands’ connectivity with China and India, via Dubai, is likely to be very important in continuing to attract inward investment of this calibre and I hope we have the ambition to widen our destination map even further, perhaps even with direct fights to the Far East. It is not so long ago that many doubted if there was a market for direct routes to Singapore from regional airports, wrongly clinging to the belief that only London could deliver the business passenger numbers required to make the routes profitable. Manchester proved that theory wrong, very quickly.
If anyone doubts the importance of an airport destination map in attracting inward investment, I would urge them to ask themselves one simple question. Do you think Abu Dhabi would have invested in Manchester City Football Club if regular direct flights on Etihad Airways to Manchester had not already been in place?
Transport issues are part of the region’s prosperity so following on from the success of New Street Station it would be great to put a tick in the airport box and then move on to the development of the Metro network.
** Ian Stringer is regional senior director. based in Birmingham, with property consultants GVA Grimley.
