Which the CAT ruled they were.
We'll have to wait and see what happens the appeal isn't until mid 2027 and then I suspect there'll be more legal stuff after that as well especially if the ruling goes against Bristol again.
Yet most airports around the world are owned by the state in some way and many in the UK are also owned by the state including LeedsBradford nemesis Manchester Airport. It does depend on how you see airports as well. Whether part of the national transport infrastructure like roads and rail or something else.
I don’t disagree that publicly owned airports can work, and I’ve no ideological problem with CWL being publicly owned either. The CAT has also ruled in favour of the Welsh Government as things stand, so we’ll have to see what the Court of Appeal eventually makes of Bristol’s arguments.
Where I disagree is using Manchester, or indeed state-owned airports elsewhere in the world, as evidence that the DSA (and to an extent CWL) proposition therefore makes sense. Different countries have completely different aviation markets, subsidy regimes and strategic reasons for supporting airports. MAG is also a fundamentally different proposition. It is an established commercial airport group with Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands, huge existing traffic flows and established airline relationships. Public ownership didn’t have to create that underlying airline market.
DSA would effectively be starting again from zero. SYMCA can make sure the runway is open, employ the staff and operate the terminal, but it cannot make easyJet, Jet2 or Ryanair put aircraft there. Those are private companies deciding where extremely expensive and mobile assets will generate the best return.
That’s also where subsidy becomes interesting. My concern isn’t that publicly owned airports shouldn’t be allowed to compete. It’s what happens if public money allows DSA to offer airlines commercial terms that established privately financed airports cannot reasonably match. An airline doesn’t even need to transfer an existing aircraft from LBA for there to be a competitive effect. Its next aircraft might simply go to DSA because the publicly supported deal is better.
So for me the question isn’t really public versus private ownership. It’s whether public money is being used to create genuinely additional connectivity, or to distort a commercial market for airline capacity which already exists and is already serving the region.
That’s why the Bristol/Cardiff appeal is interesting. It may ultimately change nothing, but if it changes how closely those competitive effects have to be examined, I’d expect DSA’s neighbours to pay very close attention. I have to say I sympathise with both sides on the BRS/CWL debate.
www.bbc.co.uk
