If it’s all about IT, I ask why do businessmen have to travel these days? Conference calls can be set up to save money and time! You can even see the whites of the eyes of the person you are talking to.

One item that seems to have been overlooked is the price of aviation fuel. Due to the price of oil Airline passengers are being surcharged large amounts to cover the cost of the increase. Sums of up to £260 on some long haul flights.
Now this surcharge will in the course of time be incorporated into the fare,thus making air travel much more expensive.
This will have a small inpact on business flights, but an enormous impact on cheap holidays. The days of cheap holiday flights has gone.
Add this to the financial climate of the forseable future and the future for airports in and around london look bleak to say the least.
This has always been the weakness of governments of all shades (Unfortunatly shades of red) since WW11. Bad planning. Our whole nuclear fuel policy, they have just started talking These power stations should be coming on line NOW to offset the foreign owned power companies ransome demands.
So is thge case for Air traffic. Large scale extra bluilding for as I see it a dwindling need. Still it isn’t their money so they dont give a toss do they.

Maybe with a conference call you can see the eyes of the whites you are talking to!

For the most part Brysea is quite right. We no longer have to travel for business like we once did.

Since 1992 I have cut my business travel down by a little over 70%. This includes air and road travel. The only real exceptions are new selling situations in which I have to be there to make a presentation. Other than that all my business is done by phone/video link/fax/email etc. It’s a pity that the Royal Mail finds delivering an acceptable service so difficult then I would not have to use couriers.

I also gave up my town centre office which meant loss of income for the Marxist council. I work from home and employ exactly the same number of people and they work from home now and prefer it. No more commuting.

Somehow I don’t see our parasitic politicians giving up their junkets to far away exotic places though.

@ stevegray2008

If things go on like this for much longer, the only way you will be able talk to whites is via a conference call…

And while we’re at it we should tax aviation fuel. As it is motorists (who largely use their cars out of necessity) are subsidising unnecessary air travel made cheap by the virtue of tax-free aviation fuel.

As an aside, it would be interesting to know how the cost of flights to Britain from, say, the Indian sub-continent compare to the cost of flights from Britain to the Indian sub-continent. It always amazes me how these people can afford long haul flights when they are supposed to be living in poverty.

BAA is a failed monopoly & should come back under government control or be broken up.

The whole 3rd runway debate proves beyond a shadow of doubt that this government talks absolute cynical hypocritical nonsense about climate change/global warming.

They just want to tax us on this ridiculous carbon footprint nonsense & also we can pay through our taxes for all the jet setting they do as well.

Unless world population growth is tackled then nothing else will be solved.

This one thing contributes to every problem we have from the spread of Islam, immigration, fuel prices, food shortages & global warming/climate change (if it is caused by human activity, cows farting & the like).

Noise pollution, air pollution, light pollution, asthma, carbon footprints, fuel shortage, overcrowding, traffic jams, terrorist threats, misery etc. all reduced at a stroke by BNP common sense.

Ruth Kelly is an idiot just as many of the so called ‘greens’ are in not calling for a halt to mass air transportation and mass migration.

In my mind spending the money on a proper merchant navy would give our young men a chance of some adventure again (and a job) and would be far more useful in the long term than expanding Heathrow or any other airport.

The days of sailing ships are coming.

-
I rather fancy hols. on this one :^) http://blog.nola.com/millieball/2007/09/with_the_wind_theres_the_europ.html -Ed

@ Gamlegorm The White

A good point, that I’ve never considered.

Maybe a study should be carried out to assess how much of intercontinental flying is due to the post-migration necessity of visiting families back home and in-turn those families visiting those who have migrated.

I suspect the figures would tell an interesting story…

Don’t forget your ‘carbon footprint’ or the green gestapo will get you, all you liblabcon-voting mugs.

Mandala: Airships are coming too. Zepellin have designed (and built a prototype of) a liner that runs on hydrogen and can get you from Heathrow to Rome in 24 hours, cruising at a leisurely 15,000 feet - high enough to be safe from schoolboys with catapults, and low enough to appreciate the scenery.

All this rushing about in jets is mostly unnecessary, in my view. Italy is a long way away; who can really complain about taking a day to travel there? The best part, of course, is there is zero pollution either in terms of fuel, or noise.

Yet another reason why the criminal project for another runway at Heathrow must be stopped.

I agree with most posts here. Business travel is mostly unnecessary these days. I have attended many meetings and exhibitions that have only been glorified p**s-ups from which very little of importance has been gained.

Initial contact in person is probably essential when starting new business but after that everything can be done by phone/fax or email.

The skies around London’s airports are becoming dangerous places, especially those over Heathrow. You only have to look at the planes on finals and notice how alarmingly close they are. They should be at least one minute apart but the ‘Heathrow minute’ is often down to 40 seconds. Go-arounds are not uncommon because the plane ahead has missed the first exit and failed to clear the runway in time. Combined with the poor English of some of the East European pilots, it’s only a matter of time before there’s a disaster.

Following (I think) one such go-around, a couple of East European pilots were recently ‘loose’ above Heathrow, uncertain of their position (one is never lost in aviation) and unable to understand simple instructions to get them back onto the ILS and glide slope. The controllers had to keep other aircraft well away while they struggled to make themselves understood. I wouldn’t put it past this Labour lot to be almost wishing such a disaster, to ‘justify’ the need for a third runway.

If this third runway at Heathrow goes ahead, it will not be too long before capacity is reached once again - then they will be calling for a fourth runway and so on. Britain is a tiny island, not a vast expance of land like France or Spain. We can’t go tarmacking and concreting over it to solve overcrowding, whether it be in the air or on the ground. We have to reduce the overcrowding and that means far less of these unecessary and ‘worthless’ flights. Let’s also put the British back into BAA and IT where they belong.

–
The same applies to roads, does it not? Endless, unnecessary roads are built - for the sole purpose of making money for those who impose them on our countryside - and all that happens, is they fill up with traffic and then demands are made for a ‘bypass for the bypass’. Then one day we wake up and this Green and Pleasant Land has been turned into one giant suburban sprawl, in the name of profit, and at the behest of central government, over the heads of local people, whose opinion is swept aside by the ‘fast-tracking’ central diktat of those whose true motivations may only be guesed at.
We have to draw a line, NOW, or there will be nowhere left to draw such a line. The environment is not some kind of optional extra.
http://www.savethelevels.org.uk - - Ed.

Phillip, that’s a very good question.

I hope you don’t mind, but I paraphrased your comments to put the question to Migration Watch:

Sir,

A lot of attention is paid to green issues in today’s society. Does Migration Watch have any figures or information on the effect migration plays on the UK’s carbon emissions?

I’m particularly interested in the increased carbon emissions caused by intercontinental flying due to the post-migration necessity of immigrants visiting families back home and in-turn, those families visiting those who have migrated to the UK.

Winston : Do you remember Ben Elton’s ’swing-bin’ analogy? It was a euphemism for bandwidth, in that eventually you’re going to need more, no matter how you calculate it.

The Civil Aviation Authority needs to be included. In the past the CAA & BAA were govenment controlled. It was called the Ministry Of Transport & Civil Aviation.

Good post apendragon. If you were to cover the top half of an airship with photo-voltaic panels then once aloft run on electric power. Silent and serene.

About three years ago my wife and I were booked on a flight from Bahrain to Heathrow. When we boarded we took the last two remaining seats (apart from each other) as the plane was jammed full. The flight originated in India, and every single other person was from there, it seemed. We were the only whites on board. As we approached London and the stewardess came round with landing cards, my wife (who is American) was as far as we could see the only one to request an Immigration form, much to her amazement. All the other passengers were “British”.

Instead of the Third Runway at London Heathrow we should develop the rail access which is much more envoironmentaly friendly.

It is the Labour Party that is being Lobbied by the Airline Industry to the detriment of logic.

Let us have more High Speed Lines like the route to the Channel Tunnel.

There are plenty of unused military airfields near London with nearby rail links. We could stop freight ops at Heathrow, freeing landing spaces, and transfer them elsewhere. Alconbury is one, North Weald another, no doubt there are quite a few more.

I don’t understand why anybody would want to let the State run things. Mike Reid (of Eastenders fame) would say to hecklers during his stand-up routine, “Who cut your hair, the f***ing council?!” It hit a funnybone because he was right - the State is rubbish at everything–apart from taking your hard-earned money from you.

Terrific e-mails. Very good. What a site! (However, I thought Ruth Kelly had become a nun or something.) I’m unsure about zeppelins though - the US, the UK, and Germany before the Second Wworld War *all* had at least one major accident with their version of air balloons. Well, we’ll see anyway.

One thing I dislike about overseas flights to some countries is that they tend to spray the passengers with permethrin, an organophosphate that’s supposed to penetrate clothing and baggage and kill off alien insect life. I don’t trust the stuff.

@Mandala: I don’t remember that particular Ben Elton analogy, but I do remember his book ‘Gridlock’. Heathrow and the skies above are close to gridlock of course. I honestly cannot understand why anyone flies from there. A third runway might stretch the Heathrow 40 second minute back to 60 seconds, but not for very long. Take last Christmas. It was so close to capacity that the slightest problem - like a bit of fog - could ‘land and strand’ you in real trouble for days. Nothing whatsoever to do with landing the plane, but everything to do with the Heathrow minute and the reduced spacing on finals. Modern planes virtually land themselves once the ILS is captured; in fact (I think) the pilots are usually forbidden to land planes manually when they have auto land/auto throttle/auto this/auto that/auto etc. Too risky. The pilot(s) is usually the cause of most aviation accidents, and for decades they have been working to reduce their workload - especially on landing - and take the pilot out of the equation as much as possible.

There used to be three on the flight deck, but now there are only two. I honestly believe that there will soon be only one actual pilot. The ‘co-pilot’ will actually be a dog - probably a Rottweiler. The pilot’s sole purpose will be to feed the dog; the dog’s sole purpose will be to make sure the pilot touches absolutely nothing! Grrrr!

__________
Is that a racist remark? What do you have against Rottweilers?? The Rotweiler Legal Defense Council will be in touch with you shortly! –Ed. ;^)

This article raises two important points:
1. The “carbon footprint”. PLEASE,
people, ALL of you, FORGET IT! It’s a SCAM, a SWINDLE, a CON!!

Here are the atmospheric gases, their perentages by volume, plus their molecular weights in ascending order: Methane, barely measurable trace, 18; Nitrogen,
80%, 28; Oxygen, 18%, 32; Argon, 1%, 39; Carbon dioxide, 0.0354%, 46.

Those figures are just short of 100% but they’re near enough and the accurate CO2 figure shows it to be the heaviest and least plentiful gas. It’s too heavy to reach the upper atmosphere where it might exert a greenhouse effect but, at 354 parts per million, far too sparse to have any discernible
effect even if it could reach the necessary high altitudes.

Carbon dioxide’s sole function is to be one of the two atmospheric gases (the other being oxygen)on which all of life on earth depends, because it provides plants with the material from which they build their tissues and make their night-time fuel. So, no carbon dioxide, no life on earth, OK?

Global warming is NOT man made and I’m not going into all that astrophysics again here. The politicians are simply giving us
the mushroom treatment. No visitor to this site should fall for it.

2. apendragon confirms a conclusion I reached over 20 years ago, that the end of high-energy- density liquid hydrocarbon fuels will mean the end of heavier-than-air aircraft. The Zeppelin, the
lighter-than-air rigid airship, built using modern aircraft construction techniques including stressed aluminium alloy envelopes,
is the future of aviation. Helium will be the lifting gas and liquid hydrogen, burned with liquid oxygen - because there’ll be nothing else - will provide the fuel for propulsion using vectored-thrust engines. Top speed will be around 260 knots. There’s much more to the new airship technology, vastly superior to the original, but that will have to suffice for now.

We need more flights to Asia, not fewer - going out full, coming back empty.