Perhaps Glasgow airport, in accordance with the old Scottish Presbyterian stereotype, believes that too much enjoyment carries a risk of moral decay. Perhaps the prospect of tens of thousands of Scots jetting off for a two-week bacchanal in the sunshine is simply too much to bear. And so airport bosses see it as their moral and Scottish duty to inject a wee bit of misery into the proceedings lest we all become too frisky. “Welcome to the best wee country in the world” was the slogan that once greeted bemused visitors to the airport a few years back. “Life is not a bowl of cherries”: this could be its successor.
A sense of foreboding grips you as you approach Glasgow airport. You know that your primary aim is to get through the ordeal as quickly as possible and avoid, as best you can, the airport’s “fleece and fly” policy which also includes crippling parking charges. This is difficult if you are accompanied by small children, and the check-in and security desks are woefully undermanned. Thus you are impelled to avail yourself of the food and retail units to keep everyone happy, even though you know you will be scalped outrageously for grossly overpriced goods and inordinately bad food.
As of April this year, Glasgow airport bosses heaped further hardship on its customers by imposing a £2 charge at the drop-off area. The airport tried to justify what is effectively a travelling tax by saying that it would ease congestion, though on several visits over the past few weeks I would dispute this.
And so would the 14,000 people who have already signed an online petition opposing the charge.
One outraged parent calculated that the airport earned £220 from a group of school pupils embarking on their annual trip. “You are a monopoly; it’s extortion,” he said in an online message to the airport.
Amanda McMillan, the managing director of Glasgow airport, is a kenspeckle face on Scotland’s lucrative business guru circuit, one of the country’s fastest growing boutique industries. Every day and night of the week Scotland thrums with hives of business folk attending seminars, breakfasts and “leadership” events organised by a network of private and quasi-governmental outfits for the purpose of, well … making money.
McMillan, a compelling public speaker, is a regular at such symposiums and speaks passionately of the values that underpin her approach to leading her airport team. In an interview in the Herald a few years ago she warmed to this theme. “Everyone I know thinks Glasgow airport is a public service – they see it as being closer to a hospital or a school. The public don’t care if I hit my business plan targets, they want to make sure this place is always open; efficient; friendly and something they can be proud of.”
McMillan doesn’t say if her “business plan targets” include a bonus scheme accompanying a salary that was £293,000 in 2014; in which case the drop-off tax begins to make sense. Since then Glasgow airport has had what might charitably be called a “patchy” period. Earlier this year the influential consumer rights website Resolver published an extensive global airport survey that ranked Glasgow as one of the worst airports in the world for passenger complaints. Glasgow was also the highest ranked UK and European airport for complaints arising mainly from flight delays and cancellations and poor treatment of passengers. It was also revealed last year that 50% of AGS Airports, the firm that owns Glasgow airport, is registered in the offshore jurisdiction of Jersey.
Glasgow airport will point to a clutch of awards that it has picked up in these years including one made by a Scottish newspaper that was sponsored by … Glasgow airport.
What is it about civic Scotland and the business of flying? Last week the Scottish government, as expected, succeeded in getting Holyrood support for its plans to replace air passenger duty (APD) with a new devolved air departure tax (ADT) in Scotland from April next year. The government wants to cut the new tax by 50%, before eventually scrapping it completely.
Yet the economic benefits are, as yet, unproven while the adverse impact on the SNP’s drive to cut carbon emissions by 2020 is obvious. During the consultation process, the government chose to ignore an independent report commissioned by the non-partisan Royal Society of Edinburgh which elegantly eviscerated the case for cutting APD.
The report pointed out that Glasgow airport along with Edinburgh would benefit disproportionately from the cut in APD. It added that airports in the Highlands and islands are already exempt from APD thus suggesting that other Scottish airports could actually become less competitive owing to a significant planned cut. Figures for government expenditure for revenue Scotland (GERS) stated that air passenger duty raised £309m for the government in 2014-15. Opponents of Scottish independence have consistently used GERS to show that the economy of an independent Scotland would face severe challenges. The decision by the SNP to walk away from a significant source of revenue would seem to offer an open goal to the unionist parties.
The SNP’s relationship with the airline industry is a thing of some curiosity. Last year it was revealed that Heathrow was one of the major corporate sponsors of the SNP’s autumn conference. This was the one where third sector and charitable firms were forced to organise a fringe event because they were simplyunable to meet the new askingprice of £23,000 for a corporate package.
Lo and indeed behold; a few days later the SNP government with its 56 Westminster MPs signalled its support for Heathrow’s third runway ahead of Gatwick, having previously been neutral on the issue. The benefits to Scotland accruing from this are of the bouncy castle variety: soft, uncertain and liable to inflation.
McMillan is an enthusiastic supporter of the cut in APD. She also sits on Nicola Sturgeon’s council of economic advisers. This year she was awarded an honorary degree by Glasgow University whose principal is Anton Muscatelli. He too sits in Sturgeon’s kitchen cabinet. He also racked up more than £100,000 of expenses in air travel last year. Isn’t it just great doing business in Scotland?
