The Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) has been guilty of an ‘un-business like’ approach, the Western Mail reports an executive at Cardiff Airport said yesterday. Steve Hodgetts, the airport’s director of business development, said the devolved administrations in Scotland and Northern Ireland had been quicker to offer support to their regional airports.
Devolved governments can give short-term financial support for new air routes, known as Route Development Funds (RDFs). Mr Hodgetts told MPs on the Welsh Affairs Committee: ‘We have a good working relationship with WAG but their approach can be somewhat delayed and un-business like at times.'
‘The late arrival of the Route Development Fund meant that it came in post changes to EU rules, when a lot of the benefit and flexibility that Scotland and Northern Ireland had enjoyed had dissipated. That hamstrung the ability of the RDF to work.'
He said he supported WAG’s aims of improving air connections to Wales to boost economic development, but he added: ‘If that objective is to be achieved, there will need to be support to defray the impact of market conditions.’ Discussions were ongoing to attract German airlines to fly new routes into Cardiff, he said, with Germany identified as a large potential tourism and business market for Wales.
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