Your chance to be an Airport Idol!

By Richard on 06/08/2009
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Fresh from the awesome Colin Matthews: one night only comedy gig (now touring the Edinburgh Festival), Plane Stupid Events Ltd. is proud to present our latest collaboration with BAA, which gives thousands the chance to project manage their own imaginary runway. It's the hottest reality TV programme of the summer!

Airport Idol: any runway will do! pits members of the public against each other to find out who's got what it takes to be the Big Kahuna, and who's just another piece of lost luggage. Competitors will be tested on their knowledge of "strict environmental limits" and consultation rigging, before battling it out for the covetted Airport Idol jackpot: up to £100,000 a year to design a runway that will never happen.

Sign up for Airport Idol: any runway will do!

We did ask BAA why they advertised their new jobs in an issue of the Guardian whose front page splashed with the news that the runway was all but cancelled, but they were too incadescent with rage to answer. Instead they agreed to forgo the usual job application malarkey and launch a new reality TV show to find their newest Head of R3 consultation and Head of Surface Access Strategy.

Places are limited, so act fast! Don't worry, you'll be able to download the theme music on iTunes later this week.

High speed rail to wipe out domestic flights

By Richard on 05/08/2009
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Source: Flickr

Lord Adonis has unveiled a plan which has O'Leary and others apoplectic: he wants to wipe out the market for domestic flights in the UK by expanding the high speed rail network. While the Government has often hinted that High Speed 2 (the link between London, Heathrow and the north) would steal some market share, they're only now admitting that fast trains = no planes - domestically, if not internationally.

Across Europe, intercity flights have been decimated by the growth in high speed rail. In December 2007 the Spanish Government opened new lines connecting Madrid to Valladolid and to Málaga. Aberlado Carrillo, the director general of the state rail operator Renfe's high-speed service, described the success of these two lines as "unprecedented and well ahead of what we expected. Traffic has doubled on the Málaga line, and grown by 75% on the Valladolid line."

But don't hold your breath too tightly. Adonis and others were keen to explain that we'd still have to expand all the airports, to cater for predicted growth in demand (which is generated by the expansion, but don't let that spoil anything). I do wish the Government would wake up to the fact that expansion isn't happening and, while we're at it, stop pretending it's ok for the Environment Secretary to support regional airport expansion.

Michael O'Leary, the industry's rent-a-clown, was wheeled out to perform tricks. He's unhappy because he won't make any money if we're not all sitting on his horrid little planes. He doesn't believe in climate change, so finds the Transport Secretary justifying modal shift on eco-grounds a tad irritating. Sorry Michael, now you know how we feel everytime your smug face pops up on the telly crying about Greedy Gordon's Tax on Fun or whatever it is you complain about. No more Ryanair or Flybe is a good thing.

Vestas: towards a just transition

By Barry on 03/08/2009
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Source: Flickr

Many Plane Stupid activists have been down to the Isle of Wight to show our support and admiration for the Vesta's workers. This community has dared to take back some control of their futures away their bosses and from politicians too blind to see the symbolism of a wind turbine factory closing while promising Apollonian efforts to tackle climate change.

Contrast that with the aviation industry. New runways and promises of new jobs in the aviation sector look empty in a world of peak oil and a rapidly changing climate. The workers of Heathrow, Stansted, British Airways, Ryanair and the rest would do well to learn a lesson from this island community. When the dying Heathrow dream is finally abandoned they'll be left sitting on the cold tarmac whilst the bosses and their political cronies fly off with the last of the liquidated assets. The only solution is to wrestle back their fates and demand a just transition to a sustainable future.

Act now to demand a more sustainable future. Cabin crew should refuse to serve another packet of peanuts until there are enough jobs building windfarms and insulating lofts. Baggage handlers must not pack another plane until they're taught about the orchards and fields and helped to find jobs which support and strengthen local communties. We have to stop waving through development which will wreck the environment but offer up a couple of unsustainable shift jobs on minimum wage.

The transition to a low carbon economy can be brutal or it can be fair, but capital and capitalists will not adopt a system which distributes the most pain to those who can afford to pay it unless we force them. A just transition has to be fought for. When workers in the fossil fuels industries look to Vestas and start standing up for their futures then Plane Stupid would be proud to stand there with them. On Tuesday the courts will try to evict the Vestas workers. We'll be there to stop them.

Heathrow and Stansted expansion even less likely as BAA posts record losses

By Richard on 29/07/2009
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Have you been wondering why BAA has gone quiet on its plans to expand Heathrow and Stansted? Just a few months ago it was keen to stress that both airports would have new runways as soon as the tarmac could be poured, but their latest financial reports shows that BAA is so broke that it is reusing teabags* in the staff canteen.

So far this year BAA has lost over half a billion pounds from the three London airports, with passengers down by 4 million. The biggest decline was at Stansted, which lost 14% of passengers. Domestic flights fell 10% across the airports, with flights to the EU down 8% and international flights down 6%. So what need for the new runway - or for the increase in passenger numbers they twisted arms for last year?

In other BAA news, Gatwick still hasn't sold. BAA wants £1.5 billion, down from £2 billion last year, and has challenged the Competition Commission's demand that it sell Stansted, Gatwick and either Edinburgh or Glasgow within two years. There's some complicated leveraging thing going on with bonds and stuff, but basically it's overvalued the airport and can't sell it.

No cash means no expansion, whatever spin BAA chooses to put on it: bulldozing villages doesn't come cheap, especially when we're digging in to resist. It's perhaps a little too early to start celebrating, but let's face it: we've won**, even if the other side hasn't conceded defeat just yet.

* I am reliabily informed that reusing teabags is a perfectly sensible thing to do. However the image of BAA's staff fighting over a second-hand Tetley while outside the offices hordes of angry residents and anti-expansion campaigners wave placards and chant slogans is so heartening that I thought I'd share it with you.

** Given that I've started doing these little notes, I may as well continue: there plenty of regional airport battles to fight and win, but passengers and profits are down across the sector. Perhaps that iconic symbol of the fight against climate change won't be in Sipson and Harmonsworth, but at Newquay, Doncaster or Birmingham airports instead...

Off-topic: cops cancel Big Green Gathering. Bastards

By Richard on 27/07/2009
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Source: Flickr

I know this is off topic, so feel free to skip, but I'm really pissed off. A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of spending the summer touring various festivals, promoting sustainable transport. We did Glastonbury in the pouring rain, which was hard work, but we also did the Big Green Gathering, a genuinely awesome little festival tucked away in deepest Cider country.

The local bobbies have always had it in for the festival: it didn't take place last year because of ridiculous security requirements and made a loss the year before after shelling out to turn the festival site into Fort Knox. This year they went one better and sought an injunction against the landowners, which would have been heard today. Bear in mind that the event starts on Wednesday, and that the cops have known about the legal threat for at least three weeks, and you start to get an idea of what's going on.

Let's make one thing clear: bastards at the council are claiming it was cancelled for safety reasons. Bollocks. The security company, many of whom are ex-coppers with a 'special relationship' with the fuzz, were up to something, demanding loads of cash up front from the cash-strapped festival organisers and then calling the cops to say that no one would be keeping the hippies in line even though their extravagant cheque was in the post.

Anyway, this great little festival won't take place this year, which financially screws over a bunch of nice people who've spent all their meager pennies on beer for the Last Chance Saloon as well as some nice random hippy families who had it booked as their one summer holiday. I hope the tossers at Mendip Council are happy with themselves, but they're already on holiday in Malaga anyway. Grrrrr.

If you are as agrieved as I, why not email Suzanne McCutcheon, arch-partypooper at Mendip Council, to suggest that we use her back garden for a knees-up instead?

Follow Vestas occupation on Twitter

By Richard on 24/07/2009
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Source: Flickr

The Vestas occupation continues apace - now into its fourth day. The company and cops have cut off their food and internet, but you can follow them on Twitter.

Check out http://twitter.com/savevestas for updates from the front line.