Have you ever squatted an airport?

Tags:

What's worse than an airport? An airport which is being turned into gentrified flats for yuppie arseholes who work in the city but want a little bolt-hole to nip to at the weekend. Loft apartment, great view of the commercial district... yah yah yah excuse me while I pluck my own eyes out with a copy of the Foxton's Gazette.

So rest assured that when German anarchists heard about plans to do just that to an old airport of theirs, they started organising. And on the 20th of June, they're taking the airport back. With, if their film is to be believed, the armies of Mordor by their side and a full death metal soundtrack.

Take that yuppie scum. Next stop, the Dalston tube.

Train v plane: fight!

Tags:

Ever wondered why so many people feel compelled to fly? Rail fares in the UK are the highest in Europe, whereas flying gets a £10 billion subsidy because there's no fuel duty and no VAT on tickets or planes. Sure, you can get a cheap ticket if you book ahead, but it's a nonsense that it's often cheaper to fly than to hop aboard a choo-choo.

Despite what the industry tells you, it's often faster, easier and certainly greener to go by rail than to fly. There's no check-in, no probing searches by bored security guards and no one tries to sell you crappy perfume and a pen with the airline's logo on. But we're indundated with adverts pushing 'cheap' flights and all that jazz on us day after day, so we forget the horrors of air travel and plop over to the Ryanair website to indulge ourselves (because we're worth it).

But where rail is given a fair playing field it can more than compete. Virgin runs the London-Manchester rail link, and has aggressively marketted its trips to the same audience as currently flies. It's paid off: they now have 77% of the market share, with passenger figures up 12% in the last year. This is, I should point out, despite 60% of their trains running late, and their walk on tickets being astronomically expensive.

So stop advertising aviation (and end that ludicrous subsidy) and give those poor trains a fighting chance. Don't delay, deface an airline advert today!

Plane Stupid goes guerilla gardening

By Lily on 29/05/2009
Tags:
Source: Flickr

Bank holiday Monday, the noise of airplanes passing overhead, Heathrow airport casting its long shadow and the roar of diggers in Sipson. Is it all over I hear you ask? Did BAA slip their nefarious plans for a third runway through despite the weight of public opposition? Fear not, for this bank holiday heralded not the destruction of the Heathrow villages, but the arrival of Guerilla Gardeners on BAA's doorstep.

In the aftermath of the Chelsea Flower Show, the left over plants have found themselves an illustrious new home. Armed with trowels and hoses, and with the expert guidance of Chelsea gardener Tom Hoblyn, we descended on Sipson, Harmondsworth and Harlington on Monday for a spot of illicit gardening, transplanting the horticultural stars of Chelsea into new homes under the shadow of the flightpath.

Check out the photos on Flickr

Together with residents from all three villages, activists from the Climate Rush, guerilla gardening experts and, of course, Plane Stupid spent a sweltering bank holiday beautifying the very villages BAA would like to decimate to build a third runway at Heathrow. The mood on the day was, despite the government giving the go-ahead to the plans, one of hope. We were working together, united in our opposition to the economically and scientifically unviable plans.

We were investing both time and energy into the future of the Heathrow villages, comfortable in the knowledge that the third runway will never be built. And if they try, we won't be gardening Sipson when we go back, but fortifying it. We'll swap strawberry plants and lilies for superglue and lock-ons, but the message will be the same, resident and activist alike: we don't want your runway, we don't want your runway, na na na na, na na na...

Eurovision Flashmob: airport exansion is out of tune with the public

By Anonymous on 26/05/2009
Tags:
Source: Flickr

Is it ever possible to be really tacky and make a really serious political point at the same time? Probably not, but aviation campaigners from around Europe had a go on the day of the Eurovision Song Contest. On 16th May campaigners from six airports across Europe staged Flash Mobs in their terminal buildings. And sang their country’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest!

Hundreds of people flashed their red t-shirts, emblazoned with the words ‘Stop Airport Expansion’ at Heathrow, Frankfurt, Schiphol (Amsterdam), Brussels, Dublin and Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. The result was a seriously kitch display of bad taste and bad singing. Check out the Flickr photostream if you don't believe me!

Over the past few years there have been growing links between aviation campaigners in the different countries of Europe. The industry is determined to play each airport off against each other, so we're building up a Europe-wide movement to resist them. These wonderfully tacky flash mobs, where campaigners gave ‘nul points’ to the aviation industry, were a very visible sign that this is beginning to happen.

BAA rings death knell for Stansted expansion

By Richard on 22/05/2009
Tags:

If 2008 went down in the history books as the year of airport expansion plans, then 2009 will be long feted as the year those plans crashed back down to earth. Confirming rumours we've been hearing for several month now, BAA have finally conceded defeat and asked the Government to delay the public inquiry into Stansted Airport's expansion. Although BAA won't admit it yet, this means that the inquiry, and proposed expansion, won't happen. Is that champagne corks tins of cider I hear opening?

There are a few reasons for this, all of them good news for environmentalists. Firstly, BAA has no money and can't afford the inquiry. They are inches from having their credit status downgraded, which would leave them unable to secure their enormous debts. In economics speak, this leaves them "proper fucked"; so fucked, in fact, that the Government has initiated plans to nationalise them should the receivers get called in.

Secondly, BAA has been ordered to sell Stansted by the Competition Commission. In a rising market, with more and more people flying each year, BAA would be aggressively seeking permision to expand, and able to charge a premium for having bullied local objectors out of the way. But in this market, with fewer passengers than before, no one will pay more for someone else's expansion plans. The market for airports has been decimated: BAA wanted £2b for Gatwick, but has only been offered £1.3-1.4b.

The other, more political reason, is the general election next year. The last remnants of the Labour party may remain dedicated to expansion, but short of the whole Tory front bench being exposed as peadogrants, the next Government will be more blue than red. The Tories claim they won't allow expansion at Stansted or Heathrow (although they also claimed they weren't fiddling their expenses). Assuming they aren't lying scumbags then even if the inquiry inspector supported expansion it should be overturned by whoever becomes the Minister for Airport Expansion.

So pity BAA, who flew too high and came unstuck. A lesson in hubris for us all. Oh, and to make matters worse, British Airways, BAA's main client and ruler of all things Heathrow, is also going down the pan. Last year they lost £401 million, and there are no signs that they won't lose the same amount (or more) this year. These losses are despite their having fired around 20,000 staff, but outspoken boss Willie Walsh plans to fire some more in a desperate attempt to keep making money. I'm sure that he'll be doing his bit by taking a big cut in bonus... stop laughing, I'm serious.

Aviation billboard subvertised in North London

By Richard on 20/05/2009
Tags:

Last Saturday morning eight young climate change protestors decided they'd had enough of being bombarded with aviation advertising and took control of a billboard. At a time most of us would be asleep (or just getting in from a night on the lash) they were hanging a banner saying "stop airport expansion" over the advert.

Although just a small example of direct action this subvertising was just the start of a wider campaign to counter the millions and millions of pounds worth of advertising the industry forks out for every year. Tackling climate change means rethinking what is and is not acceptable. When aviation is 13% of our climate impact, posters on every last square foot of blank wall inciting us to fly is certainly not OK. It's time we declared public spaces no-go-zones for crappy adverts flogging us shit we don't actually want or need. Take your advert for cheap flights and shove it.

Advertising executives, be warned. Plane Stupid grew up watching Blue Peter. We've bought loads and loads of marker pens and sticky backed plastic, and have been saving egg-cartons for months. Your precious pseudo-art that litters the public realm is going to get rebranded. We have high-viz jackets and we know how to use them.

Today's sermon finishes with a short quote from the Gospel according to Banksy, that famed counter-cultural sell out: "Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head." Amen to that, brother.