Cardiff Airport says Welsh Assembly ‘un-business like’
10.12.08
The Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) has been guilty of an ‘un-businesslike’ approach, the Western Mail reports that an executive at Cardiff Airport said yesterday. Steve Hodgetts, the airport’s director of business development, said the devolved administrations in Edinburgh and Belfast 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 we do find that their approach can be somewhat delayed and un-businesslike at times.'
‘The late arrival of the Route Development Fund meant that it came in post changes to the EU rules, when a lot of the benefit and flexibility that Scotland and Northern Ireland had enjoyed had actually dissipated. So that sort of hamstrung the ability of the RDF to work. We see far more evidence of support from tourism bodies; the Visit Wales equivalents elsewhere in the UK and European regions, and we would like to see the Welsh Assembly Government emulate the best practices we see elsewhere.’
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 then 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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