Struggling airports recently issued a plea for help from the government: the Airport Operators Association predicts more than one in ten routes will disappear this year, many airports will sustain heavy losses, and up to a quarter of airport workers could be made redundant. Profits will fall 18%.

Anyone who loses their job has my sympathy, but what about the airports themselves? Are we to feel sorry for them because they aren’t going to be as profitable as they were in the good times?

During a decade of unprececented boom, they have been happy to fleece the travelling public with their dreary, overpriced chain outlet food, overcrowded squalor and dispiriting ambience. Now we’re all going through tight times and none of these places would last long on the high street where people have a choice about where they spend their money.

Airports’ fortunes are, obviously, tied the success - and whim - of airlines and large tour operators. When I wrote an article on buying property abroad, the number one piece of advice from the experts I spoke to was ‘don’t buy on the basis of a budget airline flying to the area’ – what happens if they pull the plug on that route?

But it strikes me that is exactly the unsound, unsustainable business model that has allowed regional airports to expand. More flights from more airports is just another symptom of the last decade’s excesses. If airports have fewer routes available that will of course be less convenient for some holidaymakers. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing if it makes people think a bit harder about why, how and where they travel. They may even start to discover the joys of Slow Travel, and find joy in discovering the delights on their own doorstep.

27 April 2009