How far can we sweat the airport?
AS THE ongoing row over fees and charges for moorings between boat owners and the States committee responsible for the ports rumbles along, the airport never feels too far away.
Boat owners claim that the fee increases they are facing and fearing are effectively subsidising losses at the airport, since they claim that their contributions help the harbours to wash their face.
Yesterday STSB president Peter Roffey was keen to outline how sweating the assets at the ports ‘has long been and remains an absolutely prime objective for ports management’.
And there certainly seems scope for it at the airport. Considered state-of-the-art when it opened 20 years ago, now the terminal looks overblown, almost a folly in places, with the space all wrong for the purposes of the modern traveller. Frankly, if we were building one now, surely we wouldn’t build that.
Stephen Lansdown said this week that some areas of the airport were a mess and he would stick a hotel up there. Certainly one wonders if there isn’t the space to accommodate a kind of pod hotel for fog delays and for the red eye passenger who wants to sleep as late as possible in the morning?
The initiatives Deputy Roffey highlighted were obvious – rent the retail and catering space that’s already there – but lacking in ambition. But he would no doubt point out – real change would cost, and would that spend be a risk too far?