Blogging on liberty, capitalism, reason, international affairs and foreign policy, from a distinctly libertarian and objectivist perspective
31 March 2008
Many Heathrow travellers enjoying relief
18 March 2008
Domestic airline service - quality again
17 March 2008
What foreigners can do to an airport
See The Times for a photo series of the opening of Terminal 5 by the Queen.
16 March 2008
Want to make Air NZ uncompetitive?
You see the routes to China are not particularly profitable - largely because the planes are used mostly by Chinese tourists paying for the cheap seats - there is little business class demand between NZ and China. So to take advantage of this market Air NZ needs to keep costs low.
The alternative is to tell Air NZ to pay the same rate - make the routes uneconomic - and then a Chinese airline will fly back in to take advantage of the growing business, undoubtedly paying even less than Air NZ.
Meanwhile those in China who don't want these jobs could refuse of course, and China isn't exactly suffering from economic malaise. The idea that those living in Shanghai are being exploited when they are paid generous wages by local standards is a nonsense - though I doubt the Greens will catch trains all the time in protest!
Yes that's how those on the left would let it happen. Winners right?
05 March 2008
How bad is it to get infrastructure built in Britain?
This is Britain we are talking about.
My predicted timeframe:
Oct 2008 - stop using T2.
June 2009 - Submit public tenders for various designs for its replacement.
July 2009 - All designs rejected by local residents.
August 2009 - A rare and previously thought to be extinct breed of dust mite is discovered in T2.
Late-August 2009 - A charity single entitled "Save the Mites = Save our future (and our Children's future)" is released by two ex-Pop Idol nobodies. It goes straight in at number one.
September 2009 - Local residents set up an action group called T.W.A.T.S - (Team Worried and Against Terminal Success) which pickets Parliament to demand that the area is left for animals to graze on, as anything other than this course of action represents what basically amounts to Planetary Homicide. They lodge their formal complaints to the planning commission, which rules that in light of the new complaints against the massive expansion of Heathrow airport and the obvious and irrefutable damage replacing the terminal building will do to London’s green belt, that all previous planning permissions and tenders are null and void. A new planning process is started.
October 2009 – T.W.A.T.S chain themselves to a chainlink fence on the airport perimeter and are forcibly removed by police.
November 2009 – T.W.A.T.S climb in the roof of T5 and splash red paint all over the place to illustrate the murder of the green belt. One tries to break a window and falls to his death. “Stinky” as he is known, of no fixed address, is immediately Martyred. The local Government releases a statement expressing their sincere sorrow at his death. His wife/partner “Crusty” also of no fixed address, sues BAA for having lax enough security to let them in in the first place, and is awarded three million quid in damages. She cuts her hair, has a bath, moves to Kensington, sets up an advertising firm and buys a Range Rover.
December 2009 – Local residents not affiliated to T.W.A.T.S pre-emptively sue the Government for millions because of the emotional hardship so brutally inflicted on their lives by the grim edifice of the new terminal, in whatever form it may take. A Government investigation board is appointed to appoint a committee to do a study of the plans.
June 2010 – Committee appointed.
October 2010 – Committee convened for half an hour.
April 2011 - Committee convened for an hour and ten mins.
November 2011 - Committee convened for a seventeen minutes.
December 2011 – Preliminary findings are released. They say – “It is the opinion of this Committee that a public enquiry should be convened to assess the lawsuit brought by local residents. Once this is complete planning process may begin on the new terminal”
June 2012 – New committee convened which meets for three mins in a bar in Whitehall before taking a treasury credit card to Spearmint Rhino. Signs are put up all round the now derelict and crumbling T2 site that say that BAA is ‘Caring for your future’
November 2012 – T2 blows down in a moderately strong wind. A national day of mourning is held for the dust mites which it is presumed all perished. A charity single rework of Elton John’s ‘Candle in the Wind’ is released, sung by Jason Donovan and a class of primary school kids from Bromsgrove, entitled “You weren’t just a dust mite to me (Give peace a chance)” – its rockets straight to number one.
December 2012 – Work begins on clearing the site. Local residents complain about the noise of the drills and diggers (over the noise of the planes) which are causing emotional problems and successfully get an injunction to prevent the contractors from using any mechanical tools at all. The rubble is moved by hand. Local residents win more millions in compensation, because BAA should never have allowed the building to collapse in the first place.
December 2013 – the site is cleared. The fourth appeal of the planning permission is in the process of being dealt with in the High Courts.
April 2014 – The local residents take their case to the European Court of Human Rights in The Hague.
June 2014 – Final design, an award winning masterpiece of modern design and technical genius from Sir Norman Foster is dismissed on costs grounds. A rival bid from Botchitt & Scarper Ltd is accepted. The commission expresses ‘concerns’ that the design does not have any gates, and that the water feature and timber decking in and around the hard stands are unnecessary.
November 2015 – Work begins.
December 2016 – Work finishes. BAA make a massive glitzy launch and much is made of the fact that it came in with no work overruns and actually early. Rather less is made of the fact that the work is 395% over budget.
March 2017 – Structural engineers state that the building is unsafe. It transpires that the contractors had just poured tar over the ground and stuck beams into the tar. The site foreman, a Paddy O’Murphy, went on record as stating that “It was fine mate, its fine for people’s drives, and its fine for de terminal tingy dat we’re doing for ya’s. Do ya like Dags?”
April 2017 – Botchitt & Scarper Ltd is found to be a fake company. Nobody at the planning commission bothered to do any due diligence because they all had their drives done as a bonus. The new T2 falls down in a light breeze. An Al-Qaida carbomb is blamed.
May 2017 – Local residents sue again for emotional distress caused by the length of the planning process.
July 2021 – A new terminal design is approved.
May 2027 – The new T2 is opened. It was fifteen years late and cost more than nine-billion pounds all told, or 30% more than an entire brand new airport in the Thames Estuary.
(btw, the truth is that Heathrow Terminal 2 is to close within the next year or so, to make way for the new Heathrow East terminal. All the airlines using Terminal 2 are being relocated to Terminals 1, 3 and 4 after BA is relocated out of Terminals 1 and 4 and into Terminal 5 next month)
Canadian Pension Plan boxes on
04 March 2008
Winston Cullen's populist xenophobia
What absolute nonsense.
The hurried legislation is Labour making a marriage with "don't trust the wogs" NZ First, pandering to the xenophobic fears of some on the conservative right as well as the anti-globalisation left - with no objective basis for it whatsoever.
The government will now have the right to interfere in ANY private land transaction, as "ministers will be able to block the sale overseas of any land or assets if it runs counter to the need to maintain New Zealand control of strategically important infrastructure on sensitive land."
What is this "strategically important infrastructure" or "sensitive land"? Better hope it's not yours, or those of a company you own shares in - because Ministers can now pillage part of the asset value -purely due to xenophobic hysteria.
The arguments Sue Kedgley rattled off in her press release are all too ludicrous, and I pulled them apart a few days ago. I said the Greens are Canadaphobic only partly in jest, because they are xenophobic when it comes to ANYONE from another country making an investment in New Zealand.
The impression is that somehow Canada Pension Plan would blow up the airport, or treble landing charges, in other words do anything OTHER than run it to maximise a rate of return.
Of course this isn't the first time. Dr Cullen deliberately delayed allowing Singapore Airlines to raise its shareholding in Air New Zealand to 49% because of a preference to consider the Qantas offer, which had already been rejected by the Air New Zealand board. It is speculation to claim that this dithering was because of a preference for an ANZAC Air NZ over a more "foreign" one. This dithering saw Air New Zealand collapse, until Dr Cullen forced taxpayers to bail out and nationalise the airline.
So I want three questions to be answered by those on the left who will cheerlead this on flying the red flag as they do...
1. What evidence is there and what incentives are there for a foreign owner of a New Zealand company to treat the assets and the business in a manner differently from a New Zealand one? Give verifiable examples, not simply tired rhetoric.
2. What is the financial value of land being "strategic"? Will you compensate the owners for this over and above the previous market value now reduced because of this legislation?
3. If the land is so "strategic" to you, why don't YOU and those who agree with you come together and buy it? Clearly the value is so high that you are willing to use force to ride roughshod over private property rights and contracts. Can you explain why you are unwilling to use your OWN money to demonstrate how strategic this land is?
Finally, I expect the shrieking Greens and xenophobic NZ First to support this, along with xenophobic Anderton. That will be enough, but will Peter Dunne, National and ACT stand on some principle? (The Maori Party is inherently racist so I expect nothing from it).
By the way, this isn't about privatisation - this is about already privately owned shares not being allowed to be sold to a willing buyer. Just think about it, and think about your own xenophobia.
It is racism, just a kind the left champions.
03 March 2008
Herald nearly a month late on this one
yes I reported that on 8 February Grant Bradley.
By the way, Singapore Airlines is ending its Boeing 747 service to Auckland on 11 May 2008. They get replaced with smaller Boeing 777-300ERs. That isn't a bad thing. The new 777-300ERs have the same new business and economy class of the A380s, and still have first class.
29 February 2008
Greens Canadaphobic
Sue's press release on this says "The Green Party sees no reason why a Canadian pension fund should be allowed to gain control of the gateway to New Zealand"
Well I see no reason why it shouldn't? Why is a Canadian pension fund less of a good owner than a New Zealand pension fund, or local government, or central government (remember Wellington airport when it was majority government owned?)? Sue doesn't say, just apparently as long as the Green Party doesn't see a reason to allow something, it should be banned.
Then she goes on a little to suggest that "New Zealand cannot afford the economic, environmental, biosecurity and security risks of letting control of our main aviation gateway pass into foreign hands"
What are these Sue? Economic risks. Hmmm that it will be efficiently run, will seek to encourage passengers and airlines to operate there. Are you concerned about monopoly pricing? Well apparently not since the Green Party opposes outright Whenuapai being developed as a second airport.
Environmental risks? What are the Canadians going to do Sue? Use the airport as a toxic waste dump? Encourage less fuel efficient planes to fly in? I mean those Canadians are such environmental vandals.
Biosecurity risks? Oh yes, apparently they will take over the MAF role too will they Sue? Or the Canadians will just let it rip on foreign plagues of insects and plants to ravish our countryside.
Security risks? Yes they'll let those Canadian terrorists in to hijack planes, or Canadian thieves to steal luggage.
Not a single rational reason to stop the sale, other than xenophobic hysteria.
Blame Canada, with their evil little eyes and their heads that flap with lies.
Bloody hell Sue, take some pills and get some therapy, it's not nice to discriminate against those from other countries.
20 February 2008
Wellington International Airport's rock?
13 February 2008
No more short haul business class on Air NZ?
12 February 2008
Mad woman costs us all
08 February 2008
Emirates first to fly whalejet into NZ
21 November 2007
Ken Livingstone talking nonsense again
13 November 2007
Pacific Blue's domestic launch sees others raise the bar
02 November 2007
Airbus A380 is NOT a revolution, it's the end of an era
^
1. It is not the "biggest plane in the world", as the Russian built Antonov An-225 took that title in 1988. However, it is the largest one to be mass produced, as there is only only An-225 to date, and it is the largest airliner.
^
2. It is not a particular quantum leap in capacity, if only because many airlines are using the vastly increased floorspace to upgrade their on board product. In any case, unlike the Boeing 747 it is not a doubling of seating compared to its predecessors.
^
3. It is not technologically a major leap forward compared to the last brand new large jet airliner introduced by the "big two" of Airbus and Boeing - the last was the Boeing 777. It does represent an evolution, but not a revolution.
^
4. The passenger product introduced by Singapore Airlines is only an advance in First Class Suites (the now famous double beds for some), with separate cabins, and beds separate from seats. The Business Class and Economy Class products are identical to their existing Boeing 777-300ER aircraft (which, by the way, don't yet fly to New Zealand), and have been getting rolled out on those 777s for the past year.
^
In short, it's bigger, quieter and the windows are a bit bigger. All very well, but that is it. You see the key difference between the A380 and future new airliners, is that it is probably the last predominantly aluminium jet airliner to be built. The next ones, the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350XWB will be predominantly carbon composite - with windows twice the size of existing airliners, a flight interior altitude substantially lower and humidity substantially higher than that of current airliners. In other words, a major change to the current experience of being dehydrated and feeling cooped in a metal tube. The A380 is a fine replacement for airlines that need a 747 or larger sized airliner, but there aren't too many of those - Air New Zealand almost certainly will never buy any.
^
It's also important to dismiss the nonsense debate that the A380 competes with the 787 Dreamliner - as if airlines that need a 450 seat airliner, wouldn't need a 250 seat one or vice versa. Given that Singapore Airlines, Qantas and BA have bought both, this is a debate created by journalists interviewing their laptops. There is clearly a market for the A380, it's just for now it not enough to make it break even - 190 so far. The Boeing 787 has sold 710 so far and hasn't flown. I think we can tell which aircraft manufacturer chose the right market to target!
27 July 2007
Winston in a time warp
- The coalition agreement terminated in force when the coalition with National broke up in 1998;
- The remains of that government was voted out in 1999 and remains so;
- The confidence and supply agreement with Labour does not cross reference the 1996 coalition agreement as a basis for policy;
- The coalition agreement is not the word of some sage, it's a political document of convenience.
means nothing?
Sorry Winston, reread the calendar it is 2007, not 1997.
04 July 2007
Garuda banned from the EU
26 June 2007
Video on demand entertainment on Air NZ Trans Tasman/Pacific flights
^
The 767s fly all services to Cairns, Honolulu, Perth, and Tahiti, and some from Auckland to Apia, Nandi, Rarotonga, Nuku'alofa, Brisbane, Adelaide and Sydney, and extensions of flights from Apia, Nandi and Rarotonga to/from Los Angeles (the long slow way from Auckland to LA).
^
The A320s fly all services from Wellington and Christchurch to Australia and the Pacific, and from Auckland to Noumea and Port Vila, and some from Auckland to Adelaide, Apia, Brisbane, Melbourne, Nandi, Norfolk Island, Nuku'alofa, Rarotonga and Sydney.
^
Finally NZ can compete a bit better with the likes of Emirates across the Tasman, only the odd international 737 flight (usually to Niue and Norfolk Island, but occasionally elsewhere) will be without any decent entertainment. What the report doesn't note is that this means new seats on the 767s in both classes.