With scheduled airline traffic, holiday charter and business flying growing at euphoric rates, airport capacity shortage lurks at many of Europe’s conurbations. This evolution makes it essential for the business aviation community to contribute to keeping smaller airports open, because they may soon be the only places where executive jets can land. The situation has been well understood in the past, for instance in Paris, where Le Bourget thrives on business traffic unwanted at Orly or Charles de Gaulle, and similar developments took place in London, Milan, Rome and other places. In this respect the announced closing of the Berlin downtown airport of Tempelhof is a disaster that should not be repeated elsewhere.
Many small airports have understood that there is an opportunity to be grasped and are promoting their offer here at EBACE. They include le Castellet and Lyon Bron, France; Biggin Hill, Newquay Cornwall and Oxford, UK; Morristown, New Jersey; and Swiss Business Airports, a loose association of six airfields. Small airports fall into roughly two categories: those which already have business traffic and invest to increase it and those threatened by closure for lack of activity, having lost traffic and desperately trying to attract new business.
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