Airport Economics

Guy gets nostalgic about air travel and Milton Keynes.

Transcript

Welcome to the one-hundred-and-eighth episode of The Undercover Intern podcast, coming to you live from the centre of London Luton Airport. I'm your host, Guy Snapdragon, and today is Monday the 24th of February 2025.

We are sponsored this week by The Maywentery Golf Course. Welcoming men of all abilities since 1923. The club shop has some lovely new caps in stock, for extra-large male heads only.

Discerning listeners will have noticed that during last week’s episode I made a mistake that anybody with even cursory knowledge of disciplinary procedures should avoid. I’ve received a written warning at Focgee - where the client is loved two point zero - for revealing that The Undercover Intern was a client at Focgee - where the client is loved two point zero - and I have absolutely no defence, I deserved it. It was a horrible breach of confidentiality, and now I’m on the brink of a final written warning or even dismissal. The method of delivery was almost identical to the verbal warning, except that I was woken up around 4am last Tuesday by the same guy from the People Success Team chanting ‘‘written warning number one”, and this time it lasted for over two hours. Everything else was the same, the flag, the pointing, the jogging on the spot, the semi-nakedness. I’m more intrigued than ever by this person’s job description. He’s doing some anti-social hours.

Living in a densely populated area, you’d think this nocturnal noise would upset the neighborhood. Luckily, windows were tightly shut against the chilly night air. Apart from mine. All of my windows are open at night because my heating now blasts at maximum heat all day and night, and for some unfathomable reason, my landlord also decided to install an aga in my bedroom. For the uninitiated, an aga is a cast-iron stove known for its relentless emittance of warmth, found mainly on the English TV shows The Darling Buds of May and Downton Abbey, and also now found next to my bed. The police did eventually turn up. They didn’t do anything though, unless laughing and mockery is now a central part of the British justice system.

[Sound of plane taking off] Ah, a gentle reminder to focus on today’s episode, which is about airport economics. 1914 was a momentous year in world history as it marked the beginning of commercial air travel, a 23-minute hop between St Petersburg and Tampa in Florida. That plane crashed, as did every passenger flight until the mid-1930s. Airports were no more than fields of blood and decapitated bodies back then and it wasn’t until the Douglas DC-3 in 1936 that air travel was appropriate for those without suicidal proclivities. The DC-3 could seat up to 32 passengers plus eight emotional support animals, and had a range of 1,500 miles. The jet age began in the late 1950s with the introduction of the Boeing 707, shrinking the globe and opening up air travel to the masses. Supporting services evolved too, including air traffic control, which became crucial as skies grew busier. Innovations such as radar, satellite navigation, and digital communications have continually improved the safety and efficiency of air travel.

Boeing have embodied innovation over the decades, notably with the introduction of the 737 in 1967. Their fourth generation of the 737, the 737 Max, entered commercial service in 2017 and was designed to reintroduce a decent element of trickiness to commercial flight, with the Max’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System being hidden from pilots and hence allowing two of their planes to crash minutes after take-off, just like in the olden days. 189 passengers and crew plunged to their deaths in the Java Sea in October 2018 and 157 perished when their flight in March 2019 failed shortly after its take-off from Addis Ababa. Boeing’s homage to early 20th-century corporate manslaughter was paused shortly after this, but it remains a leader in the aerospace industry risk-taking, with aggressive financial goals, a violent focus on short-term profitability alongside the near-eradication of engineering expertise and safety-related capital expenditures.

Any budding entrepreneurs out there might think that you can do better than Boeing. But it’s not about just building a big bus with wings and it’s not enough to have not ended the lives of almost 350 people. There are huge economies of scale and there is a duopoly between Boeing and Airbus, and it will take more than causing the deaths of hundreds of largely non-American and non-European people to change that. Even if you manage to build the thing, you’ll have to train pilots to fly your new aircraft, unless you can convince regulators that it’s not a new aircraft and can pretend that those pesky non-white foreign pilots were culpable because they are not as good as the more advanced American white pilots. Maybe you want to set up an airport business instead? Well you’ll need a really long and straight piece of land to start with because an airport without a runway is about as useful as an aircraft that’s been built to stall and crash.

I should say for the record that I disagree with conspiracy theorists who say that that awful covid-19 pandemic began in a Boeing lab, in an attempt to ground all planes worldwide, and not just theirs. Boeing seriously no longer have the capability to develop anything this sophisticated.

I am really starting to enjoy coming to London Luton Airport every Monday. There is such vitality here. It provides easy access to arguably the most important city in Europe, Milton Keynes, which is around 25 miles to the northwest. Milton Keynes was the first city in the world to have more roundabouts than people. The world-class universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Bedfordshire are all within 50 miles of here. easyJet are based here too, in all of their orange glory and baggage add-on costs. And it now hosts the world’s most influential english-language Internship Podcast. But what of the economics of London Luton Airport? It’s 81% owned by Greg Rutherford, ginger person, long jumper and Olympic gold medalist, who was born in Milton Keynes in 1986 and who won hearts on Super Saturday at the 2012 Olympics with a jump of 8.31 metres. To put that into perspective, that’s equivalent in length to 34 point two Curly Wurlys placed end-to-end. The other 19% is owned by another Milton Keynes hero, heart-throb Kevin Whately. Although not born in Milton Keynes, the sexy police detective and inspector has, like many before him, gravitated towards Milton Keynes and Kevin now acts as an ambassador for both the city and the airport. Up to date financial reports are a little tricky to find, but I can say that in 2019, the airport’s profits were over 47 million Great British Pounds, 38 million of which goes directly into the pockets of Greg Rutherford. To put that into perspective, that’s enough to buy 82.6 million Curly Wurlys, or over 226,301 every single day.

The gearing ratio of the airport as of 31 December 2020 was 1.11 which is far too high. I know that 2020 was a tough year for airports, what with that awful pandemic that Boeing almost certainly did not create. But, Greg, that’s too high. I don’t have the time or energy to compare this to other airports, and it’s now four years later and we can all hear that London Luton Airport is still operating, so any advice I could give you now is moot, perhaps. But Graham Cree is my podcast accountant and for a fee would be happy to help you. Greg, or Kevin, if you’re listening and want help, please do reach out. All of our communication channels are switched off at the moment but I’m here in person every Monday and I’ll give my bodyguard photographs of you so that you can approach without fear of violence.

Despite my vulnerable position and the credible threats to my life from Jim Davidson fans, the Metropolitan Police's Royalty and Specialist Protection unit refuses to provide me with protection. Salman Rushdie and even some journalists have been given state protection in the past, but apparently never a podcaster. What’s it going to take? I’ll draw Muhammed if I have to. I will. Though I’m a terrible drawer and I’m not sure what he looks like. Just give me proper protection. Please write to your MP if you want to help me. In the meanwhile, I have hired a bodyguard and he is armed with guns and will not hesitate to kill.

I want to make it clear than London Luton Airport neither is, nor is not, a client of Focgee - where the client is loved two point zero - and if they were or were not a client I would not tell you. But it would be remiss of me not to mention sustainability. A flock of birds were killed here by a descending Airbus in May 2022, but they were only pigeons - the rats of the sky - and so it doesn’t matter. I mean, it’s not like Airbus has negligently killed its own passengers or anything. There are concerns about the impacts on the nearby Wigmore Valley Park but it’s not that great there and only has seven reviews on TripAdvisor, with one visitor saying it’s very muddy. Noise pollution is an issue, especially for podcast studios but noise is the least important of all the pollutions. Water resources are fine, it rains here all the time. What else? Air pollution. Nah. If you can’t breathe here you’re just lazy. With close to 18 million passengers in 2019, carbon dioxide equivalent emissions per passenger were 440 grams, which doesn’t sound too bad to me. To put that into perspective, that’s equivalent in weight to 20 point five Curly Wurlys. 

I will do another episode about the indirect impacts of the airport - the caterers, the shops, the airport museums, the podcast studios, the long-jump centre of excellence, the children’s play area. But that’s all we’ve got time for today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this fascinating look at my humble podcast home. I’ll end with a quote from Greg Rutherford: I'm not a grunter, I'm relatively quiet. There's a little bit of breathing out. Some people get really loud! End quotation. If Greg can achieve elite success in both jumping and airport ownership without recourse to grunting, I think we might all try to grunt a little less, no matter what life throws our way.

Just a heads-up that the episode on Monday 7th April will be our annual 24-hour podcast marathon. I’ll be live on air for the whole day, with the usual mix of interviews, insights and fundraising for The Maywentery Golf Course. There will be no audience interaction whatsoever this year. You only have yourselves to blame.

I’ve been your host, Guy Snapdragon. My producer is Lee Buckingham. Michael Webb is Chief Legal Officer and Legal support comes from Paul Tout. Accountancy from Graham Cree. Security from David Jarrett. May you use your time wisely, and may your use of wise be timely.