Grounded

I hate to be negative about Edinburgh Airport’s plan for a “megacity” (your report, 10 July) but there is one major factor that the proposers of the plan seem to have missed – yet again. Every one of the European airports they compare themselves with has something Edinburgh doesn’t – a high speed railway connection to the city centre. Manchester, Copenhagen, Frankfurt and Amsterdam all have an integrated rail/air service to their capital or major city. Amsterdam Schiphol airport has 165 trains per day to the central city station, Manchester a train every 20 minutes, Copenhagen every 10.

By comparison Edinburgh airport has an expensive tram to Edinburgh Gateway, then a train to Waverley. And by some twisted logic they plan a road from Edinburgh Gateway to the airport.

The question of why the airport hasn’t worked with the various iterations of Scotrail to build a station on the line from Edinburgh to Inverness on the huge area of spare land at Ingliston, with frequent high speed trains into Waverley, continues to defeat me. That would make it comparable to their European cousins.

PETER BURKE Collier Street, Carnoustie An airport-backed development extending from the current terminal all the way to Edinburgh Gateway is such a commercially obvious idea. I’m assuming the intention is to relocate check-in to the Gateway end, and ensure that prospective travellers enjoy the benefits of 100 acres of shopping mall en-route to the gate. Perhaps the hope is that the “Shopping Experience” proves to be an irresistable destination in itself. In which case, could they build one across the other runway, too, please? IAIN MASTERTON

Main Street Kirknewton, Midlothian