Leuchars presents a huge opportunity

Sir, – Re Saturday’s article about the future of Dundee Airport: I am sure a major reason for the decline in passenger numbers at Dundee is the current scheduling of the Dundee to London City flights. The 8.20am flight from Dundee is far too late and not having the first flight back from London City to Dundee until 16.45pm is hopeless.

The Dundee to London City flight only worked really well when there were four flights a day in each direction. This number of flights meant that I and my colleagues could use it to connect to European destinations.

With only two flights a day, the chances of a decent connection on both the outward bound and return flight are negligible. I have to use Edinburgh Airport.

It was undoubtedly the recession that led to the cutback in the number of daily flights from four to two, but whoever took this decision clearly did not understand the history of the flight and why two flights a day didn’t work in the past and won’t work in the future.

There is an obvious way to not only secure the future of Dundee Airport but also to greatly expand it and that is to move it to Leuchars.

A huge opportunity has arisen with the announcement that Leuchars is to close as an RAF base and it must now be seized. A new civil airport at Leuchars would attract a huge amount of tourists as well as business traffic and would be highly viable.

It would be further underpinned by the air traffic supporting the new army base at Leuchars.

Sir Philip Cohen. The University of Dundee, Dundee.