ON Monday I was driving from Stonehaven to Aberdeen Airport on the new Aberdeen bypass at 5.30 am for my Flybe flight to Heathrow, marvelling at the total time of 40 minutes from door to car park to departure lounge. Then news came on the radio that Flybe was in trouble.
I had meetings with three multinationals in agrochemicals, rail transport and healthcare (total revenues $145 billion) which have bought, or are keen to buy, software my company has developed. It is an excellent example of the many world leading oil and gas technologies created in Aberdeen now being used in other industries worldwide. It's a cloud app so we rarely meet our customers, only two of which are in Scotland.
We are pretty "green" so when we do travel it is a big deal. If low-cost, regional airlines go under many small companies around the UK, especially in Scotland, will struggle to compete internationally, so news that the UK Government is acting so promptly to review airline tax is a very welcome example of the benefits of being in a large economic and political union that can take and implement these big fiscal decisions ("Flybe rescue deal saves 2,400 jobs", The Herald, January 15).
This was in marked contrast to the SNP's airport tax policy u-turn, whereby a sensible reduction was overturned by six Green MSPs for whom only 13,163 people voted in 2016.
As a result of our trip the initial £50k of deals have a potential of worldwide rollout approaching £500k in the next three years.
Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven.
SO Kevin Hobbs believes Ferguson’s bosses are “fairly and squarely” to blame for the calamitous delays in delivering the long overdue ferries ("Ferguson bosses ‘fairly and squarely to blame for ship debacle’", The Herald, January 15).
But just who sourced and specified these ferries at Ferguson’s? That wouldn’t be CMAL would it, Mr Hobbs?
Those responsible for sourcing from a “disastrous management” (his words) should have fallen on their swords or should have been sacked. Sourcing of a contract of this value requires the customer, that’s you Mr Hobbs, especially when using taxpayers’ money, to do thorough due diligence on the potential supplier. His after-the-fact analysis is hiding CMAL's up-front sourcing incompetence. To not even accept some failings and indeed apologise is an insult to the taxpayer.
I look forward to the Holyrood inquiry and we can only hope that they ask Mr Hobbs, and indeed Jim McColl, more penetrating questions than the BBC managed. Sadly, like all inquiries in Scotland recently, I doubt we’ll ever get to the bottom of this and the taxpayer will pick up the tab as usual.
Ian McNair, Cellardyke.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel