NEW flights between Scotland’s cities are being planned to help woo long-haul routes to Edinburgh and Glasgow airports and overcome slow road and rail links. (http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/bid-to-restore-scots-inter-city-flight-network-1-3657489). The country’s two busiest airports say the links would bring an influx of connecting passengers, including tourists, and make new routes to the rest of the world more viable. Aviation officials said flying would also enable travellers to bypass ten years of disruption during dualling of the A9 between Perth and Inverness.

The opening sentence of the recent press announcement gives away the real problem when it states that the reason is to “overcome slow road and rail links”. Surely, the answer is to upgrade the rail network for the reasons identified by Colin Howden, director of Transform Scotland, who said “This clearly demonstrates the grave lack of investment in the rail routes from Aberdeen and Inverness to the Central Belt. It would prove a major embarrassment for the Scottish Government’s ambitions for rail and its commitment to cutting climate emissions should domestic air routes come to fruition.”