Let's have some blue sky thinking here

Apr 18 2003 By Nicholas Craig, The Journal

The new cheap flights to Europe from Newcastle and Teesside are great news for all of us.

Having sampled a few, including the easyJet Barcelona flight last week, I am currently a full-blown fan of the no-frills approach that opens up travel to thousands.

Why is regional business not exploiting this more? You can easily network with France, Spain, Germany, Ireland and Holland, meeting potential clients, agents and suppliers within a day.

Yet I have not seen a single briefcase, while the trains and the full-price flights are full of suits.

We all know there can be delays. They obviously deter many with meetings to attend. However, lateness is as likely to occur by rail or car.

The more cheap flights there are, the better the timekeeping is likely to be.

The slow shuffle from check-in to boarding has been cut to a minimum by cut-price operators. It slashes the number of mind-numbing queues and even helps once in the plane, as you simply sit where you like.

The peering for seat numbers, squeezing past gangway-hugging, bulky passengers, missing your seat and trying to fight your way back against the flow of paranoid passengers who think you're after their chosen chair, is no more.

Common sense prevails and people usually sit in the first seat they come to, saving time and temper. It appears that companies in European cities connected by direct flights to Newcastle are equally cautious of this cut-rate form of business travel.

A two-way flow of trade is necessary to boost interest and investment in the North.

Yet for once we are not suffering from a North-South divide.

It is as easy to arrive in Newcastle - and soon Teesside - from Paris, Barcelona or Amsterdam, for example, as it is to fly to Birmingham or London.

Mainland Europeans have far fewer out-of-date prejudices about the North than many southerners. The flight routes are fantastic opportunities to steal a march on other UK cities.

A bit of blue sky thinking is needed to figure out how we use new transport links to attract many more European companies to our region.

Nicholas Craig is a partner at Watson Burton law firm.