Re: Manchester airport, I’ve enjoyed its convenience from other northern cities (could go direct from Leeds and from Durham when we lived there). Since we’ve moved south, it’s much less convenient to get to, requiring changes in strange places such as Wilmslow or Stockport to reach it (it’s a dead end line, so no through trains if I remember rightly).

Integrated transport in the UK is a long way off….

I totally agree with your frustrations on the airport connections though. I’ve used Exeter rather than one of the London airports before, which is absolutely absurd, but made very little difference in terms of time getting there. The airports need to be integrated properly in the national rail network – not left to hang out on a limb like black sheep that no-one wants anything to do with. Build lines THROUGH the airport stations, not orphan branches going to them.

True, Birmingham has great transport links, facilities and infrastructure. In fact, it’s a great city in its own right. It’s doing all it can to promote itself in a positive light, but after years – centuries – of bad press (mainly from London) its hardly surprising that the vast majority of people just will not listen.

I enjoyed your piece and the points you raise are all valid, it’s a great alternative to the London airports. But while calling the airport London Birmingham might please those who revel in a homogenized, identikit world, with a Starbucks on every corner, it would frankly be an insult to the 1m-strong population of the city of Birmingham, and a sad day for Britain. But I think you know that anyway…

A classic example is a guide piece I recently wrote about Lisbon for a newspaper in Australia. No airlines do a one stop flight to Lisbon from Sydney, so you’re best off getting to a major European hub, then buying a budget airline flight. The obvious choice – whether it’s flying from Australia, Asia, the US or the Middle East, is to fly into London.

Except most long haul flights land at Heathrow, and most budget flights go from Stansted, Luton or Gatwick – which are a pig to get to if you’ve just had 24 hours on a plane. In the end, my advice was to get a one-stop flight with Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways or Singapore Airlines to Manchester, then switch to the BMIBaby flight to Lisbon.

Because the long haul flights and budget short-hop flights go from the same airport, it’s far less hassle, less time consuming (and arguably less costly when you factor in the price of getting across London to one of the ‘London’ airports that is actually nowhere near London).

Savvy travellers from these long-haul destinations will soon start cottoning on to this – if you want to get to Continental Europe on the cheap and relatively stress-free, you’re better off avoiding London and using Brum, Manchester or Glasgow as your hub. And, from this perspective, confusing the issue by putting London in front of the airport name isn’t a good idea.

Taking a train from your local town to the nearest international airport is completely normal, standard practice in virtually every country in Western Europe – but not in Britain, where we have the ridiculous spectacle of the Heathrow Express (the world’s most expensive train, on cost-per-mile), the Gatwick Express and the Stansted Express – all of them one-trick ponies, shuttling back and forth into central London only. Local trains do exist, but they’re not exactly useful. Leicester to Stansted Airport? A distance of 95 miles, covered in 2 and a half hours on a crawling local train: you could virtually cycle it quicker. Oxford to Heathrow? 45 miles – but the only direct service is a bus. Canterbury to Gatwick? 66 miles – but the only option by train is to change at London St Pancras. Journey time: 2 hours. This is barking mad.

Your suggestion is not so nutty, you know:

Journey time by train Birmingham International to London Euston: 1hr 14mins.
Journey time by tube Heathrow Terminals 1-2-3 to London Euston: 1hr 8mins.

And as for the customer experience at BHX, as compared with LHR – well, there is no comparison. I’m sticking with Brum!