As leading business figures puncture the BA/BAA claim that a Third Runway is vital for the British economy by saying that, er, it isn't, City Spy has been looking at the way the airport operates — and why there are so many aircraft in London's skies. BAA at Heathrow applies what is known as the “80/20 rule” — which is that if an airline does not use a take-off and landing slot for 80% of the time, it is taken away.

This is proving expensive for some carriers that are having to keep on flights which operate with only a handful of passengers. A 747 recently left for Tokyo with a mere 50 people on board. As a result, the European Commission is being pressed to declare BAA's requirement anti-competitive or illegal. The 80/20 order explains why traffic at Heathrow has remained virtually static while other airports have been reporting sharp decreases (Gatwick is down 18%).

Heathrow has maintained the volume of aircraft using the airport but the planes are nowhere near full. Also if, as City Spy is told to be the case, some airlines want to cancel flights, that must blow a giant hole in the “Heathrow is operating at 150% of capacity so we must have a new runway today if not sooner” case.

* It's tricky for BAA to attempt to rubbish the business executives' open letter or dismiss its signatories as out of touch. BAA is being advised on the Third Runway by Finsbury, the City PR agency. Finsbury also represents Sainsbury, where Justin King is one of the signatories of the letter, and Compass Group (ditto Sir Roy Gardner). And one of the leaders of the group of business chiefs is banker Russell Chambers, a
close friend of Finsbury boss Roland Rudd.

High noon in Laxey-Hirco feud

Colin Kingsnorth, the Laxey boss and leader of the attempt to restructure the board of Hirco was a no-show at yesterday's shareholder meeting of the AIM-listed property developer. The voluble activist investor's non-appearance raises questions as to the future for his destabilisation campaign. The only Laxey representative was Andrew Pegge. All Laxey's proposals were overwhelmingly rejected. Unless Laxey can come up with something else, it looks like a home run for the wealthy Hiranandani family that runs Hirco.

* Bernie Madoff's son Andy is keeping a low profile after being confronted by a former employee of his father. A former trader at Madoff's firm is reported to have shouted and sworn at Andy before punches were thrown when the not-so-diplomatic Madoff junior pointed out that his confronter wasn't “the only victim”.

* Veteran of Fosters, Alliance UniChem and now boss of Durex, Martyn Ward on his career: “I've done booze, I've done drugs, I'm doing the sex right now.”

* This Government has made a song and dance about cutting red tape, but the reality says something different. The Chamber of Commerce's 2009 Burdens Barometer reports that complying with regulations and rules has cost business £77 billion since 1997 with £10 billion coming in the last year alone. Conforming to the Working Time directive accounts for £1.8 billion a year and meeting Vehicle Excise Duty racks up another £1.2 billion.

Who's backing Tchenguiz coup?

Who is the mystery Bramdean Alternatives shareholder that is backing Vincent Tchenguiz in his bid to unseat the fund's board and have it replaced? Tchenguiz says he has the support of over 50% of the shareholders for an EGM. However, he won't say who his main supporter is. There are four major shareholders in Bramdean — Tchenguiz, the Merseyside and Hampshire County Council pension funds and RMF, part of Man Group. City Spy's money is firmly on the latter as being on Tchenguiz's side. Nicola Horlick, who manages Bramdean, is very close to Stanley Fink, Man's long-time boss. But now Fink has taken a back seat at the hedge fund operator, City Spy can't help wondering if that link is not as strong as it was...

* America's free-market spirit is alive. The second-largest US philanthropic organisation, the Ford Foundation, believes it can do a better job than the government in halting the freefall in housing prices. Luis Ubinas, the $9.5 billion foundation's 45-year-old president, is planning to spend $50 million to help cities buy foreclosed properties in the coming year and create what it calls the National Community Stabilization Trust. “Only a market-based solution is going to work to clear what is likely more than $1 trillion in real estate. Someone has to step up and put the risk capital in play,” he says. His team wants to buy properties from the likes of JPMorgan, Bank of America and GMAC Financial.

Channel 4 does not look so poor

Channel 4 has been pleading poverty and asking for state intervention for the last few years but judging by its new annual report, the broadcaster has little need to worry.

Sure, advertising was down around 4% last year and is dropping further this year — perhaps by 15%. But C4's finances still seem in remarkably good shape and it managed to turn a profit.

As chief executive Andy Duncan admits, it has managed to shed a third of its staff fairly painlessly. It is hard to avoid the conclusion C4 had a lot of fat which was easy to cut. Now the talk is of cutting programme budgets by as much as 10% — in the order of £75 million — but bosses say they had already budgeted fairly chunky cuts for this year. There may be some more fat to slice before C4 gets to the bone...

* What happens if C4 doesn't merge or form a venture with its preferred partner BBC Worldwide? Not much. C4 could carry on fairly serenely, admits Andy Duncan. The broadcaster can and is cutting budgets to focus on peak viewing and will “cut its cloth accordingly”. No wonder many C4 staffers at a senior level, if not on the board, would be quite happy not to get into bed with any other broadcaster.

* Luke Johnson, chairman of C4, says just about the nastiest thing ever written about his tenure at the broadcaster has been in the Evening Standard. City Spy may even have been guilty of the offence although Johnson confesses he can't actually recall what the story said. He follows some advice he once had from PR man David Yelland — if there's some nasty article, set it aside and read it a week later, when it won't seem that bad. What would Luke's father, polemical journalist and historian, Paul say?

* What are the best companies for a woman to work at? Condé Nast's Glamour magazine has carried out a survey, which names the top five in retail as Tesco, Unilever, kids' food firm Little Dish, Hotel Chocolat and Gu (the chocolate pudding company). In the media sector, the top five is ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty, marketing firm Iris, the BBC, Sky, and Virgin Media. Now comes the hard bit, ladies — landing the job.