Competition between airports in the UK is causing the smaller operations to suffer and lose business.

According to the Financial Times, the country's smallest facilities - those with less than one million passengers in 2007 - have seen declines of over 40 per cent, in contrast to a national average of 8.1 per cent.

PwC's transport infrastructure and logistics partner Colin Smith told the newspaper the market was a "global dogfight for airlines" and more locations are "run privately, aggressively, competing against each other, looking to take each other's traffic away".

The combination of fewer passengers, leading to a greater need to attract what is left, and increased air duty has made it hard for many airports to stay afloat.

Indeed, both Bristol Filton and Plymouth have closed and other airports have sold for as little as £1.

In other cases, such as Cardiff and Glasgow Prestwick, airports have been nationalised by respective governments in a bid to keep them operating.

Likewise, one can argue the recent Davies Commission focuses on the larger airports entirely and, as a result, smaller airports are often overlooked when the bigger hubs expand their capacity.