Aviation policy, future growth & growth forecasts
Title: Drawing up a new aviation policy
Date: January 2011
Author: AirportWatch
Length: 4 pages
Summary: The new Government has an historic opportunity to be fair to other businesses and industry by ending the favorable treatment enjoyed by aviation on tax and emissions.
——
Title: Further Fallible Forecasts
Date: March 2009
Author: AirportWatch Aviation Economics Group
Length: 4 pages
Summary: An update has now been written by AirportWatch’s Aviation Economics Group, in response to the DfT’s publication of the “UK Air Passenger Demand and CO2 Forecasts 2009” in January 2009. The update takes account of numerous changes that have taken place over the past year, which affect forecasts.
Link: “Further Fallible Forecasts
——
Title: “Fallible Forecasts” – a critique of the 2007 air passenger forecasts.
Date: March 2008
Author: AirportWatch’s Aviation Economics Group.
Length:
Summary: The new forecasts produced by the Department for Transport are shown to be unreliable. They depend on a series of questionable assumptions. “Fallible Forecasts” goes through forecasts for air traffic, for climate change damage and for the forecast net economic benefits of new runways at Heathrow and Stansted, and finds serious deficiencies in the Government’s arguments.
Link: “Fallible Forecasts”
——-
Title: “Contested Evidence: The case for an independent review of aviation policy”
Date: September 2008
Author: Sustainable Development Commission
Length: 16 pages 395 KB
Summary: The Sustainable Development Commission’s summary of conflicting arguments and incomplete data underpinning aviation policy.
Link: SDC_Contested_Evidence_Briefing_Paper.pdf
——
Title: AirportWatch leaflet and flyer: “WANTED – a rethink of UK aviation policy”
Date: December 2006
Author: AirportWatch
Length: 4 pages
Summary: The December 2006 review of the Government’s Aviation White Paper reaffirmed its expansion plans. AirportWatch is calling for a fundamental rethink of government policy on aviation. The leaflet sets out the issues, and suggests a way forward.
The solutions AirportWatch suggest include:
Reining back expansion so it is consistent with climate change targets
Recognising the limits rising oil prices will put on demand for air trips
Removing the tax-breaks the aviation industry enjoys
Reassessing air freight
Reducing the noise suffered by local communities
Respecting the county’s heritage, biodiversity and ancient woodlands
Revisiting Rail
Revising the economic assessment of the aviation industry
Recognising the limits rising oil prices will put on demand for air trips
Removing the tax-breaks the aviation industry enjoys
Reassessing air freight
Reducing the noise suffered by local communities
Respecting the county’s heritage, biodiversity and ancient woodlands
Revisiting Rail
Revising the economic assessment of the aviation industry
Reviewing the big expansion plans for the UK airports
——
Title: “Pie in the Sky”
Date: September 2006
Author: Friends of the Earth
Length: 36 pages
Summary: Why the costs of airport expansion outweigh the benefits. Pie in the Sky, published by Friends of the Earth in Sep 06, debunks the claims of the industry about the economic benefits of air travel and concludes that the costs of expansion actually outweigh the benefits.
——
Title: “Fly Now – Grieve Later”
Date: June 2005
Author: Aviation Environment Federation AEF (Brendon Sewill)
Length: 47 pages 1.2 MB
Summary: The author is Brendon Sewill, who also wrote the “The Hidden Cost Of Flying” in 2003. “Fly Now – Grieve Later” deals with climate change and the use of ‘economic instruments’. Economic instruments are financial measures such as charges, taxes and subsidies which can affect the environmental impact of aviation. “Fly Now – Grieve Later” takes off where “The Hidden Cost Of Flying” landed. The scope has been broadened to make it more applicable to the EU and beyond. The booklet looks at technical, economic, social and political angles and considers the impediments to action.
——
Title: AirportWatch study on the December 2006 OEF report
Date: February 2007
Author: AirportWatch
Length: 7 pages
Summary: The study found that the claimed economic benefits of air travel in the Government’s Progress Report on the Future of Air Transport published in December were largely based on a consultant’s report paid for by the aviation industry. Despite growing concern about the impact of aviation growth on climate change, the Progress Report confirmed the government’s determination to press ahead with airport expansion, justifying this on the grounds of economic benefit.
——
Title: “The Hidden Cost of Flying”
Date: 2003
Author: Brendon Sewill, for AEF
Length: 28 pages
Summary: This report was published in 2003, prior to the aviation White Paper. It deals with the economic aspects of airport expansion. Things have moved on, but the economic issues remain wholly relevant.
“Important decisions about the future of aviation are due to be announced around the end of 2003 in a White Paper covering the next thirty years. The Department for Transport (DfT) published consultation papers in July 2002 setting out proposals for expansion at many airports, with options for new runways at Heathrow, Stansted, Birmingham, East Midlands, and in Scotland; and possible new airports at Cliffe, at Church Lawford between Coventry and Rugby, and perhaps at Bristol. Following judicial review of the decision to exclude Gatwick, a further consultation is being undertaken.
The airlines are lobbying hard for expansion while, not surprisingly, the plans are creating substantial opposition. The environmental case against expansion is well known: the growing impact of aviation on climate change, noise and pollution around airports, destruction of landscape, wildlife and heritage. This booklet, however, is designed to subject the economic case for aviation growth to critical examination.”