No carbon saved by diverting Heathrow passengers to Bristol
who currently fly from Heathrow and other South East airports and save carbon
emissions has been dismantled in a new report released today.
Produced by Stop Bristol Airport Expansion, the study [
much of this ‘leakage,’ but even if it did, the introduction of even one extra
route would actually increase rather than decrease the UK’s total carbon emissions.
All figures used are from public sources. [1,2]
"Bristol airport has always claimed that their expansion will be able to divert
most of this ‘leakage’ back from Heathrow and other airports and will ‘save’ greenhouse
gas emissions on car journeys – but a close look at the facts shows this assumption
simply doesn’t hold up.
passengers away from other airports, but will actually increase the UK’s total
carbon emissions if even one extra route is introduced to accommodate ‘leaked’
passengers.
invalid as a justification for expansion of Bristol airport."
year. The report reveals that even if the 2.8 million of these using Heathrow,
the closest SE airport, were diverted to Bristol, this would fall far short of
the 4 million extra passengers BIA is planning to handle by 2019.
of the passengers currently using Heathrow as there is not enough demand in the
South West to make viable the routes being accessed from South East airports.
which require planes that cannot fly from Bristol’s short runway. The large hubs
of Newark, Paris and Amsterdam are already served by Bristol but the large numbers
of locals using Heathrow to access long-haul destinations show they prefer direct
routes, a preference that is unlikely to change in the future.
and Zurich have previously failed at Bristol.
gas emissions unless a corresponding Heathrow service was removed. The leakage
is not sufficient to fill a daily scheduled service on any of the routes. Any
diverted traffic would only happen if Heathrow services were duplicates at Bristol,
so two planes would be flying instead of one.
tonnes of carbon dioxide from cars each year. However, one extra daily flight
would add over 14,000 tonnes of carbon emissions to the atmosphere.
daily routes, producing an increase of the equivalent of 750,000 tonnes of carbon
dioxide, which is 53 times the impact saved by reducing car travel.
it would be adding more short-haul outbound leisure routes that would have negligible
impact on the leakage and would significantly increase emissions.
to South East airports
are:
CAA Passenger surveys covering BIA for years 2000, 2003, 2008
Additional data from the 2008 survey used to compile the CAA report
Maps and distances from Cloudmade and Google