Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
Luton Airport dismisses climate change as factor in planning inquiry
A public inquiry has begun into Luton Airport's expansion plans. Luton Borough Council, whose company Luton Rising owns the airport, approved the growth plans in December. The separate private company that runs the airport, London Luton Airport Operations Limited (LLAOL), applied to increase passengers from 18 million to 19 million per year and to amend the noise contours. The government said an inquiry should review the main aspects of development. Three planning inspectors are expected to participate during the inquiry, Richard Clegg, Sheila Holden and Geoff Underwood. The agenda includes air quality, climate change, the impact of noise, sustainability, socio-economic implications, the influence of other considerations on the overall planning balance, and whether it would be consistent with the local development plan and other policies. It is unsatisfactory for the owner of the airport to also be its planning authority. Local campaign group, LADACAN, expect the hearings to shine some uncomfortable light how the focus has been just on maximising revenues, while ignoring other vital considerations, such as climate and environmental issues.
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Leeds Bradford campaigners, GALBA, taking government to court over ‘fantasy’ Jet Zero strategy
Campaigners from local group, GALBA, against the expansion of Leeds Bradford Airport are taking the Government to court over its ‘fantasy’ so-called Jet Zero strategy to cut aviation CO2 emissions. GALBA's Nick Hodgkinson is making the legal challenge, on behalf of the group, as the strategy is seriously deficient; the aim is to get the government to reverse it. With the impacts of global heating and climate change ever more apparent, it is wrong for the aviation sector to be allowed to increase its carbon emissions. The government's climate advisors, the Climate Change Committee, have said air travel demand has to be reduced, but the government has repeatedly ignored this. Nick said that in reality, the strategy has no real plans to cut emissions, and actually does the opposite ... "it gives the green light to large scale expansion of airports and emissions. The government is just crossing its fingers and hoping there will be techno-solutions at some point in the future." The legal challenge will cost perhaps £60,000 and GALBA is working with other UK airport groups to raise the necessary funds.
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Doncaster Sheffield airport to close after no ‘tangible proposals’ put forward
Doncaster Sheffield airport is to close later this year, its owners have confirmed, despite the offer of financial aid from public funds. This leaves hundreds of staff facing redundancy and comes days after Liz Truss said she had instructed ministers to protect the airport. The airport's owners, the Peel Group, which had extended a public consultation period by 10 days, said a strategic review had ended without any clear proposals on the airport site’s financial viability, or a potential buyer. They said the high costs of running the airport, whose flight numbers have fallen by more than half since 2019, meant it would start winding down operations from 31st October. Peel is in consultation with staff about losing their jobs. Local politicians wanted the government to provide more public money for it, but at present the UK government has massive and increasing debts, partly from capping household and business energy costs, and no cash to spare. Peel realises subsidising a permanently loss-making airport is not a sensible use of scarce public funds. It has made big losses since the start of the pandemic, and there are other airports in the area (Leeds, Manchester) that travellers can easily use.
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Gatwick hopes to have 32.8m passengers in 2022 – it was 46.6m in 2019
Gatwick has said it hopes now to have 32.8 million passengers this year, a forecast that is perhaps 10% above its earlier assessment in March of 30.6 million. That is still well down from 46.6 million in 2019. The airport said operations at the airport were “business as usual” and it would not need to extend its capacity restraints beyond the end of the month. It is likely that inflation and the cost of living "crisis" may deter some travellers later in the year and this winter. Gatwick's staffing problems have not been fully resolved and recently it had cancelled at least 26 flights at the last minute due to staff absence in the airport's control tower. More than 13 million passengers travelled through Gatwick in the six months to the end of June.
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Secretary of State approves the DCO for freight airport development at Manston
A Development Consent Order (DCO) for an air freight airport at Manston has been redetermined and granted by the government, again. The DCO application was initially submitted in August 2018 and granted in July 2020 but quashed in February 2021 following a Judicial Review challenge by Ramsgate resident Jenny Dawes. There has been a long saga of this DCO, catalogued on this webpage. Now fresh approval has been issued by Transport Minister, Karl McCartney MP, and the DCO will come into force from September 8th 2022. The order says DfT considers there is a "clear justification" for the development. On carbon, through some dubious arguments, the government does not consider the extra aviation CO2 added due to cargo at Manston to be "material" to the UK's intention to have net zero aviation by 2050. It says it believes the Government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan and the Jet Zero Strategy, "will ensure Government’s decarbonisation targets for the sector and the legislated carbon budgets can be met without directly limiting aviation demand. [So] he does not accept the Examining Authority’s view that carbon emissions is a matter that should be afforded moderate weight against the Development in the planning balance, and considers that it should instead be given neutral weight at the most."
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Heathrow airport passenger cap extended until 29th October – after autumn half term
Heathrow has extended its 100,000 passenger a day cap for another six weeks, until the 29th October. It had been due to end on 11th September. The new date will include the autumn half-term, when a lot of people fly abroad. The reason for the reduction to 100,000 departing passengers is continuing staff shortages. Reducing the number per day slightly means fewer delays and last-minute cancellations. Heathrow reported a £321m adjusted pretax loss for the first half of 2022 in July. It could not cope with passengers' baggage. The airport said it remained loss-making and did not expect to pay any dividends to its shareholders for the rest of the year, but it was offsetting increased costs through higher charges. People are anxious about their flights. Perhaps some might decide not to fly this year. Earlier in August, Ferrovial said it was considering selling its stake in Heathrow, as it was not making enough money out of it. Finding enough money to build a (white elephant) 3rd runway seems an ever more distant, or impossible, aspiration by Heathrow's owners.
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How companies like Heathrow may be misguidedly covering farmland in trees, as “carbon offsets”
Many companies are attempting to claim they are "offsetting" their current carbon emissions, by paying for ways in which the carbon can be removed from the atmosphere, or future carbon emissions by others can be prevented. What is actually needed, to prevent an increase in global atmospheric CO2 in the next few years, is NOT to emit the carbon. Hoping it can be removed in future is deeply unsatisfactory. But companies like Heathrow have been buying up "offsets" from planting trees, in the hope that - in 3 or more decades - they will have removed some CO2 from the air. But the problem is that many of these tree planting schemes are buying up existing farmland, or land with other uses, in order to plant these "offset" plantations. Many farmers and those with agricultural land are dismayed and angry. Sometimes other land then has to be used for agriculture, to replace the land taken by offset companies - so little overall benefit. Heathrow said (Feb 2020) it will offset "the remaining 7% of infrastructure emissions through tree-planting projects in Indonesia and Mexico that will be certified through the Verified Carbon Standard." And in 2020 it would "funnel £1.8m of new investment on nature-based carbon capture solutions in the UK. " eg. 87.4 hectares in Ullapool in Scotland, "will benefit from a native woodland creation project part-funded by Heathrow. In partnership with Forest Carbon."
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Heathrow’s Spanish owner Ferrovial considers selling stake if airport does not make enough money
Ferrovial, which owns 25% of Heathrow, is considering selling its stake. A French investor, Ardian - which has other airport interests - might buy it. Ferrovial considers it has not made, and is not making, enough money from Heathrow. It is displeased by the CAA ruling, that Heathrow cannot hugely increase its landing fees charged per passenger at Heathrow. Heathrow wanted to put this up to over £40 per person, but recently the CAA ruled that it will have to fall from £30.19 to £26.31 by 2026, despite a furious lobbying effort by the airport. Ferrovial is understood to have been approached by Ardian, a Paris-based private equity firm, about a possible joint deal with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. Ardian held a 49% stake in Luton airport between 2013 and 2018. Ferrovial has said it would be sceptical about committing further funding to Heathrow if the airport cannot get CAA agreement on charges. The lower landing charges are a disincentive to new investors, who fear low profits. Experts consider that any decision to cut off funding was likely to scupper plans for a 3rd runway, with progress already disrupted by a sharp fall in air travel during the pandemic and huge debts.
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Bristol Airport campaigners send video to Canadian teachers over expansion plans
Environmentalists trying to stop the expansion of airports in Bristol, London City and Copenhagen have stepped up their campaign - SOFAX (Stop OTPP Funding Airport Expansion) - with a direct message to the people who ultimately own all those airports - teachers in the Canadian province of Ontario. They have their pensions in the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan - or OTPP. See the video (6mins 30)The campaigns from Bristol, around London City Airport and 3 others around Europe, are directing their campaign at the 329,000 teachers and former teachers who work or worked in state schools in Ontario. They pay money into the OTPP, which years ago bought airports including Bristol and London City, as money-making investments. Both airports are trying to expand, increasing flights and carbon emissions. The new campaign has been organised by the UK’s biggest teachers union - the NEU - along with community and medical campaigners who live around the five airports owned or part-owned by OTPP. SOFAX is appealing to pensioners of OTPP to consider the local health and educational impacts of airports on children, as well as the climate impacts - making life in coming decades more uncertain.
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Schiphol airport in Amsterdam limits flights to prevent emissions, in world first
The Dutch government has announced that the number of flights arriving at Schiphol airport will be capped to bring down carbon emissions. Schiphol, the third largest airport in Europe after Heathrow and Charles de Gaulle, will be limited to 440,000 flights a year from 2023. That is an 11% reduction from the airport's pre-pandemic numbers in 2019 - and most importantly, it is a first in terms of putting climate before economic growth. The Dutch government, a majority stakeholder in Schiphol, says the change will bring down both noise and nitrogen oxide pollution (NOx). By limiting air traffic at one of Europe’s major airports the Dutch government is taking a major step to tackle air travel, which is one of the most polluting sectors. The aviation industry is not happy about it, and want instead to persist with the myth of being "net zero by 2050" (which is uncertain, too little, too late). A pro-aviation body ACI Europe "warned against governments caving in to ‘climate populism’." The decision was welcomed by Greenpeace, which has been campaigning to reduce flights at Schiphol for years.