Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
TUC and unions write to Theresa May to urge her to make a clear decision for Heathrow runway
The Times reports that the UK's largest trade unions have written to Theresa May, asking her to approve a 3rd Heathrow runway. The unions say they are clear in what they want, despite the Labour party position being unclear, and the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, being very firmly opposed. The letter is from the TUC, BALPA, the GMB and Prospect and says if the Heathrow runway is not built there would not be the extra 70,000 new jobs that Heathrow has promised. [Whether that 70,000 jobs figure is plausible or correct is another matter]. The unions that have signed the letter think getting building would "be a sign of support for a pro-growth, pro-jobs industrial strategy " ... and "Any further delay in the decision will harm the whole of UK PLC.” Frances O’Grady, the TUC general-secretary, said the decision was “a big test for the government. Ministers must show they are prepared to make the right choices so that working people do not pay the price for Brexit.” The TUC letter states wrongly that: "Research for the Airports Commission found that a new third runway at Heathrow could deliver at least £147bn to UK GDP and 70,000 new jobs in the South East, and many more nationwide. [This is incorrect. See link to Airports Commission document. It says it might deliver UP TO £147 billion - and that is over 60 years. And its own experts questioned the £147 bn figure. See link ] .
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Windsor councillor concerned about unknown extent of local additional housing demand from Heathrow runway
A Windsor councillor, Malcolm Beer, has written to the government to express his concerns about the impact on local housing demand, if a 3rd Heathrow runway was approved. The Airports Commission gave very unsatisfactory and mixed information on new homes needed. It said in November 2014 that its "modelling suggests that in 2030 the range of additional households associated with the scheme (direct, indirect and induced) falls within the range of 29,800 and 70,800 (dependent on the scenario). The additional housing at the upper end of this range – which equates to an average of some 500 homes per year in each of 14 local authorities – may be challenging to deliver, especially give that many local authorities struggle to meet current housing targets." Then by its final report in July 2015, the Commission said a "high proportion of new jobs may be expected to be taken up by people already living in the area and the additional capacity is not expected to result in an insurmountable requirement for additional housing" and words to the effect that no extra houses would be needed as 100,000 unemployed in West London could fill the additional jobs. Cllr Beer is concerned that the entire area is already far too congested to find land for more housing, schools, offices, road improvements and other needs associated with a hugely enlarged airport.
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Chris Grayling talks to airport proposers – amid speculation Cabinet critics would not resign over Heathrow 3rd runway
The Telegraph reports that the new transport secretary, Chris Grayling, has had meetings at the airports with the bosses of Heathrow and Gatwick, and the Heathrow Hub proposers. He will have been told their arguments for expansion, and is hardly surprising as the government has indicated it intends to make some decision perhaps in October (September 5-15th probably unlikely?). The government had probably intended, before the EU Referendum, to make the announcement on 7th or 8th July. Before the Brexit vote derailed that. The government is being lobbied by sections of the business world to approve a runway. There are hopes in government and in business that building a runway would give the economy a boost, when Brexit may cause economic woes, and that approving a major infrastructure project would "show that the UK is open for business" despite Brexit, especially after Mrs May delayed the Hinkley Point nuclear project. The Telegraph believes that neither of Heathrow's fiercest opponents in Cabinet, Boris Johnson (Foreign Secretary) or Justine Greening (Education) would actually resign if the Cabinet approved a 3rd Heathrow runway. Boris might believe it is "reasonable for different members of Parliament to have different takes on regional policy, which is what this is.”
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Birmingham airport getting some more long haul passengers, making use of its runway extension
Birmingham airport, in common with the majority of other UK airports, has been seeing high rates of growth over the past two years. The UK feels itself to be out of recession, flights are cheap and the price of oil (and jet fuel) is very low. With that combination of circumstances, airports are emerging from the fall in numbers of both passengers and ATMs that started in 2007 and continued till 2010, with a slow recovery. Birmingham opened its runway extension in May 2014, with hopes of many more long haul flights, as the runway was now long enough for heavy aircraft. Local campaigners say the growth in numbers reflects the aggressive marketing by Birmingham airport since then. The airport says it passed the 10 million passenger mark last year, and has now reached the 11 million mark. (If the airports cannot increase their passenger throughput now, after a deep dip, before we get into another recession and the price of jet fuel rises again, when can they?) Birmingham says over the past year their long-haul traffic increased by 26%, with particular growth to the Middle East (+34.1%), North America (+32.6%). That was, of course, what they paid all that money for the runway extension for. It can take flights that otherwise might have gone via Heathrow. Birmingham is keenly against a 3rd Heathrow runway, as it would be a bitter rival.
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Theresa May to personally chair Cabinet sub-committee on possible new runway
The decision by the Cabinet on what to do about a new runway is to be taken by a sub-committee, named the Economic Affairs (Airports) sub-Committee. This was set up in July 2015. Its members then were David Cameron, George Osborne, Sajid Javid, Patrick McLoughlin, Liz Truss, David Mundell, Greg Clark, Amber Rudd, Cabinet Oliver Letwin and Mark Harper. At that time, MPs with possibly compromised positions, or those against a Heathrow runway, were left off it - explained by their departments not being the relevant ones for inclusion. These were Theresa May, Philip Hammond and Justine Greening. Since the arrival of Theresa May, everything has changed. It has been announced that she will personally chair the committee (Cameron chaired it before) and that its new membership will be announced shortly. The constituencies of Theresa May, Philip Hammond and Boris Johnson (PM, Chancellor and Foreign Secretary) are all intensely affected by Heathrow. Theresa May has been very guarded in her comments over the past 6 years. However in May 2010 she welcomed the cancellation of the Heathrow runway and added: “Like many local residents, I strongly welcome the cancellation of the third runway at Heathrow. Expanding Heathrow in this way would have had a detrimental effect on the Maidenhead and Twyford areas by increasing levels of noise and pollution, and today’s announcement is a victory for all those who have campaigned against it."
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RHC Letter to the PM: Contrary to the Airports Commission’s recommendation the Commission’s evidence demonstrates Heathrow should not be expanded
The Richmond Heathrow Campaign (RHC) has done a lot of detailed work, checking through the voluminous details of reports for the Airports Commission. The headline statements by the Commission, with its enthusiasm for a Heathrow northwest runway, are often not in accord with other figures in their documents. The RHC has written both to the Prime Minister and the Transport Secretary, setting out a lot of concerns about a 3rd runway, and facts and figures from the Commission itself that show the case for a runway is very weak. The RHC make the points that adding a new Heathrow runway would be contrary to the Government’s aim for re-balancing the UK economy across the regions, as it can only be done by reducing the market for other UK airports. It would add a very small extra number of long-haul destinations at Heathrow but take these away from regional airports so there is no increase in the number of destinations from the UK, compared to no Heathrow expansion. And it would result in a very high number of international-international transfer passengers using Heathrow, rather than improving air links overall. The RHC say that instead of expanding Heathrow, there is a need to make better use of the capacity of Heathrow and other UK airports and to improve surface access to London’s five airports. The letter is reproduced below and, in support of the evidence in the letter, a schedule linking the letter to the Airports Commission’s evidence is also provided.
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UK coastal regions suffer while Gatwick sucks UK tourists and their money out of the country
Gatwick is well known to be a holiday and leisure trips airport. Its passengers are predominantly going on low cost flights, with about 80% to European destinations. The small number of long haul destinations is about the same as in 2007. The long haul airports it serves are all for UK leisure passengers, to the Caribbean, Florida etc - and are not for the purpose of bringing inbound visitors to the UK. The rise of low cost holiday flights, over the past 20 years or so, has meant the demise of many UK costal towns as very cheap travel (and dependable heat and sunshine) have drained away visitors. The government has put up £90 million of public funding to help boost some of these struggling towns. Yet Transport for London has said a 2nd Gatwick runway would need about £10 billion of public funding to deal with the increase in the number of passengers and all the associated ancillary traffic. This public money would merely facilitate access to Gatwick, in order that more UK money could be exported - as Brits take their holiday money to spend abroad. The excess of the money spent by Brits spending abroad, over that spent by inbound visitors in Britain is called the Tourism Deficit. It reached a total of £16.9 billion in 2015, ably assisted by Gatwick. With unknown impacts of Brexit, a new report from CAGNE questions the wisdom of the government allowing Gatwick to build a new runway, with all the financial questions raised.
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East Midlands Airport to refurbish full runway over weekends (nothing more ever heard of about the 2009 plans for a runway extension)
East Midlands Airport has announced that it will undertake a full length runway refurbishment project from 5th November till 19th December 2016. Therefore the airport will be closed to all traffic for 48 hours (8pm Saturday to 8pm Monday) each weekend, on 7 consecutive weekends. The airport hopes this will cause the least disruption to its airlines, and not affect the imports for Christmas. The timing avoids the busy summer holiday season when the airport makes a lot of money out the low cost leisure travel. The plan is for around 360 workers (Galliford Try is the principle contractor) every weekend laying 50,000 tonnes of specially formulated material across 150,000 square metres of runway etc n total. While the runway is closed, the airport is also replacing over 1,200 lights on and around the area with LED lighting, which uses less electricity than the previous lighting, cutting airport energy costs. East Midlands' runway was last refurbished in 1999, and has a natural lifespan of around 12-17 years. They are all hoping the work will be done on time and within the weekend periods. The airport hoped, in its forecasts around 2005, to have 4 times as much freight in 2016 as it had in 2004. The level has actually risen by just a few %. They also then hoped for a doubling of flights and passengers. The number of flights has barely risen and the number of passengers has slightly fallen. So much for forecasts.
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New video from Windsor reveals – Olympic style – the worst plane noise the borough suffers
A new short video has been produced by Wisdom da Costa, who has been a councillor in Windsor, and was chair of the West Windsor Residents Association (WWRA). In the spirit of the Olympics, it looks in a light hearted way at the noise from Heathrow planes that his borough has to suffer. He measured the noise (using an iPhone 6 and the Uplause App) from a range of planes that flew over Windsor at about 1,800 feet. Windsor gets landings for about one third of the year, and take offs for two thirds of the year and is around 8 km from the end of the runways. Ranking the noise produced by short haul planes, the B757 was noisiest (80 dB) with the A320 at 79dB and the A321 third at 74dB. Ranking the medium haul planes, the noisiest was the A330 at 88dB, with the B767 and B787 at about 85dB. Then for the largest, long haul planes, the winner - the very noisiest - was the B747 at 89dB followed equally by the A380 and the B777 at about 85dB. Noise levels of 80 - 90 decibels are compared to blow-dryer, or a kitchen blender/food processor. A lot of noise studies have shown continuous exposure to this sort of noise has negative effects on human health. Wisdom says this, contrary to the Olympic comparison, is not just a bit of fun. It is a serious problem. And he asks "Why have human health impacts been suppressed?' in relation to a Heathrow runway.
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Richmond Council leader dismisses Heathrow’s claims that neighbouring boroughs support its expansion
Richmond Council leader Lord True has laughed off Heathrow’s suggestion there is support for the airport’s expansion in neighbouring boroughs as “nothing more than PR spin.” Heathrow has recently claimed that in a new poll the majority of residents living in the 12 neighbouring constituencies support its 3rd runway. Heathrow's line is to ignore the serious environmental (noise, air pollution, CO2) impacts and the local congestion and social impacts, and focus on claims about jobs etc. Heathrow hopes to persuade government that the runway will provide huge numbers of jobs in building and related to the airport, apprenticeships and also benefits to the regions. Heathrow also constantly repeats the mantra that it has "met or exceeded" the environmental conditions set by the Airports Commission - which it actually has not. Heathrow's sound bite is that "people living nearby can feel confident that Heathrow can be bigger and better.” Lord True says only 34% in Richmond and 38% in Twickenham favour a 3rd runway. Both Heathrow and Gatwick have been polling, with each producing results claiming to show support for their runway in London. Both are trying to capitalise on the uncertainty caused by the Brexit vote, and the UK's future international links with EU and Non-EU countries.