Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
Labour leader Ed Miliband warns Sir Howard over risks of extra Heathrow runways
Ed Miliband has had talks with Sir Howard Davies, Chairman of the Airports Commission. Ed has expressed concern about the possibility of a 3rd runway at Heathrow, which would put at risk Labour's chances of winning several key marginal seats, including Battersea, Brentford and Isleworth, Ealing Central and Acton. Labour understands that a 3rd runway, or 4th, at Heathrow would cause more noise and pollution misery for hundreds of thousands of Londoners. Labour also insists that any airport expansion will have to meet the target of cutting aviation CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050, as the CCC advise. However, the Standard says: "Labour is not ruling out supporting a bigger Heathrow but it is likely to demand convincing evidence that extra noise and pollution can be sufficiently mitigated." It adds: "Labour could be tempted to reject Heathrow expansion before the election" to boost its electoral chances. It also says: "Aviation sources said Sir Howard ... was concerned that Ms Eagle was moving towards favouring a 2nd runway at Gatwick."
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Date set for February 2014 for Hearing at the High Court into Stobart’s Carlisle airport plans
Carlisle City Council’s decision to allow the development’s go-ahead is being taken to a judicial review - probably between 18th and 20th February 2014. Stobart Group wants to build a 394,000sq ft freight distribution centre and to resurface the runway for scheduled passenger flights to Southend and Dublin. Carlisle City Council granted planning permission in February, but their decision is being challenged by a local farmer who lives close to the airport, and has tenaciously persisted in his opposition for several years. He opposes the plan for the airport's expansion because it appears the legal agreement between the council and Stobart Group is “unenforceable”; because planning officers gave “erroneous and seriously misleading” advice to the councillors who made the decision; because Carlisle City Council did not properly assess the criteria on "presumption in favour of development”; the council failed to comply with its obligations under the EU habitats directive - and several other failures in the Council process. Mr Brown persuaded the Court of Appeal to quash an earlier consent, granted in 2009, after he brought judicial review proceedings.
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FoI request reveals TfL has spent £1.4 million so far, with a budget of £3 million, on promoting Thames estuary airport (or Stansted)
Figures from Transport for London (TfL) - obtained from a Freedom of Information request - show Boris Johnson has spent £1.4 million promoting the idea of a Thames Estuary airport. Some £1.2 million has gone to paying consultancy fees, for work such as looking at environmental impacts of an airport and the infrastructure that would need to be built. £15,000 was spent on hiring College Public Policy, a consultancy group, to help with TfL's submission to the Airports Commission. In contrast, Medway Council budgeted £50,000 in 2012 to fight against the airport, although it is not clear how much of this was spent. Boris backs building the airport, which would be the world’s biggest airport, at Grain. This would have 4 runways and operate 24 hours a day. “Boris has been throwing away public money on his flight of fancy and it needs to stop" - Mark Reckless MP. TfL say in May 2011, £200,000 was set aside by TfL to consider the options for expanding the country’s aviation capacity. A further £3 million has been budgeted by TfL up until April 2014, of which there is around £1.7 million remaining.
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Give Nimbys an incentive to back infrastructure projects, says new report by consultants
A new report called "Building Blocks: How Britain Can Get Infrastructure Right" produced by the Management Consultancies Association puts forward recommendations on how the UK should build more infrastructure. Such as airports. One of their proposals is that "Nimbys" (people who, for whatever reason, don't want new building or infrastructure in their area) would have less to protest about if local communities were given a cut of increased business rates ensuing from infrastructure projects. They want to change the situation at Heathrow with opposition to a third runway, or the HS2 rail link. They hope that giving a share of tax proceeds to the people most directly affected would stop them opposing schemes. Head of transport at Arup, said: “Imagine how the relationships between the local authorities around Heathrow Airport and the debate over a third runway would have played out if the tens of million in business rates that the airport pays every year had gone directly to them.”
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London City Airport submits expansion plans – to enable 50,000 more aircraft movements per year – to Newham Council
London City Airport has submitted its expansion plans to Newham Council. The plans could see an extra 50,000 flight movements each year, from the current level of around 64,000 in 2012 to around 120,000 (the level that was permitted by Newham in July 2009). The planned expansion could see the airport handling up to 6 million passengers per year, compared to around 3 million in 2012. The plans (costing some £200 million) would include 7 new parking stands, parking stands enlarged to cater for larger aircraft, due to arrive in 2016, a new eastern passenger pier and associated works on a platform over the King George V Dock. Plans also include an extension to the aircraft taxiway running along the eastern length of the runway, and a new passenger forecourt in front of the terminal building, an extension of the terminal, a new office building (to replace City Aviation House) and a hotel. Passenger and staff car parking will re-organised. The airport says it needs these, as morning and evening business flights were almost at capacity.
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Gatwick attempts to argue more flights from a 2nd runway = less noise, by runway alternation
The Airports Commission consultation on its aircraft noise discussion paper ended on 6th September. Gatwick airport submitted their response, which admits that expansion at Gatwick would mean the number of people impacted by noise could increased from 3,300 to 11,800. But they say they can lower the number - including use of respite periods, as at Heathrow now. The airport said one runway would be used for take-offs, and the other for landings, swapping between the two, and so giving people half a day of respite. As aircraft are increasingly able to fly an exact route, using a sort of aircraft SatNav, called PP-RNAV, flights can be concentrated along one route. The debate continues whether it is more humane to those overflown to concentrate flight paths, or to disperse them. The latter shares the misery around, so many more suffer, but to a lesser extent. However, airports judge the level of dissatisfaction by the number of people complaining, and dispersed routes mean more people complain.
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New long-distance Dreamliner 787 and A350 nullify need for larger Heathrow hub, says Zac Goldsmith
Conservative MP for Richmond Park, Zac Goldsmith, has said a massive increase in smaller, more fuel efficient planes during the next decade blows apart Heathrow’s argument for the need for a single hub airport. The 9-fold increase in the new generation of planes - the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350, which can fly non-stop from London to the northern edge of Australia [eg. Darwin - but not as far as the main cities in southern Australia] will have a massive impact on the way airports are run. The new planes, nicknamed "hub busters", can fly more than 1,000 miles further non-stop than older planes, and will reduce the scale of passenger demand needed to make long-haul routes viable as they are smaller and need fewer passengers to transfer in from other planes, to fill them up. This will encourage airlines to bypass hub airports to serve direct connections - and is an important factor for the Airports Commission to consider. It means better use could be made of existing airports for point to point direct flights. “This ....moves us away from the traditional hub and spoke transfer model, and towards a model where air travel, even over very long distances, is primarily non-stop."
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MAG / Ryanair 10 year growth agreement at Stansted to increase Ryanair passengers by 50% in 10 years
Manchester Airports Group (MAG) and Ryanair have announced a new long-term growth agreement which will see Ryanair increase its number of passengers at Stansted from just over 13 million a year, to more than 18 million by 2018 and then to almost 21 million passengers a year by 2023. In return it wants lower costs and better facilities. MAG bought Stansted from BAA in February 2013. Ryanair is Stansted’s largest airline - with 140 + destinations during the past year; it has now announced 4 new Stansted routes for summer 2014. The new destinations - not currently served from Stansted - are Lisbon, Bordeaux, Dortmund and Rabat. MAG said they are confident Stansted can grow, though it has had consistently declining numbers of passengers for several years. MAG believes it can compete more effectively "to make the most of the airport’s untapped potential and spare capacity." MAG says "Stansted has a really bright future in providing international connectivity for the UK" - (which broadly means more holiday destinations for cheap flights, taking more Brits to spend their money abroad.)
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CBI and KPMG say creaking UK transport is major threat to recovery – and we need a new runway
Between May and July, the CBI and KPMG conducted their third Infrastructure Survey, with 526 companies interviewed. The CBI and KPMG say, as they have often said before, that they believe Britain's economic recovery is being put at risk by continued Government inaction over energy and transport infrastructure. They claim there is growing dissatisfaction with the Coalition’s failure to take big decisions on airport capacity, nuclear power or new roads – despite ministerial rhetoric on the importance of such investment. The CBI wants to see a commitment in party manifestos to implement the findings of the Airports Commission on new runways - so far none of the parties have agreed to be tied to the Commission's findings. They say that in the short term, improved road access to all the UK's airports is essential, "boosting demand for existing capacity and making new routes more viable." The CBI has repeatedly called for Heathrow to be allowed another runway, claiming this is needed for links with new markets, and saying the UK needs a hub with space to grow.
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Blog: Heathrow lost the 3rd runway battle last time – will its new approach succeed?
In a blog, Chair of Hacan, John Stewart, writes about the announcement that Heathrow is prepared to fund residents groups which support a third Heathrow runway, in a campaign called "Back Heathrow". MPs and councillors from the wider Heathrow area have had letters and half a million newsletters will be sent to homes in West London, by Back Heathrow. In his blog, John looks at how successful this campaign could be, bearing in mind just how fierce the opposition is due to aircraft noise. Heathrow knows it has an uphill struggle to persuade politicians that a third runway in west London would not be political suicide. Presumably this is why it has launched "Back Heathrow" so early – at least two years before any decision is taken. It needs time to try to change the political climate. Nobody seriously believes that with 50% more planes over London, it is going to get quieter. This time round, it is Heathrow, not the campaign groups, that has the mountain to climb in terms of persuading the people and the politicians. It is now Heathrow that is trying to achieve victory against all the odds.