Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
Airports Commission publishes full list of long term proposals to increase UK airport capacity
The Airports Commission has put together the long list of airport proposals, and other proposals including many on surface access, that have been submitted. The majority are for the main contender airports, (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Thames estuary options, Birmingham etc) but with several from small airports or airfields and some in areas not currently airports, such as rural Oxfordshire and the Severn Estuary. The Commission will now consider all of these, and publish "a shortlist of the most credible long term options, taking into account the Commission’s assessment of the need for additional capacity" in December 2013. It is possible for anyone to send in further comments on any of the schemes submitted, until 27th September. The Commission has also published an information note, considering its work programme for Phase 2 - which is after December 2013. It says: "If the Commission reaches a view in its interim report that a significant increase in aviation capacity is needed, the second phase of our work will develop the list of credible long term options into detailed schemes, and subject them to a thorough appraisal process."
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Durham Tees Valley Airport bid for Regional Growth Fund money rejected again
Durham Tees Valley airport has been wanting £4.6m from the Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF) to help create an overall investment of £46.5m for the airport. But now for the second time, their bid has been refused by government. If approved, it would have meant a new access road on the south side of the airport and might - the airport claims - have led to the creation of "1,400 new jobs over the next ten years." Hartlepool councillors are not happy, and it was agreed at a meeting of the full council to write to Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Innovation and Skills, to express their “disgust” over the decision. Labour councillor Robbie Payne, chairman of the council’s regeneration committee, said: “The decision has not only put our region at a disadvantage but makes Durham Tees Valley more unsustainable." The RGFofficials did not include the bid among their 102 successful projects, including 6 in the Tees Valley. In October 2012 their bid for funding for a freight terminal was rejected by the RGF.
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Proposals to Airports Commission of airport or runway plans – that have been publicised (+ maps)
The 19th July was the deadline for submissions to the Airports Commission of proposals for plans for new airport capacity. The Commission has said these will all be published on its website in August or September. So far only those publicised by their proponents are publicly available. We have put together a list of those of which we are aware. The main sites for planned new airport capacity are Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Thames Estuary and Birmingham - though there will be others, perhaps in the west country? The Commission asked for no more than 40 pages, and for a specific list of criteria to be taken into account in submissions, including noise, air quality, and climate including "overall compatibility of growth in air travel with the national and global climate change targets" and "the relative climate change impacts of different options for providing additional capacity." Proposals did not need to be made by the airport owner, but could be made by other interested parties. In December the Commission will publish their list "of the most plausible options for delivering any additional capacity required in the longer term." We give indicative maps showing possible locations of new runways.
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Greater Manchester town halls share in £48m bonanza from MAG’s extra large dividend
The Manchester Airports Group (MAG) owns Manchester Airport, East Midlands and Bournemouth airports, and now Stansted. MAG is owned by the 10 councils of Greater Manchester. Manchester City Council owns 35.5%, and 9 authorities, the Metropolitan Boroughs of Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, together with Salford City Council, collectively own 29%. Australian investment fund Industry Funds Management owns 35.5%. MAG has made a greatly enlarged dividend to its shareholders, through buying Stansted and the large investment from IFM. MAG has agreed to increase its dividend from £20m in 2012 to £72m, which includes an additional one-off dividend of £30m. From this £48m will be shared between Greater Manchester’s 10 local authorities, with Manchester getting some £26 million of it and the remaining 9 sharing some £22 million, in proportion to their shares. In contrast the dividend has been £20m for the past 4 years. Manchester Airport has been in public ownership since 1938, and public money has been invested in it. The councils benefiting say they do not spend the money on specific projects, but subtract it from the total amount they must save after government cuts. It may be used partly to invest in the local economy, to raise skills and create jobs.
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Former Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell to head Frontier Economics, which is pushing for Heathrow growth
Lord Gus O’Donnell, the former Cabinet Secretary, has been announced as the new chair of the economics consultancy, Frontier Economics. He will work on day a week, starting towards the end of this year. His role will involve seeking to change government policies on the behalf of Frontier's corporate clients, which include Heathrow airport. Frontier has been advising Heathrow on its plans for a 3rd runway and expansion. Frontier Economics produced a report for Heathrow, backing its case as the key hub airport for the UK and its expansion, in September 2011. The Frontier report claimed that London would become only Europe’s 3rd busiest airport (behind Paris and Frankfurt) unless the Government freed up more capacity and enabled more direct flights to emerging markets. The Times comments on how Sir Gus is not the first senior civil servant who has been able to get a very well paid and influential job in consultancy because of their experience in Government, and their contacts there.
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Heathrow to track customers through airport to avoid delays and improve efficiency
People who fail to turn up for flights cost airlines dearly, especially if their luggage has to be removed from the plane. So Heathrow is rolling out a new system of smart boarding cards that it believes will improve the punctuality of nearly half of flights. And so enable the airport to deal with more flights, with no new runway. Boarding passes already include a bar code in which the passenger’s flight details are embedded, including the gate and terminal. Instead of being read by airport staff, the pass is scanned by an automatic gate and can be used to tell airlines if, for example, a passenger has entered the departure lounge. In a week of trials at Terminals 1 and 3, Virgin Atlantic and Little Red found that 44% of the 35,000 departing passengers were in danger of arriving at the gate late. Offloading luggage because owners have failed to turn up can lead to planes losing their take-off slots, leading to delays which, according to industry estimates, cost £67 for each minute the plane is on the Tarmac or stuck on the stand. "Should the information show passengers are in danger of not reaching the gate in time, a message on a screen warns them to hurry up and not dawdle at the duty-free shops."
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Gatwick 2nd runway could bring ‘mega-city the size of Brighton’ to north Sussex
During a recent West Sussex County Council debate on a motion to support ‘in principle’ a second runway at Gatwick it was pointed out that the plans would lead to a huge amount of housing built across swathes of the Horsham district, creating a ‘mega-city’. Councillor Bill Acraman (Con, Worth Forest) predicted a mega city in the north of Sussex equal to the size of Brighton, stretching across the north of the Horsham district, sprawling from Broadfield in Crawley to Forest Row. He said that the A264 and A272 would probably need to be brought up to motorway standard, and asked whether the infrastructure improvements needed would ‘magically appear’. “You can tear up the Neighbourhood Plans,” Mr Acraman said. The county council approved the motion by 42 votes to 10 with 12 abstaining last Friday, days before Gatwick made its submission to the Airports Commission public. Another councillor said if Heathrow got a new runway "and we do not have one at Gatwick I think the economy of this county will be seriously threatened.” The Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign (GACC), which is campaigning against the environmental impact of a second runway, remains firmly opposed to Gatwick’s plans.
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Stop Stansted Expansion calls for resignation of Geoff Muirhead from Airports Commission due to bias
Campaign group Stop Stansted Expansion SSE have highlighted the problem of a conflict of interest concerning Geoff Muirhead, who is a member of the government-appointed Airports Commission. Mr Muirhead retired as chief executive of MAG in 2010, and he represented MAG in an “ambassadorial role” until January 2013, several months after he was appointed to the Airports Commission. MAG bought Stansted from BAA in February 2013. Earlier this month MAG published options on where to build a second runway at Stansted and potentially even expand it into a four-runway hub. SSE are calling for Mr Muirhead's resignation. SSE has written to Sir Howard Davies, chairman of the Commission and Patrick McLoughlin, the Secretary of State for Transport, warning it will mount a legal challenge if Mr Muirhead refuses to step down. The group claims in the letter, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, that there is an issue of “apparent bias”. The letter (26th July) says: “In the circumstances we consider it unacceptable for Mr Muirhead to continue to serve on the Airports Commission and the longer he continues to serve, the more the process risks being tainted.” SSE will start taking legal advice within 14 days if they receive no satisfactory commitment on the matter.
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Residents seek caste-iron guarantee that new planes will be quieter as City Airport seeks to expand
HACAN East, the organisation which represents residents under the London City and Heathrow flight paths, is concerned that that City Airport’s expansion plans, to be announced soon, will result in more noise across East and South-East London. The airport is proposing to undertake a lot of work on its runway and taxiways to allow bigger planes to use the airport. It is also proposing to expand the terminal, build a hotel and create more parking. HACAN East chair, John Stewart, said, “City Airport claims that the new planes will be quieter than the large aircraft currently using the airport. But residents need a caste-iron guarantee that the planes will actually be quieter. People need assurances after 25 years of broken promises by the airport. It opened by telling residents that the airport would only use ‘whispering’ jets.” London City’s expansion plans now go to Newham Council, the planning authority for the airport, for approval.
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Newcastle airport produces new draft master plan for increasing number of leisure passengers
Newcastle Airport published a master plan in 1994, and another in 2003. That predicted by 2030 it might have 9 million passengers. There is now another draft master plan, out for consultation until 31st October, which anticipates perhaps 8.5 million passengers by 2030 (DfT anticipates around 6.3 million). They want to grow passenger numbers from the 4.4 million by 2030 and increase aircraft movements from 62,200 to up to 87,500 - making it one of the top 10 biggest airports in the UK. There are the usual predictions of more jobs (they say the airport now "supports" (vague term) 7,800 jobs across the region and by 2030 this will rise to 10,000. The airport hopes to develop 2 business parks on land south of the runway - one to extend existing aviation-related activities such as freight, and a new site for offices. They say these have the potential to deliver "thousands more" jobs. The airport says it contributed £646m to the regional economy in 2012, and by 2030 it is estimated that this figure will "more than double." In 2005 some 22% of passengers were on business; by the 2009 CAA air passenger survey, it was only 20% on business. ie. 80% of passengers are leisure, contributing to taking their holiday money out of the UK.