Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
Boris Johnson’s London Assemby colleague calls – again – “for Heathwick”, a 4 runway virtual airport
A 4 runway airport? That means a second runway at Gatwick too. Lady Victoria Borwick, a GLA member who has twice stood for the London mayoral elections, has again put forward her hopes for a "four runway virtual hub" - which means the discredited "Heathwick" scheme. That would involve a high speed rail link cut between Heathrow and Gatwick. Gatwick Airport Ltd itself has said A “virtual” hub makes no sense …. The airside to airside transfer times, and the difficulties with baggage, will make it deeply unattractive to travellers. Why transfer through such a hub when it can be done so much more easily at a number of airports in Europe?" The idea of Heathwick fails because of a number of key and insuperable problems such as if deep-bored, it would be vastly expensive for little benefit; if not deep-bored it would do huge environmental damage. And other reasons. Perhaps Lady Borwick has not done her research.
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Letter from Brian Ross (of Stop Stansted Expansion) in the Standard
Brian Ross writes that the aviation industry conflates its own interests with the interests of UK plc. hiding some inconvenient truths. By comparison with the UK, Japan with twice our population achieves twice our GDP with far less airport capacity. The reason being that less than a quarter of UK passengers are business travellers. Heathrow flies more holidaymakers to Miami than business people to China, and more passengers to Nice than to either Beijing or Shanghai. London airports last year handled 134 million passengers with more than 500 worldwide destinations direct. No other city in the world comes close to that level of capacity and connectivity. Government is right to stick to its election promise of no more runways at Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick. And the industry should stop trying to re-open yesterday's arguments.
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Greater Thames Marshes becomes a Defra Nature Improvement Area
At the end of February DEFRA announced the formation of 12 new Nature Improvement Areas (NIAs) across the country. NIA is the new name for Nature Restoration Zones proposed by the Making Space for Nature Review. This aims to achieve a coherent and robust ecological network that would be capable of responding to the challenges of climate change and other pressures. One of the 21 NIAs is the Greater Thames Marshes NIA, and its area covers almost all of the estuary, on the north and south banks, including all the areas where a Thames estuary airport might be located. Each NIA will get money from government to create wildlife havens, restore habitats and encourage local people to get involved with nature. Maria Eagle yesterday went to visit the area.
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Unions and industry join forces to push Heathrow third runway
BAA has commissioned a study from Oxford Economics (not part of Oxford University) to look at the economics of expanding Heathrow. The study has not been made publicly available. It apparently claims that the UK could lose 141,000 jobs per year by 2012 through some very convoluted calculations, taking absolutely every possible job vaguely related throughout the UK. They claim that if Heathrow is constrained, "capacity constraints will cost the UK £4.5bn in GDP from foreign investment and £1.6bn in lost trade with emerging markets per year by 2021" (unless there is a new runway ??) Basically they are lobbying for a 3rd Heathrow runway, and to hell with its environmental impacts. The report is enthusiastically backed by Unite and the GMB, and by the Institute of Directors. When experts analyse the report in detail, it is likely that the claims will be shown to be greatly exaggerated, and ignore costs it is inconvenient to include.
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Shadow minister Maria Eagle ‘dubious’ about Thames Estuary airport plans
The shadow transport secretary, Maria Eagle, said she is "very dubious" about the idea of building an airport in the Thames Estuary. Speaking on a visit to Medway, she claimed the idea was a "distraction" from addressing the need for something to do be done about aviation capacity in the short term. She made the comments during a visit to the Isle of Grain, which would cease to exist under Foster's airport plan. The Kent Messenger group thinks the government consultation on future aviation policy could be announced on Tuesday, March 13. Maria Eagle repeated her calls for a cross-party consensus on the issue, which she feels is important and is waiting for talks on this with Justine Greening. She agrees a new Heathrow runway is not a practical reality.
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Opening of Southend Airport’s new terminal and runway extension
On 5th March Southend held its official opening of its new terminal building, and of its runway extension that is now completed. Local opponents fought a long and hard battle against the runway extension. At present the airport has just one destination airport - Waterford in Ireland. On 2nd April, easyJet flights to bucket-and-spade Spanish destinations start (Malaga, Ibiza and Mallorca) taking tourists and their money out of the UK. There will be 20-30 passenger daily flights this year, but Stobart hopes to eventually carry up to 2 million passengers annually and plans to extend the terminal further this summer. easyJet came to Southend due to cheaper landing charges than at Stansted. Some passengers will find the empty terminal and the easy train journey from London's Liverpool Street easier than a trip to Stansted or Luton. Alistair Welch, the CEO, says he expects there to be 500 jobs created at the airport this year. 500?
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How many flights does Heathrow actually have to the emerging economies?
There have been letters in the Sunday Times and in the Sunday Telegraph from lists of business people, in support of airport expansion in the south east, and demanding reconsideration of a third runway at Heathrow. They claim that Heathrow is lagging behind Schiphol, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt airport in the number of flights to the emerging and rapidly growing economies. And that therefore the UK will be condemned to an economic backwater if vast amounts of concrete are not poured, and another runway is not provided. But what is the actual situation? Are there really not enough flights to emerging economies from Heathrow? Are the numbers to some destinations low just because there really is not the demand (however much UK business might like there to be the demand)? We investigate what flights there really are from Heathrow already.
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“London First” gets their letter, signed by over 40 business people, in the Sunday Times
This is a second letter, this time in the Sunday Times, with a load of business people adding their voice to the lobby group, London First. They are asking Justine Greening to include Heathrow in the forthcoming aviation consultation. What they really want is a third runway at Heathrow. If needs be, they say extra noise from a new Heathrow runway or Heathrow expansion should be mitigated. The myth is again pushed that - in some unexplained way - the UK will suffer economically if there are not enough direct flights to China. There is never any evidence presented to back this up. In reality, Heathrow has excellent connections to the world. Where there are few flights to a destination, it is because there is not enough demand. Many of Heathrow's flights are predominantly filled with leisure travellers, eg. the approximately 21 flights per day to Miami from Heathrow.
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BAA “fighting yesterday’s battles with the day before’s arguments” in an attempt to revive Heathrow Third Runway
On March 6th BAA is expected to release a report it commissioned from Oxford Economics which will argue that the UK risks losing trade and inward investment if Heathrow does not expand. The report seeks to influence the Government’s draft aviation strategy which is expected to go out to public consultation towards the end of this month. HACAN says there is no compelling economic case for a third runway at Heathrow. BAA will not accept that the current Government rejected both the environmental and economic case for Heathrow expansion. It’s a sign of its desperation that it has wheeled out Oxford Economics to do the report. These were the consultants who provided the economic basis for the now discredited 2003 Air Transport White Paper.
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Airport protests against expansion are breaking out across Germany
John Stewart, who has just returned from a trip to Germany to visit many of the groups actively involved in campaigning against new runways, writes about his trip. He says protests are breaking out across Germany, following the large and energetic protests by thousands of articulate and law-abiding citizens that have been taking place each Monday evening at Frankfurt. There will be a national day of action on Saturday 24th March, with protests at Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, Leipzig, Dusselforf and Cologne. The causes of the protests tend to differ from city to city but the scale and intensity of them has shocked the authorities. They are being widely covered in the German media. Residents around Frankfurt's new runway are particularly angry at the way they believe they were misled about the new flight paths and the noise of the planes. The big concern at Cologne and Leipzig appears to be night flights. At Munich a new runway is planned, and there is impressively organised opposition.