Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
Gatwick have a £1.11 billion investment programme up to 2023, when they want 53 million annual passengers
After losing to Heathrow, in all probability, for the chance to build a new runway, Gatwick airport says it is planning to spend £1.11bn in a plan to “make best use of all its existing infrastructure.” It is believed that Gatwick never really wanted all the hassle of building a 2nd runway, and was only bumped into contending for the permission by the fear they would lose a lot of business, to a 3 runway Heathrow. It is widely believed that all Gatwick's owners, GIP, want is to increase the price of the airport and sell it, when they can. Gatwick hope they can handle even more passengers than now, and they can "improve resilience and harness technology”. They are hoping to have 53 million annual passengers by 2023 - compared to 45.6 million in 2017. Their 5 year spending plan is from 2018 to 2023. They intend to spend £266m in the year 2018/19 alone. [Back in August 2017 their plan was for £1.2 billion up to 2022 ...] If they spend the £1.1 billion it would mean the airport has spent £3.14bn since the airport changed ownership in December 2009, when GIP bought it for £1.5 billion. One of the projects planned, showing how keen Gatwick is to get passengers to use public transport, is adding an extra 1,200 car parking spaces by summer 2018.
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Hammersmith & Fulham Council will join the 4 councils’ legal challenge against Heathrow 3rd runway
Hammersmith & Fulham Council has vowed to keep fighting plans for a third runway at Heathrow, even if Parliament votes in favour of it. The council has said it will seek to join any legal challenge against a decision in favour of expanding the west London airport – a move the council says would subject residents to a mire of misery and pollution. Council Leader Stephen Cowan said: “We absolutely refuse to sit back and let such a potentially catastrophic decision be made without a fight, We’ve made our stance very clear; a third runway at Heathrow would mean more noise for residents already suffering noise disturbance, more pressure on our roads and an unacceptable increase in air pollution. If we need to take legal action, we will, as the environmental cost of meekly accepting a decision in favour of expansion, would be far worse.” In 2014, H&F Council set up a resident-led commission to investigate the potential effects of expansion on residents’ lives. It reported back that the overall impact of Heathrow expansion would be negative, with any benefits unlikely to be felt by those in H&F.
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Richmond Borough Council shows Heathrow 3rd runway could cost UK economy another £25 billion over 60 years
Government claims for the economic benefit of expanding Heathrow do not include the costs of the improved public transport links needed to keep road traffic at current levels. A 3rd runway is expected to add around 100,000 trips per day. Heathrow has pledged (though how they could achieve that is not clear) that road traffic levels will not increase with a 3rd runway. This would mean 70% of journeys to and from the airport being made by public transport. Today’s figure is 40%. A 3-runway Heathrow might have 26 million more passengers per year when full, than a 2-runway airport. That means the current cost projections for new public transport links (to cater for a 2-runway airport) are insufficient. That would mean more delays for passengers arriving at the airport whether by road or rail. Using the Government’s own approach these delays could cost the economy around £25bn over a 60-year period. This would reduce the DfT's claimed benefit from a 3rd runway from its current £74bn (which already excludes most costs) to £49bn. The DfT's own assessment shows the actual economic benefit of the runway not to be £74bn to be more like zero (£-2.5 to +£2.9 bn over 60 years for whole UK).
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FT’s Jonathan Ford on massive doubts over Heathrow’s ability to fund its runway – without huge subsidy from taxpayers
Jonathan Ford, the City Editor of the Financial Times (who knows a thing or two about finance) on the Heathrow runway scheme. It would cost at least £14 billion (probably more with inevitable over-spends), and as Heathrow is already the most expensive airport in Europe, its ability to claw back money is limited - anyway, it cannot get airlines and passengers to pay until the runway is built and operating. Despite sales of some of its airports, totalling more than £4bn, its debt was still £13.4 billion in 2017. And "Heathrow’s 2017 accounts record a dividend of £847m for shareholders last year on after-tax profits of just £516m, implying that dividends were partially funded by taking on yet more corporate debt." Shareholders are not going to be happy to receive almost no dividend for several years. "Heathrow might try to ease the burden by discreetly pressing for public subsidy, figuring that once the state is committed to the 3rd runway it will not want to see the project come off the rails. The government should stand firm. Its decision to pick the most expensive of three runway options on the table was always predicated on the idea that all could be financed without state support."
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UN plans for aviation biofuels (ie. much from palm oil) & carbon offsets condemned by 89 organisations worldwide
89 organisations from 34 countries have called on the UN’s International Civil Aviation Agency (ICAO) to ditch plans for aviation biofuels and carbon offsets, as the Agency’s governing body convenes in Montreal to finalise proposals for a controversial “Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme”. An Open Letter by the groups warns that ICAO’s proposal could incentivise airlines to use large quantities of biofuels made from palm oil in order to meet greenhouse gas targets – even though member states rejected biofuel targets last autumn amidst concerns about palm oil. Proposed biofuel targets for aircraft were rejected by member states in October 2017, but groups fear that the proposed new rules will introduce large-scale biofuel use ‘by the backdoor’. On sustainability certification for palm oil, “none of the schemes has been effective at slowing down deforestation, peatland draining or the loss of biodiversity”. On carbon offsets, the organisations say “There is no way of reaching the goal to limit global warming to 1.5oC unless all states and sectors rapidly phase out their carbon emissions. This means that there can be no role for offsets”. Instead the growth of the aviation sector needs to be limited - rather than depending on greenwash.
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London Assembly reaffirms strong opposition to Heathrow 3rd runway
The London Assembly has reaffirmed its opposition to a 3rd Heathrow runway. It has agreed unanimously on a motion asserting its opposition. Caroline Pidgeon (Lib Dem) who proposed the motion said: “The case for a 3rd Heathrow runway is based on a number of false claims, ... a 3rd runway will create noise disturbance for a further 300,000 people and add to higher levels of air pollution in parts of London where air pollution already exceeds illegal levels. We can ensure we retain international connections without following the foolish option of the incredibly expensive third Heathrow runway. A third Heathrow runway comes at a huge price that is simply not worth paying for.” Léonie Cooper (Labour) said the runway would "have a far-reaching impact on almost a million London households within the next 30 years....the current plans to mitigate its adverse effects on the surrounding environment and the health and social wellbeing of local communities are inadequate. It is clear that the potential costs and risks to Londoners outweigh the projected economic benefits of the expansion ... the Government’s decision should be robustly opposed”. The Assembly "asks the Mayor to join with us to ensure that this threat to the health and environment of Londoners does not materialise.”
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Anti-Heathrow protesters stage hunger strike against Heathrow 3rd runway plans, asking people to lobby their MPs to vote against it
On Saturday 9th, campaigners from the Vote NO Heathrow campaign started a hunger strike, to draw attention to the huge risk that MPs might vote in favour of a 3rd Heathrow runway. The vote is likely in the next two weeks. Over 30 campaigners gathered outside the London HQ of the Labour Party in Victoria Street, for the start of the hunger strike by 5 of them. They intend to continue not to eat for as long as their health permits, and if possible until the vote in Parliament. Earlier in the week, 8 campaigners were arrested outside the building for using chalk spray on the pavement and the glass windows, to highlight their message. The vote of the Labour party is crucial, and it is hoped that MPs will appreciate that the runway fails the 4 tests Labour has set for it, and impose a 3-line whip. The Tories may impose a 3-line whip in favour of the runway. The Vote NO Heathrow campaign wants as many people as possible to write to their MP - of whichever party - to ask them to vote against the runway. There are many important arguments, why the runway should be opposed (more details below) but these could be summarised as economic problems, UK region problems, noise, air pollution and increased carbon emissions.
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Political fight over Heathrow brewing for the SNP in Scotland
With the final vote on a 3rd Heathrow runway expected within about 2 weeks, the political fight is intensifying, as the SNP have their conference on 8th and 9th June. It is important for the Heathrow vote, as the SNP (with 35 MPs) hold a potentially critical role - if they were to vote against the runway, it might be stopped - or only won by a tiny margin. Heathrow continues to throw money and the weight of its corporate lobbying at the SNP, schmoozing them at the conference, with an invitation-only event - as it has done at the other political conferences, trying to buy support and persuade MPs. By contrast with the hospitality and honey-tongued words by Heathrow in the conference, 3 residents who would lose their homes if the expansion goes ahead, drove for 13 hours overnight from Harmondsworth - to focus on engaging with SNP party members and politicians going into the conference. They spoke to several hundred, putting the case that the SNP should not be led astray by the promises of Heathrow - and many expressed concern at the party’s position of support for the runway, due to environmental concerns and a preference to see the development of further direct air links from Scottish airports, and a dedicated air freight hub in Scotland.
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Simon Jenkins on Heathrow: Government support for this polluting 3rd runway is macho folly
Characteristically brilliant and incisive article by Simon Jenkins. Well worth reading it all. Just a few snippets here: "The building of a third runway at Heathrow must be the worst decision taken by a British government in modern times. There is nothing in it but private profit for a Spanish company that appears to have the British cabinet in thrall. That a rich European city should expand rather than contract a major airport in a built-up area defies belief. ... The project will further congest and pollute what is already one of the most choking parts of the capital. Its air quality is illegal. The runway will suck economic activity into London, and away from the provinces. It will cost billions in public money. It is so expensive that even Heathrow’s old ally, British Airways, now opposes it. ... Air travel is overwhelmingly for leisure. Airports talk of “business use” because they are ashamed being part of the tourism industry, which Grayling never once mentioned. ...Grayling promises that the new runway will not go ahead if Heathrow does not “meet the UK’s air quality commitment”. But he knows it won’t. He knows neither his department nor Heathrow has ever kept a promise of this sort. ... [runway decision] resting not on its merits, but on whether Theresa May had the guts to push it through."
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Comment by the AEF on the government’s attempt to ignore CO2 emissions due to Heathrow 3rd runway
In the final version of the NPS, together with updated versions of the draft of papers and analysis that accompany it, the DfT claims to have implemented 24 out of the 25 recommendations of the Transport Committee, which provided official parliamentary scrutiny of the proposals. But it is hard to spot much change in the final NPS than the earlier version - especially on the key environmental challenges to expansion. The AEF comments that the climate change impact of Heathrow expansion was not even mentioned in Grayling’s statement to the House of Commons. Yet the project is in fact no easier to reconcile with climate change targets now than it was in 2010, when a court ruled that it would be “untenable in law and common sense” for the Government to continue to uphold its policy to build a third runway without showing how this would be compatible with the climate change legislation passed in 2008. While current plans to achieve the Climate Change Act are built around an assumption that aviation emissions will be no higher than 37.5 Mt by 2050, with a 3rd Heathrow runway CO2 emissions nationally would be over 40 Mt, under the DfT's policy of support for growth at other airports. The Government has just ignored the advice of the Committee on Climate Change.