General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
Surrey and Sussex MPs oppose Gatwick runway ‘disaster’
Five MPs have begun a campaign against the building of a 2nd Gatwick runway. The Conservative MPs, who represent Sussex, Surrey and Kent constituencies, said the scheme for the airport near Crawley would be "a disaster" for communities and the environment - and there was "serious local concern" at the plan. Reigate MP Crispin Blunt, one of the members of the newly-formed Gatwick Coordination Group, said: "If Gatwick expands in the way that's planned, it will need many tens of thousands of new people working there, and they are all going to need somewhere to live. The airport at the moment are providing a preposterous suggestion that these people are largely going to come from existing communities in Croydon and Brighton. Well I'm afraid that's just simply not the case." Mr Blunt also said no new railway line had been proposed and the London to Brighton commuter line was already "the busiest commuter line in the country" and at capacity. The other 4 MPs behind the campaign are Sir Paul Beresford, Sir Nicholas Soames, Sir John Stanley, and Charles Hendry, MP for Wealden. Crawley Conservative MP Henry Smith said he declined to endorse the press release.
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MPs initiate “Gatwick Coordination Group” – saying 2nd runway is not in the local or national interest
MPs Crispin Blunt, Sir Paul Beresford, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas Soames, Rt Hon Sir John Stanley, and Charles Hendry have formed the Gatwick Coordination Group. The Group is established to represent the serious local concern at the plan for a 2nd runway. The MPs' group released a statement saying they believe a 2nd Gatwick runway would be a disaster for the surrounding communities and environment. They say the level of development, associated with an airport serving nearly three times as many passengers as it does now, would devastate the local environment and leave the UK with its major airport in the wrong place. Also that there is no adequate plan yet presented to provide the necessary infrastructure, of all types, to support this development. "The size of the Gatwick site only lends itself to a single runway airport, serving as a sensible, competitive alternate to London's main hub airport. While they pursue that objective, Gatwick Airport Limited will have our support, but this proposal is not in the local interest, nor is it in the national interest, and this group will work to prove that case."
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Huge mobilisation planned at Notre Dame des Landes on 5/6 July with hope the airport project can be withdrawn
The campaign at Notre Dame des Landes, against the planned new Nantes airport, continues. On the weekend of 5th and 6th July, a huge mobilisation is planned, with people coming from areas across France to show their opposition and resistance to the plans. The campaign is adamant they want nothing less than the abandonment of the airport plan. The project is held up still, because of legal appeals and EU Directives on water and threatened species, but it has not yet been cancelled. More people are now living on the ZAD, and more of it is now being cultivated, with a farm saved. Some delay is due to an environmental assessment being needed on the whole project, rather than separate bits of it. The Socialist and Green Parties, and the new Minister for Environment, Ségolène Royal, agreed after the recent election that no work can start till all the legal processes are completed. Local campaigners want farmers and residents to be able to plan their futures, free of the airport threat. They hope this project, and other "Grands projets inutiles et imposés" that are land-hungry, biodiversity destructive, guzzling aquatic and fossil fuel resources as well as public subsidies, can be stopped.
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Are so many business trips really necessary for better productivity and growth?
Writing in "Buying Business Travel", Tom Newcombe asks whether there really is as much need for business travel as the proponents of aviation make out. He says that while air travel can indeed be vital for business, it should be used both sparingly and wisely. He asks whether Sir Howard Davies’ Airports Commission is actually asking the right questions. "What would show greater imagination and ambition would be for the commission to recognise that, in the 21st century, businesses will eventually decouple travel from growth." Travel is not an end in itself, but productivity and output. "Those who regularly travel on business know that the excitement of jet-setting can soon wear off and actually interfere with, rather than aid, productivity." A key factor in reducing flights is changing organisational culture. For example, air travel is often considered prestigious – the more important you are the more the company will spend on your travel. However, this "conventional truth" can be turned on its head - by understanding that the more valuable an employee's time, the less of it should spend on a plane or sitting in traffic.
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New Airports Commission paper questions future growth of regional airports
The Aviation Environment Federation gives an interesting commentary on the Airports Commission’s latest call for evidence, which considers possible means to promote more effective use of regional airports. AEF says that while the Commission maintains its firm support for a new runway to bolster the UK’s connectivity to emerging markets, the paper suggests it would not be opposed to some scaling back in airport capacity in the regions. The Commission’s vision appears to be of an increasingly centralised airports system focussed on London. The Commission appears to challenge claims from some regional airports that they significantly benefit the wider UK economy. It notes that regional airports predominantly – and increasingly – cater to tourist travellers, the Commission argues that “aviation connectivity… facilitates outbound tourism, as well as inbound, so the net impact is unclear.” If the Commission’s final recommendation is to be a significant scaling back in activity at regional airports in order to allow growth in London, it can expect to face major obstacles.
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Gatwick hopes its claim will be believed that area’s road network will ‘better than or the same’ with 2nd runway
Gatwick airport's publicity machine is saying the area’s road network would be left ‘better than or the same’ if a second runway was built at Gatwick. It is claiming its planned infrastructure improvements will make it ‘road and rail ready’ by 2021 for a new runway. And "with no additional cost to the taxpayer." They want to "create a regional transport hub to help drive economic growth across the entire area." Works on a new junction on the A24 are due to start now and could last 18 months, while roadworks have been ongoing on the A23 near Handcross since 2011. Gatwick's spokesman, Hugh Sumner, said of the local road network’s ability to cope with any additional strain: “Our commitment is we are going to leave the road systems working better than or the same in 2050." But the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign (GACC), which opposes a 2nd runway, questioned the contents of the transport document. Brendon Sewill, chair of GACC, said: “The document published by [Gatwick Airport Limited] contains 10% inaccuracies, 20% inconsistencies, and 50% wishful thinking." TfL appreciate the huge strain a new Gatwick runway will place on surface transport networks, which Gatwick is attempting to gloss over.
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BALPA wants APD funds to be used to help aspiring pilots, rather than more socially useful purposes
The British Airline Pilots' Association wants the Government to divert funds raised via Air Passenger Duty to help pilots to train. Currently pilot training is expensive and lengthy, so BALPA says it is only for the wealthy. They say it can cost £100,000 to train, and pilots have to take out loans or turn to their families for help. (As with many other career choices). In reality, as BALPA and the Telegraph conveniently forget, Air Passenger Duty exists on air travel because it pays no VAT and no fuel duty. The Treasury therefore charges APD to go some way to make up for the unfair tax advantages that air travel has, (for various anomalous and historic reasons). Experienced pilots are high earners. The government has never charged APD as an environmental tax, and it has never been willing to hypothecate it to the aviation industry, for its own purposes. Giving money from APD, which is needed for general government expenditure, would be akin to using tax from the sale of champagne to help fund the training of wine tasters. And where would the government make up the tax short-fall from?
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Gatwick’s head of corporate affairs and lobbying, James Colman, leaving – no successor yet
James Colman joined Gatwick in April 2012 as their chief lobbyist, to promote their second runway bid. He is now leaving. His title was Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Director. Previously he was at British Gas where he was Head of Communications. The airport website blurb says of him: "He has a wealth of corporate communications experience, including 14 years working with blue-chip companies (eg John Lewis Partnership and PepsiCo.) and organisations across the UK, Europe and globally, mainly in the FMCG, retail and energy sectors. The Telegraph's City Diary says he is "credited with playing a “key role” in getting the Gatwick bid off the ground" .... and he "has packed his bags for an – as yet unnamed – new destination." Mr Colman’s successor has not yet been found, but a Gatwick spokesman said the recruitment process is “under way”. In February 2013 Gatwick brought in Fishburn Hedges and the London Communications Agency (LCA) on an integrated PR and public affairs brief, as part of its second runway lobbying.
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AEF Policy briefing: Should the UK build a new runway?
The Aviation Environment Federation (AEF) is producing a series of five briefings to raise awareness among policy makers of the areas of uncertainty in the Airports Commission’s work. The 1st briefing is called "Should the UK build a new runway?" and looks at whether the Airports Commission’s new runway recommendation was a foregone conclusion, highlights important uncertainties about the Commission’s claims on both economics and environmental impacts, gives an overview of the Commission’s work so far and outlines their next steps. It questions the claim there will be sufficient demand in the South East to justify one new runway by 2030 and possibly a second by 2050. AEF says passenger demand forecasts have been successively revised downwards since 2007 and all major political parties now reject the idea that demand should be met whatever the environmental cost. AEF also challenges forecasts of business travel growth, and how aviation can meet noise and carbon challenges.
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Level playing field on transport costs vital to proper assessment of runway options – says TfL
The issue of surface access to airports was the subject of the RunwaysUK conference on 2nd June. Michèle Dix, planning director of Transport for London, said that the costs for surface access for each of the runway options must be assessed against a level playing field of criteria. Michèle said it was vital that estimates by runway promoters reflected that actual needs of transport in the capital. “You need to compare like with like. What are the true and full costs of accommodating this additional demand? If airports are placing a greater demand on the network then we need a greater transport provision.” The Thames estuary proposal had not compared the surface access needs, like for like. She estimated that comparable “optimal” investment level of investment needed – the total package of transport schemes required to deliver an optimal level of surface transport access – for Heathrow was £17.6bn, Gatwick £12.4bn and an Inner Thames Estuary airport £19.1bn.