General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
Munich campaign hands in 80,000 signature petition against 3rd runway to state parliament
On 17th July, the BUND Naturschutz (the largest environmental organisation in Germany) and the "AufgeMUCkt" Action Alliance handed in a petition to the state parliament against the construction of a third runway at Munich Airport. Nearly 80,000 people have signed the petition from all over Bavaria. The petition was handed to the Chairman of the Economic Committee (CSU) and someone from the Environment Committee at the parliament. The campaigners asked the politicians to please take note of the will of the people and decide against allowing a new runway. One campaign leader, Helga Stiegl Meier explained that, among other things, the number of aircraft movements at Munich Airport has been stagnant for years, which she said proves that there is no need for a 3rd runway. Another spokesman said the region has no need of furher aviation expansion, and sustainable transport in Bavaria is facing very different challenges, such as future supplies of cheap oil. The new parliament will have to decide after the state elections in the autumn on a third runway.
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Heathrow proposes cutting airline landing charge rise to 4.6% above RPI for 5 years
In February Heathrow announced it was intending to increase its airline landing charges, from the current level of £17 per passenger to perhaps up to £25. This caused very negative responses from airlines that use the airport. Now Heathrow has moved to appease airlines by offering to reduce the rise it is seeking to charge between 2014 and 2019. Heathrow has submitted a plan to the CAA seeking approval to raise tariffs by 4.6% above inflation, as measured by the retail prices index (RPI), for the 5 years from April 2014. That is 1.3% lower than their earlier offer of a rise of 5.9%. It means a rise of £1 per year, so a £5 rise by 2019.Gatwick has also agreed to scale back their planned fee increases. Earlier this year Willie Walsh called the airport "over-priced, over-rewarded and inefficient". However, the investors, including Ferrovial and the sovereign wealth funds of Qatar, China and Singapore, who have spent more than £10 billion on the airport over the last decade, expect to see a good return on their investment ie. they want high fees to airlines.
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GACC opposes Gatwick 2nd runway plans – to increase airport to larger than Heathrow is now
GACC, the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign, are deeply opposed to the plans for a new Gatwick runway because they wish to protect the towns, villages and countryside of Surrey, Sussex and west Kent from the impact of an airport which would be bigger than Heathrow today. The plans show Gatwick growing from 34 million passengers today to around 90 million. According to Brendon Sewill, chairman of GACC: “When people begin to realise what is likely to hit them, there will be a tidal wave of public resistance.” The plans make it clear that GAL’s preferred option is the wide-spaced runway - only a few hundred yards (or less?) from the residential area of Crawley. But amazingly little detail is given. No airport boundary is shown. No indication of where a new terminal (which would need to be bigger than T5) would located. The GAL submission rules out a close parallel runway because ‘the capacity benefit is relatively small’. And rules out a middle width option because there would be no room for a new terminal. There are huge environmental costs of trying to build a full-scale new runway as shown in the plans, with double the air pollution, double or more the CO2 emissions and double the road traffic.
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Gatwick publishes its 3 options for a southern 2nd runway enabling up to 87 mppa
Gatwick Airport has announced its preferred location for a 2nd runway and submitted its plans to the Airports Commission. There are 3 slightly different plans, all for a runway to the south of the existing runway - close, medium or wide spaced. The close runway could not work independently of the existing runway, while the others (at least 750 metres south) could. With the wide spaced runway, over 1,035 metres south, Gatwick could have 95 movements per hour, enabling it to have some 87 million passengers per year (compared to 66 mppa for the close option, and 82 mppa for the medium). Gatwick has managed to get support from the local business lobbies in the area for its plans, and some local council support. Gatwick's CEO, Stewart Wingate said a 2nd Gatwick runway would cost between £5bn and £9bn and could be open by 2025. Gatwick is selling its plans to the Airports Commission on how many fewer people would be affected by noise than at Heathrow, and that it would be cheaper than some other options. Gatwick wants London to have a "constellation" system, with 3 airports each with two runways, at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted
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George Monbiot on the risk of airport growth lobbying dragging us back into the past
George Monbiot, in an piece entitled "Ghost Plane" argues that the current flurry and enthusiastic press coverage of plans for more runways never questions the underlying assumption that building more airports is good for business. The reality is that rather than being the promise of progress and modernity, the impact of yet more air travel is to retard technological change - much of the perceived need to travel has been superceded by new technologies. Internet conferencing is cheaper, quicker and less taxing for workers. "But, at vast public and private expense, at the cost of homes and green spaces, peaceful skies and a benign climate, governments are trying to build more runways, to encourage people to stick with the old technology." The future demand for air travel has not risen as fast as the DfT predicts, and their forecasts "were wrong in 2009 and wrong in 2011, and will doubtless be proved wrong in 2013. Its forecasts are treated as gospel, and the planners demand only that we build, build, build." Monbiot: "There is a real possibility that if the commission approves any of the extravagant schemes put before it, Britain will be building ghost airports for ghost planes."
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Head of CBI backs Heathrow 3rd runway while CBI wants all parties to sign up to Commission’s recommendations in advance
Sir Mike Rake, the new president of the CBI, thinks building a 3rd runway at Heathrow is a “no-brainer” and that the Government should get on with increasing aviation capacity immediately. The CBI has always backed massive aviation expansion, rather predictably. He said: “Despite the fact I live near there, I think we should have started a third runway several years ago and I think other projects should follow from that.” He admitted that Heathrow is not the only option and also called for a 2nd runway to be built at Gatwick. “We need to decide quickly and get on with it,” he said. His personal views appear to be slightly at odds with the CBI itself. On Thursday, the CBI released its response to the Airports Commission into airport capacity, stressing that it was open to whatever solution could gain cross-party support and lead to speedy growth. They said all three major parties must sign up to Commission's recommendations in advance, to avoid going back to square one in 2015. The CBI remains the only business group that does not unequivocally back an enlarged Heathrow as the way to deliver the alleged economic growth.
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“Heathrow may have shot itself in the foot” – Blog by John Stewart on airport’s runway plans
John Stewart has written a blog about the announcement by Heathrow yesterday on its new runway proposals. The perception is that huge expansion is on the cards; that Heathrow has become a city state on the edge of London which is threatening to blight large swathes of the capital and beyond. There is considerable scepticism about Heathrow’s claims that the overall noise climate could improve with a 3rd, and even a 4th runway, given that a 3rd runway would increase flight numbers by 250,000 a year, resulting in a total of 740,000 flights using Heathrow, rising to almost a million with a 4th. Communities finding themselves under a noisy flight path for the first time, in Ham or Tooting Bec, will not just accept this. The overall impression of the proposals is for concrete and destruction. John Stewart suspects that the sheer scale of Heathrow's proposals have hardened and widened opposition to expansion: from local residents, the public at large, local authorities and climate activists. "The climate movement will now be limbering up for another battle of Heathrow."
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Damian Carrington’s environment blog: “Aviation is a rogue industry on a runway to nowhere”
Damian writes that the turbo-charge to the lobbying for more airport capacity comes from the prospect of short-term economic growth, sought at any cost by the government. In contrast, the issue of the heavy and fast growing impact of aviation emissions on climate change has faded like a vapour trail in the hurricane force PR campaign. The fundamental problem is that aviation is a rogue industry, darting across international borders to escape climate justice. While paying lip service to environmental concerns, its masters use the complexity of attempting to curb the carbon emissions of a global business to avoid any curbs at all. With many UK airports, particularly Stansted, very underused, the argument for new runways is shaky at best. But it is the global problem of climate change that is fundamental to UK aviation growth. So far the industry has cleverly used the global nature of the problem to avoid action. When the permissible CO2 emissions come to be divided up between flights, farming, factories and fuelling the UK, it's quite possible that soaring emissions from aviation are not seen as the top priority. At that point, any new runways will stand only as multi-billion-dollar monuments to the hubris of an industry accustomed to operating without constraints.
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HACAN will fight tooth and nail against Heathrow’s plans for a 3rd runway
HACAN, representing residents under the Heathrow flight paths, has vowed to ‘fight tooth and nail’ against the proposals for a 3rd runway released by Heathrow Airport. HACAN welcomed the measures announced by Heathrow to cut noise but argued that these will be negated by the huge increase there will be in the number of planes using the airport if a 3rd runway is given the go-ahead. Heathrow has confirmed that flight numbers will rise by nearly 250,000 a year to a total of 740,000 (from the current 480,000) if a new runway is built. Heathrow's 3 options are for: (1). A south west option which requires demolition of the 850 properties in the Stanwell Moor area. (2). A north west option in the Harmondsworth Moor area involving demolition of 950 properties. (3). A northern option, very similar to the previous plans for a 3rd runway, involving demolition of Sipson and parts of Harlington. Heathrow has ruled out a 4th runway until at least 2040 as it is not convinced there will be the demand. But it has said that, if a 4th runway was required, one of the options for a 3rd runway would be used. A fourth runway would result in a total of around a million flights per year using the airport.
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Late holiday bookings collapse due to heatwave – and kids happy to stay home with high speed internet or electronic gadgets
Seems that the hot weather all across the UK, which is expected to last for some time, has caused last-minute bookings for summer holidays to drop more than 20% causing some to speculate that the weather will have almost the same devastating effect on the industry as the ash cloud crisis of 2010. Major travel agents are reporting a severe decline in bookings, which are unlikely to pick up while the weather remains so good. When the ash cloud grounded flights across Europe in April 2010, sales dropped by 25%. This has been compounded by the recession and the electronic evolution. While kids are happy hooked to their computers, PlayStations and TVs, parents are saving money by staying at home and sunbathing in the garden. With the advent of high speed internet, X-Box, play station, video on demand and Sky TV, kids have never been happier sitting at home enjoying the electronic world. The travel industry needs to ensure there is free high speed Internet in all holiday hotels for high speed connectivity. Otherwise kids will refuse to go on holiday with their parents to destinations that only offer a beach and a pool.