General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
Gatwick in talks with lenders, after losing another £245 million in the first half of 2021
Gatwick says it made a loss of £245m in the first half of 2021, as passenger numbers collapsed to 569,000. It expects to have 9 million passengers by December, but that is lower than the 10 million in 2020. In 2019 it had 46.5 million. The airport is now in talks with its lenders to ease the terms of its loans, due to the losses. It lost £465.5 million in 2020. Due to its weak finances and continuing low demand for air travel, Gatwick has asked its lenders to agree to short-term waivers on its loans to avoid it defaulting. This was also done last year, and the same thing happened at Heathrow. Virgin Atlantic, one of Gatwick’s longest-standing airline customers, has ceased its operations at Gatwick for now, while British Airways has moved all of its short-haul flights to Heathrow, due to the low level of demand. However, BA said it will continue with at least long-haul operations from Gatwick. The airport said it had 779m of liquidity at the end of June, which it hopes would last it for the next 12 months, with no more staff being made redundant. It has cancelled or deferred more than £570m of capital spending that had been planned for 2020, 2021 and 2022.
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120 organisations call on Spanish government to cancel the expansions of Madrid and Barcelona airports
A total of 120 social, neighbourhood and environmental organisations are calling on the Spanish Government to halt the expansion projects for the Madrid Barajas and Barcelona El Prat airports. With this demand, the groups are responding to the intense lobbying campaign being carried out by the airport manager AENA to obtain support in different areas, without any public presentations of the projects and with a total lack of technical, social, environmental, economic, financial and budgetary justification. The expansion at Madrid airport is to increase annual passengers from 70 to 80 million; at Barcelona it would rise from 55 to 70 million. Airport expansion and the growth of aviation are entirely incompatible with climate objectives and commitments. The signatory organisations want the €3.4 billion budgeted for the expansion projects be invested instead in low carbon travel, such as rail. Apart from the carbon emissions, the expansion of Barcelona airport is planned in the area of La Ricarda, an area protected by the Natura 2000 network. The extension of the third runway would also endanger the aquifer system that provides water for the city and is vital for the natural and agricultural areas of the Llobregat Delta.
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DfT consultation on mandate for very high SAF use by UK aviation in coming years
The government put out it "Jet Zero" consultation on 16th July (runs to 8th September) including aspirations for the industry to use a great deal of "sustainable aviation fuels" (SAF) in the attempt to keep everyone flying, but with lower carbon emissions. Now it has produced its consultation on mandating (instructing, ordering) the use of SAF in future for the sector (runs to 19th September). While the Climate Change Committee, in their advice to government in December 2020, said the most realistic estimate for SAF would be 5-10% by 2050, or at the most optimistic 25%, and with “just over two-thirds of this coming from biofuels and the remainder from carbon-neutral synthetic jet fuel …” Now the SAF mandate consultation is considering "a number of potential SAF uptake scenarios, up to 10% SAF by 2030 and up to 75% SAF by 2050." They are considering the fossil fuel baseline lifecycle GHG emissions intensity, by which to compare SAF for CO2 savings, as 89 gCO2e/MJ. An eligible new fuel would need to have CO2 savings of at least 60% compared to 89 gCO2e/MJ. They are considering the use of nuclear generated electricity as a way to make eligible SAF. And "feedstocks, including residues, should not be obtained from land with high biodiversity value or land with high carbon stocks in or after January 2008."
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Inspector at Bristol Airport expansion inquiry says views of the public will be properly taken into account
The public inquiry into the possible future expansion of Bristol airport started on 22nd July and is expected to last for 10 weeks. There are concerns, as at many inquiries, that the views of the public will not be taken into account, and not fully considered. Campaigners have warned that ignoring thousands of comments opposing the expansion of Bristol Airport, from residents and others, would damage public trust and threaten the integrity of local democracy. However, planning inspector Phillip Ware said: “We’ve read an enormous amount of written material that’s come in from people for and against. We’ve obviously got a lot of people appearing at the inquiry in person and virtually. It is absolutely not a tick-box exercise. We will be dealing with the public views in our decision whichever way the decision goes.” Green MP Caroline Lucas said: “Local democracy thoroughly considered the airport's plans and decided against them and despite this the airport has now ignored these voices and called for this appeal. Now not only does that threaten to override local democracy, it also threatens the efforts that local communities and councils are trying to take to address the climate crisis themselves."
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Tom Tugendhat letter to Aviation Minister – on need for proper scrutiny of Gatwick future main runway growth
The expansion that Gatwick might perhaps eventually be allowed, by using its emergency runway as a full runway, would require proper scrutiny through the planning Development Control process (DCO). The airport might be able to handle up to an extra 50,000 annual flights by doing that. However, more expansion and more extra annual flights could be added, by making more use of the single main runway. That might add another 60,000 annual flights (about 16 million annual passengers). But because there would be no physical building work required (no extra runway length or extra terminal) there would be no planning permission needed, and no chance for public scrutiny of the impacts of the gradual expansion. Now Tom Tugendhat (MP for Tonbridge & Malling) has written to Robert Courts, the Aviation Minister, to ask for a meeting to discuss this anomaly. He says the main runway growth would be "more than the aggregate growth at the 5 UK airports that are currently seeking expansion. In each of those cases the proposed growth has been robustly scrutinised and communities have been able to have their say. The government cannot simply ignore the greater impacts at Gatwick because it has different planning position."
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High Court refuses application for JR of government programme to build more roads
Campaigners have lost a legal challenge to the government’s £27bn roadbuilding programme after the high court judge, Mr Justice Holgate, dismissed their application for a judicial review. Lawyers for Transport Action Network (TAN) argued that the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, had drawn up the roads investment strategy for England, known as RIS2, without taking into account the UK’s climate commitments or assessing the additional carbon emissions and climate impact of another 4,000 miles of road. Bizarrely, the judge considered the road building plans were not irrational, in bad faith or manifestly absurd. He accepted the assurances of the DfT that the road building policy was consistent with the UK's net zero target for 2050. And that a lot was being done to decarbonise road transport, but he added: “Whether they are enough is not a matter for the court.” The campaigners, TAN, are appealing against the judgement. The case could be an important precedent, relevant to aviation. Prof Jillian Anable of Leeds University’s institute for transport studies said the DfT's road building plans, and disregard for the the climate implications, "can only be interpreted as either blatant dishonesty or failure to understand the science.”
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The future of Eurostar: How can we save our green link to Europe?
The Eurostar is one of the best ways that people in Britain can get to Europe, (as well as the ferry) avoiding flying. But it has really struggled during the pandemic. Eurostar had to refinance twice; March 2021 it borrowed £400 million and received a cash injection of £170 million from its owners; and again in May 2021 another £250 million. The company had to reduce from 20 trains to Paris per day to 1 train a day for most of lockdown. Since getting the new finance deal in place in May it increased to 3 trains per day and hoped to have a good summer to try and recoup some of its losses. It is uncertain if it will increase to more than three trains per day, and talks are taking place between the company and the recognised trade unions regarding what happens when furlough ends on 30 September. It does not look good, in the run up to the COP26 talks in November, for the UK not to be helping this lower form of transport to and from Europe. The 3 rails unions, TSSA, RMT and Aslef are adamant that Eurostar must be given necessary assistance. Zoom meeting open to the public on 4th August.
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Heathrow losses now £2.9bn and consolidated net debt £15.2 bn
Heathrow has announced that its cumulative losses from the Covid-19 pandemic have hit £2.9 billion. In its results for the first half of 2021, Heathrow’s revenue dropped from £712 million in the first six months of 2020 to £348 million in the first half of 2021, which is 51.1% less than in the first half of 2020, and 76.2% less than the first half of 2019. Its pre-tax loss widened 18% to a little over £1 billion. It had 3.85m passengers, which is 75.1% less than the same period in 2020, and 90.1% less than the first half of 2019. Heathrow (it has a complex structure of numerous companies and levels) had consolidated net debt of £15.2 billion — not much less than the airport’s £16.9 billion regulated asset base (RAB), or the CAA’s proxy for its value. Heathrow had been allowed, by the CAA, to increase its RAB by £300 million, to £16.9 billion. Its chief executive John Holland-Kaye is using the half-year figures to warn about a covenant waiver on its various loans. The group of Heathrow companies has £4.8 billion of liquidity, (ie. ability to borrow) with average cost of debt just 1.64%.
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Taxpayers face near £900m bill for Heathrow western rail link, if airport won’t pay
It was announced in September 2020 that the Great Western rail link between Reading and Heathrow would be delayed by up to two years. It was first proposed in 2012. A DCO application to construct the new line is not expected for some time. Heathrow was set to pay for much of the cost, as the link would benefit its passengers. But in April Heathrow withdrew its funding, because of the crisis in its finances due to the pandemic. Other funding from the private sector will be “much smaller” than previously envisaged. So it looks as if taxpayers may have to fund most of a £900m bill. The rail minister, Chris Heaton-Harris, told a parliamentary committee last week that he would recommend that taxpayers pay instead, as part of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spending review this autumn. Network Rail said that the Department for Transport had asked it to delay beginning the project by a year until the winter of 2022. It said it would not progress until there was a satisfactory financial arrangement, "including an appropriate financial contribution from Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL); this requires endorsement by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) as the relevant regulator."
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SAF competing for fuel feedstocks will have negative impacts on many other sectors
The aviation industry, and its enthusiastic backers like the UK government, are keen to claim the problem of the sector's vast carbon emissions can be solved, fairly soon, by SAF ("sustainable aviation fuels"). They agree these should not come directly from agricultural crops, competing with human food and animal fodder for land. They will instead come (as well as fuels produced using electricity) from agricultural, forestry and domestic wastes. These would be the feedstocks. But there are significant problems, so far apparently overlooked by governments etc, about competing uses for those feedstocks. There are already markets for used cooking oil, and it can all be used for animal food, or in other industries. Taking crop wastes off the land not only means lower organic matter returned to the soil, reducing its structure and fertility, but also its removal for other uses - such as for animal bedding. There are competing uses for forestry waste, such as the paper and pulp industry. Feedstocks could be used to make diesel for road vehicles, or burned to produce electricity. So if aviation wants these feedstocks, there will be competition and higher prices for other sectors. These problems should not be ignored in the mindlessly optimistic rush for the illusion of "jet zero".