General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
Supreme Court rules that the Airports NPS is legal; climate issues of a Heathrow runway would have to be decided at the DCO stage
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Airports NPS is lawful. In February 2020 the Appeal Court had ruled that it was not, on climate grounds. The ANPS is the national policy framework which governs the construction of a Heathrow 3rd runway. Any future application for development consent to build this runway will be considered against the policy framework in the ANPS. The ANPS does not grant development consent in its own right. The Supreme Court rejected the legal challenges by Friends of the Earth, and Plan B Earth, that the then Secretary of State, Chris Grayling, had not taken climate properly into account, nor the UK's commitments under the Paris Agreement. These are tricky points of law, and definition of the term "government policy" rather than the reality of climate policy. Heathrow is now able to continue with plans to apply for a Development Consent Order (DCO) which is the planning stage of the runway scheme.The Supreme Court said at the DCO stage, Heathrow would have to show "that the development would be compatible with the up-to-date requirements under the Paris Agreement and the CCA 2008 measures as revised to take account of those requirements" and "The Court further holds that future applications [for the runway] will be assessed against the emissions targets and environmental policies in force at that later date rather than those set out in the ANPS."
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Tim Crosland (Plan B Earth) broke Supreme Court judgement embargo as “an act of civil disobedience” that will be treated as a “contempt of court”
The Appeal Court ruled in February that the ANPS was illegal, as it had not taken proper account of the Paris Agreement and the climate targets for the UK. The case was partly on complicated legal points about to what extent Paris-related obligations were part of UK law. The two parties taking the challenge to the Supreme Court are Friends of the Earth UK and Plan B Earth. A day before the court date, Tim Crosland - representing Plan B Earth - decided (on being given a pre-copy of the judgement) in ‘an act of civil disobedience,' to publicise the decision, though not the details of the judgement. This will be held as contempt of court. Several papers published news of this, but then withdrew comments, for fear of also being held in contempt of court. Tim Crosland believes that the Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling at the time in 2018) should have acted in line with trying to avoid a 1.5C rise in global temperature, not just a 2C rise, and this decision by the Supreme Court puts the well-being and lives of millions of people - especially young people - at risk, from climate related impacts.
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Heathrow claims huge financial losses due to government stoping tax-free shopping to international passengers (and those in transit)
The UK government’s decision not to offer tax-free shopping to international visitors is upsetting the airports, like Heathrow, that have benefited financially from it. In September the government announced the ability of overseas customers getting VAT-free shopping would end at the start of January 2021, as it has been a practice that is expensive to administer, and is “a costly relief, which does not benefit the whole of Britain equally”, and the current use is mostly centred in London. Also that that retailers who offer the service are putting other high street retailers at a competitive disadvantage. Heathrow's PR machine is trying to call this a "tourist tax" and is whingeing about it. Normally a tourist tax means a small amount that visitors pay to stay overnight in accommodation abroad - that sort of thing. The removal of the VAT perk for airport shops, and thus indirectly for Heathrow (paid by the shops) is not a tourist tax. But it is likely to reduce the amount of sales in airport shops. Heathrow claims 2,000 jobs could be lost? Various retailers affected (including Marks & Spencer, Mulberry, Paul Smith, Ted Baker) have written to the chancellor to express their opposition to the new tax rules.
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Between about 20 and 35% of future business travel may never return, post Covid
A study by some travel experts looked into the various sorts of business travel, how much of the total they make up, and how likely they are to decline, with the change in behaviour after Covid. They see various categories: 1. Internal corporate purposes, the most likely to decline. They make up around 20% of business air travel, and might fall by 40 - 60%. 2. Commuting by air, about 5% of business travel; might fall by 40 - 60%. 3. Travel for external purposes will fall a bit. 4. Travel aimed at sales and securing clients, makes up 25% of total business travel is probably the most resilient, but might fall by 20%. 5. Travel to conventions and trade shows, comprise around 20% of all corporate travel, and could decline by 10 - 20%. The finding that as much as perhaps 35% of future business travel demand may disappear holds huge implications for legacy airlines, which depend on the segment for a large chunk of their revenues. Low cost airlines will be less affected. The longer the pandemic stretches on, the more firmly ingrained new work habits and technologies will become.
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‘Net zero’ climate targets sound great. But there are pitfalls – read the fine print
Countries are increasingly saying they will attempt to be carbon-neutral (net zero) by around 2050. But caution needs to be exercised in understanding the net zero claims. There are some key problems: 1. Do the plans apply to all greenhouse gases, or just CO2? That would mean including agriculture emissions, eg. methane. 2. There is a lack of intermediate hard targets before 2050, and it is useless to have higher emissions between now and then. It is the cumulative CO2 that matters. 3. How much of a net zero commitment will be fulfilled with short-term emissions cuts, like planting trees. And how much will come from “negative emissions technologies” which permanently remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Some of the tree planting schemes have been shown to be impractical and unworkable. 4. The fine print of the pledges has to be checked, as there are no established principles or guidelines, so they can differ between countries and be "full of loopholes." 5. The plans generally leave out the international aviation and shipping sectors, and probably also the embodied carbon in imports. All those can make up a huge % of a country's total emissions. 6. Plans for future emissions cuts are less useful than employing technologies and policies that start cutting emissions now.
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Dutch court ruled that the Dutch government is not required to attach climate conditions to its bailout for KLM
Earlier in the year, Air France-KLM received around €10 billion in various loans, to get it through the Covid pandemic. It then asked for another €6 billion in November. In June there was the suggestion that this government money was only given with various conditions, such as that the number of night flights from Schiphol will be cut, and KLM will have to halve CO2 per passenger-kilometre by 2030. In September, Greenpeace Netherlands took legal action against the Dutch government, for not imposing climate conditions to bailout funding. Now the Dutch court has ruled that the Dutch government is not required to attach climate conditions to its bailout package for KLM. Greenpeace had argued that the bailout conflicted with the duty of care of the Dutch state towards the population. Greenpeace said the verdict is "a missed opportunity for our present and our future. It’s incredibly disappointing to have a government that actually uses state aid to enable KLM and other major polluters to continue wrecking our planet." Campaigners are not deterred. Changes could be required, such as scrapping all short-haul flights of under a thousand kilometres, like the many each day to Brussels or Paris.
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Climate Change Committee – recommendations to government – lots on aviation carbon changes and policies needed
The Committee on Climate Change has published its guidance for the UK government on its Sixth Carbon Budget, for the period 2033 - 37, and how to reach net-zero by 2050. There is a great deal of detail, many documents, many recommendations - with plenty on aviation. The intention is for UK aviation to be net-zero by 2050, though the CCC note there are not yet proper aviation policies by the UK government to achieve this. International aviation must be included in the Sixth Carbon budget. If the overall aviation CO2 emissions can be reduced enough, it might be possible to have 25% more air passengers in 2050 than in 2018. The amount of low-carbon fuels has been increased from the CCC's earlier maximum realistic estimates of 5-10%, up to perhaps 25% by 2050, with "just over two-thirds of this coming from biofuels and the remainder from carbon-neutral synthetic jet fuel ..." Residual CO2 emissions will need to be removed from the air, and international carbon offsets are not permitted. There is an assumption of 1.4% efficiency improvement per year, or at the most 2.1%. There "should be no net expansion of UK airport capacity unless the sector is on track to sufficiently outperform its net emissions trajectory." The role of non-CO2 is recognised, but not included in carbon budgets; its heating effect must not increase after 2050. And lots more ...
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Heathrow hopes to charge cars £5 and increase passenger charge by £1.20 (then pay dividend again in 2022)
It seems Heathrow will lose around £1.5 billion this year, due to Covid and a drop of around 80% in passenger numbers. The airport is hoping to impose a £5 “drop off” charge on any car coming into the airport to deposit or collect passengers, from the end of 2021 (blue badges and emergency vehicles excluded). There is a consultation about this. Heathrow says it will “save jobs in the short term” while allowing the airport to hit its “long-term goals of providing safe, sustainable and affordable transport options”. (!) A much more effective way to boost its income is to increase its passenger charge, which is currently £21 per person. The intention is to increase it by £1.20, which could add £2.7bn to the airport’s regulated asset base (RAB), allowing it to increase charges (already, at £21 per head, among the highest in Europe). The airlines are vociferously opposed to this, understandably. Heathrow is leveraged, with its consolidated net debt at £15.2bn in September 2020. But a key reason for all the borrowing is it has paid out £4 billion of dividends to its investors since 2012. There was a £500 payment announced in February 2020, and a £100m payment in April. Heathrow has now said it will not pay dividends for the rest of 2020, or 2021 but hopes to pay out £400 million in 2022.
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Covid impact on airport-related jobs shown in new jobless figures – bad in areas too dependent on aviation
The devastating toll the coronavirus pandemic in causing unemployment in areas heavily dependent on airports is growing ever more clear. The number who have lost jobs around Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Luton and Stansted has risen by around 35% since March compared with surrounding areas. The pandemic was rapidly spread around the world by airlines, and they have been heavily impacted by necessary travel bans, in attempt to control the spread of Covid. MPs in affected constituencies want the Government to help aviation businesses and their supply chains. According to the Commons Library figures, the unemployment claimant toll in Hayes and Harlington, next door to Heathrow, climbed from 2,725 in March to 7,750 in October – a 184% surge. In London as a whole, the rise was 156%. In Crawley, West Sussex, next to Gatwick, it went from 2,030 to 5,655 – a 179% increase. It rose by 140% in the wider South East region. And there are similar figures for areas near Manchester, Stansted and Luton airports. The industry says it will have difficulty recruiting staff again, if and when demand returns. Only time will tell if the industry will be considerably smaller in the years to come, and many staff will transfer into "greener" jobs that cause lower carbon emissions.
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Proposed planning policy changes could impact high carbon developments like Heathrow expansion (and Cumbria coal mine)
Several members of the House of Lords have said that National Planning Policy Statements (NPS) across industries should be updated to consider the UK’s commitments under the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement. Labour peer Lord Whitty said that “the whole of the NPS needs to be revised in light of the commitment to net zero” and added that this should apply to “all sectors”. If the NPSs are revised, that could have major implications for construction projects going forward, such as airport expansion (Heathrow and Gatwick want new runways). The legal case that went to the Supreme Court on 7th October was about the Airports NPS and whether it adequately took into account the Paris Agreement. The decision by the court might be given by January 2021. The legal challenges by Plan B and Friends of the Earth said that carbon reduction targets in the agreement "needed to be taken into account". Another project which could be affected is the Woodhouse coal mine in Cumbria, for which Cumbria County Council approved the planning application in October, despite objections of its likelihood of making the UK's climate goals less achievable. The final decision still rests with communities secretary Robert Jenrick. The issue of climate needs to be addressed in an adequate and consistent way in every NPS.