Expansion at Heathrow Airport

BAR UK position (12 July 2010)

The policy decision of the new government, not only to ban an additional runway at Heathrow but also any new runways at Gatwick or Stansted, is hard to comprehend.

Without a substantive change of policy, Great Britain will be by-passed.

Airports are vital infrastructure for any country, so denying them to a part of the country that is short on capacity is difficult to reconcile and is in opposition to the government's own strategy of increasing international trade by being 'open for business'.

Airports are privately-funded, and do not require massive public finance commitments; the airport operators and their airline customers pay for them. Railways, however, require billions of pounds of public money, and are a huge drain on public finance requirements.

Railways will play an important part in providing transport to and from airports, but will not be a substitute for short-haul UK air routes. Airlines welcome railway/airport connectivity, and BAR UK has played its own significant part in the past in saving the Gatwick Express from a shameful demise.

For a government that is looking to reduce public expenditure by a minimum of 25%, including key rail projects, why is it blindly ignoring the great potential that air transport offers.

There are various railway challenges in respect of Heathrow:

a) enabling Air Track to be built into the west side of the airport via Staines,

b) the funding and development of Crossrail via a viable Heathrow Airport site,

c) the funding and development of a viable High-Speed rail service at Heathrow

None of these can be expected to be agreed, built and implemented in a short time-scale, and yet the air transport capacity that is required in the long interim period is set to be denied. That would be a poor strategy all round.

BAR UK, with others, looks to engaging with government and seeking the earliest possible review of that strategy. Meanwhile, our long-stated position on expansion at Heathrow (shown below) must remain.

White Paper 'The Future of Air Transport'(Labour policy)

In January 2009, the Secretary of State for Transport announced his decisions in respect of 'Added Capacity at Heathrow'. They followed one of the biggest ever consultations by the DfT.

His decisions can be summarised as follows:

Policy support for adding a third runway, with a length of 2200 metres, plus additional passenger facilities. The airport would then be subject to an aggregate of 605,000 annual movements, compared to the current 480,000.
not to proceed with 'mixed mode' operations on the existing runways as an interim measure
the end of the 'Cranford Agreement' (which currently limits easterly departures off the northern runway)
the retention of the following operational practices:
westerly preference' runway operations unless strong contrary winds deem otherwise
'night time rotation' runway operations, alternating between easterly and westerly operations, subject to weather conditions, early morning alternation' (the practice of alternating arriving flights between the two runways, between 0600-0700, subject to operational requirements
BAR UK is very pleased with the policy decisions to build the third runway, and additional terminal capacity. However, we are very disappointed that approval was not received for mixed mode operations.

These would have introduced much greater flexibility and operational resilience, and then, at a later date, permitted a small increase of capacity in runway slots.

The Secretary of State also announced a range of environmental conditions that would have to be met.

However, there is obviously a long way to go between the policy decision to proceed, and the building and operational implementation of a third runway. That includes the decision of the High Court, on 27 March 2010, that further environmental considerations have to be taken into account.

It is for that reason that ‘Future Heathrow’, of which BAR UK is a member, remains active.