How many airports does London need?

The debate about the need for a third runway at Heathrow is hotting up. Before discussing the merits, I think we all need a health warning when reading all the comments on the lines of ‘they would say that, wouldn’t they?’

We now have five airports around London – Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and London City, along with smaller ones and those further away which might develop into larger ones later – Birmingham, Southend International, Manston and something on the Thames.

The big four are now – or soon will be – owned by different companies; none can say it is the ‘main’ or ‘principle’ airport for London. In fact, I believe landing charges in the future will become a source of competition between them, and the allocation of slots is, or should be, a matter for each airport operator.

BAA says that Heathrow is nearly full and needs a third runway to cater for future demand. Gatwick is also nearly full, but there is plenty of capacity at Stansted and Luton and, of course Birmingham. In fact, taking all these together, based on CAA provisional usage figures, there is over 50% more capacity available over 2011 usage1.

In fact, subject to planning approval, Birmingham, Luton and Stansted could reach over 30 m passengers each a year, roughly the current throughput at Gatwick, and about half that of Heathrow in 2011.

BAA seeks for Heathrow to be the only hub in the SE or the UK as a whole but these other airports have begun to make the same noises about being hubs in their own right – and why not? All have internal flights to Scotland, and all could, as part of the HS2 development at Old Oak Common, have access to a ‘super hub’ there with direct trains to all eight airports, most within 45 minutes.

Similar comments apply to a rail link to the ‘Boris islands’ in the Thames estuary.

So, from both an environmental point of view and traffic growth, there is no earthly reason why Heathrow should get a third runway. Having 50% spare capacity in the South East (here including Birmingham) should be plenty for years. Of course BA and BAA will lobby for more capacity in the shape of a third runway at Heathrow; they will claim it can be financed privately. They would, wouldn’t they, and they must be spending a fortune doing so.

But Birmingham has just as strong a case as does Gatwick, Stansted and Luton, and any increase in capacity is either available now, or could probably be achieved a lot more cheaply than at Heathrow.

The policy of successive governments has been to allow the private sector to operate airports and airlines in competition; there is no argument for giving one airline or airport a leg up in competition with others. Ministers are right to keep out of the debate, although back benchers including me seem to have no such inhibitions!

If there really is a need for an airport in the Thames estuary, when capacity at all the other airports is used up or the opposition to noisy flights over built up areas gets irresistible, then this will be the ninth airport around London, since others cannot be forced to close without compensation!

1 Source Jonathan Roberts Consulting www.jrc.org.uk

11 comments for “How many airports does London need?”

milesjsd

13/09/2012 at 6:51 am

Who “needs”, rightly “wants”, or even soberly “dreams” of a third-runway,
and thereby of further amok-global-wreckonomising of Earth’s one-way-declining remaining bio-renewable and non-renewable stock & resources,
when the global-wreckonomising that it evilly serves already is sickeninglt guzzling away two (2) Earthsworth of Resources ?

How is EDarthlife, let alone any Human-Population going to both survive, thrive and space-emigrate ?
———–
If on the other hand, we are in an increasingly-popular religious-philosophy of
Live For Today For Tomorrow We Die”

then surely there are far happier and healthier pursuits than
being over-cossetted, overfed, overprotected, and overpaid, even doped-up withal, cooped-up as the world’s best-brains swanning about manifoldly-blindly and unproductively on planes and trains ?

Lord Blagger

13/09/2012 at 11:24 am

Yep. How about reading up on plain English?

http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/

20 adjective phrases all in a row does not make for anything readable.

By the way, are you employed as someone to write the small print on contracts?

milesjsd

13/09/2012 at 5:51 pm