Heathrow’s third runway: Forever out of reach?
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Heathrow Airport operates at 98 percent capacity – but another runway is now off the table for the foreseeable future.
The UK’s business travel industry has reacted rather glumly to the announcement by Labour Party transport spokesman Maria Eagle that they will not be supporting plans for a third runway at London Heathrow.
UK airports, airlines and travel agents have long sought more ground capacity, with Heathrow at 98 percent and Gatwick at 78 percent capacity.
Speaking at the Airport Operators Association conference on November 1, 2011, Eagle said: “The answer for the south-east is not going to be to fall back on the proposed third runway at Heathrow. The local environmental impact means that this is off the agenda.”
This is a policy reversal; while in government, Labour supported Heathrow’s third-runway plan. Though scrapped by the current Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition as soon as they took office, the industry was holding out hope for a Labour election win in three-and-half-years. Maria Eagle has confirmed that a future Labour government will not resurrect the proposal.
Interestingly, new Conservative transport secretary Justine Greening, though not budging on the runway scheme, kept the London Mayor Boris Johnson-backed Isle of Sheppey option open. However, the Kent island is situated some 38 miles east from a capital in which many frequent business travellers dwell in south-western suburbs.
Reacting to the news, Guild of Travel Management Companies’ (GTMC) chief executive Anne Godfrey said: “The choice is stark – the UK either connects to new and emerging markets or we get left behind. While our European neighbours become ever more embedded in markets in China and Latin America, we unilaterally tie one hand behind our back.”
Godfrey went on to urge “all our political parties to look beyond short term manoeuvring and instead focus on the long-term infrastructure that this country needs to compete in a truly global economy. For the Labour Party in particular we look to them to come up with realistic proposals for aviation capacity in the South East and live up to claims that it is a party which understands business.”
At the GTMC conference this week (before the Labour announcement), keynote speaker Kwasi Kwarteng MP made the point that the UK travel industry has thus far failed to articulate a coherent voice on issues like a third runway, and reminded delegates of the significant minority in the UK who disagree with aviation for climate change reasons.
He set this against the fact that people choose London as a business destination because of its heady connectivity, and therefore aviation is integral to the economy. If this sounds obvious, Kwarteng meant it to be: “The aviation industry has to start from first principles,” he advised the conference. “Things you assume everyone knows about – they don’t.”
Kwarteng went on to affirm that a comprehensive Coalition review of aviation policy is expected to be out in spring 2012.
If no one budges on the runway issue, airlines could make drastic new arrangements. International Airlines Group chief executive Willie Walsh told the Financial Times last year, “Growth will just leave the UK and go to other parts of Europe… BA will be able to access that growth because our assets are mobile and we can focus on developing Madrid rather than London.”
What’s the best hope now? Kwasi Kwarteng MP offered this glimmer: “At least the problem has been identified – we need more tourists… the vast majority of tourists fly here… therefore more capacity is needed. Boris is leading the charge.”
(Caption on blog landing page: A sign reading No Third Runway is attached to a lampost as an airplane comes into land at Heathrow Airport near London, December 8, 2009. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor)
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There may be a silver lining here. While a third runway at Heathrow would have been the obvious means of capacity expansion, continuing to develop Heathrow as the primary landing spot for most of the capital’s air traffic would ignore an important (but often overlooked) fact: Its geographic location is the worst possible spot for a London airport. As CEO of private aviation network PrivateFly.com and an experienced pilot myself, I know this a view shared by almost all pilots.
In the UK, 80 per cent of winds are westerly and aircraft take off and land into the wind – reducing the ground speed required for flight and the length of runway required. So to land on Heathrow’s two westerly runways, aircraft are predominately flying low and slow over Greater London. Heathrow, like most airports, has a mandatory 3 degree glide slope approach which results in a descent of 300ft per mile on the ground. This means aircraft over the centre of our capital city are descending through 1,500ft over our most populated areas.
If London is a clock face, the worst possible position for an airport is therefore in the 9 o’clock position – but it is precisely here where we have inadvertently built our biggest airport. Surely it would be better to have major aircraft volumes landing at 12 o’clock (Luton), 3 o’clock (the Isle of Sheppey option in the Thames Estuary) or 6 o’clock (Gatwick) where their approaches will not affect such large areas of population.
Aircraft accident data shows that a high number of incidents occur on the approach to land. This is when an aircraft is at its most vulnerable – flying low and slow. As we saw with the BA 777 flame-out in January 2008, an incident over London is an accident waiting to happen. And there is the even more frightening scenario of a terrorist attack taking advantage of such low and slow aircraft for a ground-to-air missile attack.
Nobody wants to see the UK lose its position as Europe’s key air transport hub, but it would be no bad thing if the focus on development is taken away from Heathrow. It is time for a brave and bold decision from an all-party governmental committee to plan a replacement. If we are not prepared to expand Luton, Stansted or Gatwick, the only well-placed locations with enough space to develop a new airport are Manston (in Kent) or the Thames Estuary.