MARCH/APRIL 2014
Airport capacity
to 150 million, a credible figure given its location and Turkish Airlines’ aggressive ambitions.
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YOU SNOOZE, YOU LOSE UK plc was caught napping here, as Davies points out. The government’s 2003 white paper, The Future of Air Transport, makes only one reference to Dubai, mentioning a new Emirates’ flight to Glasgow. Millions of UK travellers are already seeing the advantage of these new hubs. You can argue that where flights from the UK are indirect, for example, to a secondary city in China, that it is better to split the journey midway in the Middle East rather than fly, for example, from London to Hong Kong, and then have an annoying one- or two-hour hop on to the final destination. The counter argument is, of course, that it would be better to have the capacity to permit direct flights from London – always assuming demand is sufficient. The UK is reaping the failure of vision when it comes to airport expansion, which proponents of the estuary airport are quick to mention. Indeed, the big flaw in Heathrow’s argument is short termism. Matthews admits that a third runway – and implicitly also a sixth terminal – will last Heathrow only until 2040/50. Lord Foster, the architect behind the
estuary idea, adds that if Heathrow is expanded, we will, in ten years’ time, still have to confront the issue of having a hub whose approach is over the city, with the safety and noise implications that brings. Matthews himself admitted late last year that the long-term picture was uncertain and dependent largely on what happens in the Middle East. Emirates, Etihad and, to a lesser
The UK is reaping the failure of vision when it comes to airport expansion
extent, Qatar Airways will have a profound effect on demand for new routes in the next two decades and are already doing so. Two years ago, British Airways was gifted around 36 slots at Heathrow from the purchase of BMI, but has so far only announced three new long-haul destinations – Chengdu, Austin and Seoul, the latter being a reinstatement of a city it served until the mid-1990s. Although no-one is ever likely to admit it, perhaps there is simply no longer the will for Heathrow and its incumbent carriers to stretch their wings any further, given the competition they see further down the line. Despite Heathrow’s inevitable fall from grace, the industry remains
resolutely behind its expansion as the UK’s leading international hub, if no longer the world’s. Dale Keller, chief executive of the Board of Airline Representatives in the UK (BAR UK), calls it “the only sensible way forward for the UK” due to the cost of the alternatives, which, he points out, will ultimately be borne by passengers, unlike rail investment. Keller believes £50-£70 billion of the cost of building an estuary airport would have to come from airlines – and, therefore, passengers. “That must mean at least double the current Heathrow passenger charge and that would put London in a different league to anywhere in the world. The public subsidy would have to be so massive that we’re not sure any government would have the stomach to open its cheque book.”
FURTHER ALTERNATIVES There is an argument – not put forward by Davies – to say that other major cities, for example New York, function without an airport that acts as a major hub. In the US, hubs are built where there is space – Atlanta, for example – so perhaps it is time for an alternative view: that hub expansion should happen on continental Europe and not in overcrowded southern England, particularly as 64 per cent of Heathrow passengers walk out its front door rather than transfer to other flights. There are also advances in aircraft design to take into account. New runways are, almost literally, set in stone, but the hub idea is becoming more open to question now that aircraft like the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 exist. These aircraft are designed for point-to-point routes with less demand that are not viable with other types – for example, Air India’s Birmingham to Delhi service. However, a quick riposte to those who say that more of these secondary routes mean less of a need to expand hubs is that most of the airlines that have ordered these aircraft operate from major hubs and have so far revealed no plans to do otherwise. There is, unsurprisingly, no support for the dispersal argument
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