BA owner 'doubts' Heathrow can build runway within budget

The boss of British Airways’ parent company has said he has no confidence in the Heathrow management to build a third runway within budget. Willie Walsh, the CE of IAG, said Heathrow had been premature in celebrating government approval of the project and warned that it would be “a significant challenge” for the airport to deliver a runway while keeping charges flat, as stipulated by the government. “Do I have confidence that the current team at Heathrow can do it? No I don’t,” said Walsh. IAG, which includes the airlines Vueling, Aer Lingus and Iberia, is Heathrow’s biggest customer, operating about half of all flights at the west London airport. The government said the new runway had to be “delivered without hitting passengers in the pocket”, and the regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority, wrote to the airport to confirm it expected Heathrow to keep the charges low. Walsh said Heathrow’s current plan could not be delivered without increasing charges. “Among other things, the airport will have to confirm that the [project] can be built without raising passenger charges. Can the proposal given by Heathrow to the airports commission be built and keep charges flat, no it can’t,” he said. The IAG boss added that a runway could be built by Heathrow if there was “some radical change in their [the management’s] behaviour and thinking”, but repeated: “I’m personally not confident they can do it.” <br/>