UK: Next government must sanction two more runways, IoD says

Britain’s next government should appoint a commission tasked with choosing the locations for two new runways serving southeast England, the Institute of Directors said. With London Heathrow airport’s third landing strip not due to be completed until 2028 and Gatwick, south of the capital, filling up fast, the commission should be given only a year to determine the best sites, according to a statement from the lobby group, which represents 30,000 company directors. Heathrow posted the fastest traffic growth in more than a decade in the first quarter, taking it even closer to the maximum capacity of its existing facilities. Europe’s busiest hub crammed in almost 76m passengers last year as airlines switched to bigger planes to accommodate more people per flight. Gatwick meanwhile ranks as the world’s busiest single-runway airport. “The years of dawdling on new airport capacity have left us lagging well behind European competitors,” said Dan Lewis, the IoD’s infrastructure adviser. “Expanding Heathrow is not enough. We need two further runways at southeast airports and better connections to the ones where there is spare capacity, particularly Stansted.”<br/>