Will Heathrow’s third runway finally go ahead?
The view from Heathrow airport’s 87 metre-high control tower stretches more than 20 miles, overlooking the constant flow of aircraft taking off and landing. For nearly two years during the pandemic, those skies were unusually quiet. But the travel industry has since roared back to life, propelling the UK’s biggest airport towards its largest passenger numbers since 2019 and near its maximum capacity of 480,000 flights a year. While the boom in trade is welcome, it has also reignited one of the thorniest public policy debates in the UK: how best to expand the capacity of London’s five major international airports — or to what extent it should be increased at all at a time of rising anxiety over the industry’s environmental impact. At the centre of that equation is Heathrow, which has dropped from the second busiest airport at the turn of the century behind Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson to eighth place, trailing Istanbul and Dubai. It is a sobering demotion for Britain, the country that co-developed the supersonic Concorde jet, turned terminals into attractive shopping destinations and led a drive towards cheap package holidays and budget flights. Now its airports have suffered a series of recent embarrassments, from the failure of the air traffic control system in August to Gatwick this week cancelling flights because of staffing shortages at air traffic control. What happens next for Heathrow will fall to its incoming CE, Thomas Woldbye, from Copenhagen airport, who must decide how best to proceed with government-approved plans for a third runway. The decades-long discussion appeared to come to an end when the UK parliament voted in favour of the major expansion in 2018 and for other airports serving the capital such as Gatwick and Stansted to upgrade existing airfields. But just as Heathrow was poised to apply for planning permission, the outbreak of Covid-19 plunged commercial aviation into a battle for survival. Now there are new calculations to be made, not least how to square expanding flight capacity with lowering emissions, and how to pay for the new runway and surrounding infrastructure at a time when inflation has pushed up financing and construction costs. <br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2023-09-29/general/will-heathrow2019s-third-runway-finally-go-ahead
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Will Heathrow’s third runway finally go ahead?
The view from Heathrow airport’s 87 metre-high control tower stretches more than 20 miles, overlooking the constant flow of aircraft taking off and landing. For nearly two years during the pandemic, those skies were unusually quiet. But the travel industry has since roared back to life, propelling the UK’s biggest airport towards its largest passenger numbers since 2019 and near its maximum capacity of 480,000 flights a year. While the boom in trade is welcome, it has also reignited one of the thorniest public policy debates in the UK: how best to expand the capacity of London’s five major international airports — or to what extent it should be increased at all at a time of rising anxiety over the industry’s environmental impact. At the centre of that equation is Heathrow, which has dropped from the second busiest airport at the turn of the century behind Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson to eighth place, trailing Istanbul and Dubai. It is a sobering demotion for Britain, the country that co-developed the supersonic Concorde jet, turned terminals into attractive shopping destinations and led a drive towards cheap package holidays and budget flights. Now its airports have suffered a series of recent embarrassments, from the failure of the air traffic control system in August to Gatwick this week cancelling flights because of staffing shortages at air traffic control. What happens next for Heathrow will fall to its incoming CE, Thomas Woldbye, from Copenhagen airport, who must decide how best to proceed with government-approved plans for a third runway. The decades-long discussion appeared to come to an end when the UK parliament voted in favour of the major expansion in 2018 and for other airports serving the capital such as Gatwick and Stansted to upgrade existing airfields. But just as Heathrow was poised to apply for planning permission, the outbreak of Covid-19 plunged commercial aviation into a battle for survival. Now there are new calculations to be made, not least how to square expanding flight capacity with lowering emissions, and how to pay for the new runway and surrounding infrastructure at a time when inflation has pushed up financing and construction costs. <br/>
