‘The only winners are lawyers’: Heathrow braces for long journey to third runway
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set out a vision to “make Britain the world’s best connected place to do business” on Wednesday, as she signalled support for massive airport expansion across London. Reeves said the government wanted a third runway at Heathrow — even though it will take more than a decade to deliver — and signalled support for more immediate expansions at Gatwick and Luton airports. Projects at Stansted and City have already been approved. If delivered, the expanded airports could handle 309mn passengers annually — an 85% increase on the 167mn travellers who used the airports in 2023, the last year for which there is complete data — according to a Financial Times analysis. The scale of the plans show how airports, and their group of largely international investor owners, are betting that air travel will continue to grow in the coming decades, unencumbered by concerns over carbon emissions. “The chancellor is right to get behind airports,” said Karen Dee, CE of trade association AirportsUK. “Expanding capacity will support growth . . . and will not come at the expense of our sustainability goals.” But industry experts said growth of this scale would throw up serious challenges, including the need to redraw the flight paths in the skies over London and the south east of England to accommodate all the extra aircraft, likely impacting new communities with noise pollution. Enthusiasm from the chancellor also belied barely-concealed tensions within the cabinet that have emerged over the UK’s most contentious infrastructure project in decades. If successful, it would also likely make flying more expensive, particularly from Heathrow, as the airport raises the landing fees charged to airlines to recoup the cost of building the runway. Still, Becrom Basu, a partner at LEK Consulting who has advised Heathrow, said the new capacity would be used. “The London market has been struggling to meet demand for a while . . . I think investors can be comfortable there will be a business case for that level of demand,” he said.<br/>
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‘The only winners are lawyers’: Heathrow braces for long journey to third runway
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set out a vision to “make Britain the world’s best connected place to do business” on Wednesday, as she signalled support for massive airport expansion across London. Reeves said the government wanted a third runway at Heathrow — even though it will take more than a decade to deliver — and signalled support for more immediate expansions at Gatwick and Luton airports. Projects at Stansted and City have already been approved. If delivered, the expanded airports could handle 309mn passengers annually — an 85% increase on the 167mn travellers who used the airports in 2023, the last year for which there is complete data — according to a Financial Times analysis. The scale of the plans show how airports, and their group of largely international investor owners, are betting that air travel will continue to grow in the coming decades, unencumbered by concerns over carbon emissions. “The chancellor is right to get behind airports,” said Karen Dee, CE of trade association AirportsUK. “Expanding capacity will support growth . . . and will not come at the expense of our sustainability goals.” But industry experts said growth of this scale would throw up serious challenges, including the need to redraw the flight paths in the skies over London and the south east of England to accommodate all the extra aircraft, likely impacting new communities with noise pollution. Enthusiasm from the chancellor also belied barely-concealed tensions within the cabinet that have emerged over the UK’s most contentious infrastructure project in decades. If successful, it would also likely make flying more expensive, particularly from Heathrow, as the airport raises the landing fees charged to airlines to recoup the cost of building the runway. Still, Becrom Basu, a partner at LEK Consulting who has advised Heathrow, said the new capacity would be used. “The London market has been struggling to meet demand for a while . . . I think investors can be comfortable there will be a business case for that level of demand,” he said.<br/>
