Expanding Runways - the British Airways Response
| 13:38 UK time, Thursday, 14 June 2007
Here's what Paul Marston, Senior Media Relations Manager at British Airways sent me when I asked for a response to Martin and Sue's objections to airport expansion. Note the desire for a third runway, so that regional air services around Britain could fly from Heathrow. That would lead to more feeder flights and so, presumably, more demand for international capacity.
On a related story, the European Commission has proposed a $2.13 billion public-private plan to help develop environmentally friendly technologies to reduce pollution emitted by planes, according to the Wall Street Journal today.
As usual, please email your thoughts:
"Heathrow airport is the most important asset of our national transport and economic infrastructure.
"Heathrow is much more than London’s main airport. It is the national hub. Indeed it is the nation’s only real hub, operating something like 85 per cent of the UK’s long-haul network.
"That is why it is absolutely central to the future success of UK plc in a globalised economy.
"Without good air links, British businesses cannot gain access to markets, cannot make use of the best suppliers and cannot attract inward investment.
"So it is no wonder that 90 per cent of businesses in the M25 area regard Heathrow as crucial to their success – or that 40 per cent of companies in the rest of the UK feel the same.
"Heathrow is as vital to jobs and incomes in the Highlands as it is in the Home Counties.
"One of the most important reasons why Heathrow should be granted approval for a third runway is that it would provide the opportunity to restore air links to the UK regions, which have been squeezed out by the lack of runway capacity.
"In the last decade, the number of regional airports served from Heathrow has slumped from 21 to nine – to the acute detriment of businesses in the South West and parts of the North and Scotland, which are desperate for overseas investment.
"Failure to obtain a short third runway – which would bring an annual £7 billion of economic benefit to he UK - would be a defeat for the people of those regions, and every other region, including the South East.
"For it would mean the continued shrinkage of Heathrow’s route network, which has already dropped to No. 5 in Europe behind Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Munich.
"International businesses would locate closest to the best air networks – and that would not be in this country.
"There are critics who say that despite its economic value, Heathrow should not be allowed to expand because of the threat that any increase in aviation poses for global warming.
"This is short-sighted doom-mongering that cannot go unchallenged. By our calculations, building a short third runway at Heathrow would increase global CO2 emissions by less than 0.03 per cent by 2030.
"This figure would be massively outweighed by aviation’s involvement in carbon trading, which will begin in 2011.
"Emissions trading, combined with improvements in aircraft fuel efficiency, streamlined air traffic routings and advances in fuel technology, will mean that aviation will rightly meet its environmental obligations in full.
"The Government’s Stern report said there was no contradiction between tackling climate change and continuing economic development. Aviation can be green, and it can grow."
