Heathrow Expansion - News and Debates

[Aviador]

Something I mentioned to Bigman in the pub last week was the idea that the different airline alliances could operate from different London airports removing the need for additional runway capacity at London Heathrow. Had the government opted for additional capacity at London Gatwick or London Stansted, one of the major alliances could have moved to that airport freeing up capacity at Heathrow. The Oneworld could stay at Heathrow, the Star Alliance could move to the alternative airport. It might all seem like hindsight right now but with multiple legal challenges to come it is still plausible an alternative option might need to be sought.

 

[Jerry]

One World for Heathrow, Star Alliance for Gatwick and Skyteam for Stansted? If you look at the major airports around europe they usually are dominated by a single alliance AMS and CDG and FCO Skyteam, FRA and MUN Star Alliance and MAD One World. Problem would be is that all the alliances would want LHR!

 

[Aviador]

I have no doubt all the alliances would want Heathrow but if transport connections were improved to Gatwick and Stansted matching Heathow journey time to central London airlines would accept it.

 

[Coathanger16]

Whilst in principle the idea of moving airline alliances out from Heathrow to other airports sounds plausible, it may be far from that.

Does the government actually have the power to force a specific airline (or groups of airlines) to fly from another airport besides Heathrow? If they do, I could still see the case of there being legal challenges but this time from the airlines on competition grounds.

Whilst you mention about certain airports around Europe being certain hubs for certain alliances, that doesn't of course mean that the other airlines don't fly there. For instance, just because FRA is a Star Alliance hub doesn't mean Oneworld and Skyteam airlines don't fly from there.

Finally, the idea of having each of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted serving a different alliance depends on the notion that passengers don't transfer flights between alliances. I can't recall where, but I seem to remember seeing a statistic that at Heathrow, most transfers are between airlines that aren't in the same alliance (i.e. BA to LH). If you forced something like this through, you could actually see airlines reducing flights (or at least operating smaller aircraft) as they loose some of their passenger feed.

 

[Ray Finkle]

A lengthy but interesting article.

http://www.internationalairportrevi...ra/uk-mega-hub-airport-heathrow/#.WBo37uVZyE8

Those in favour of runway in the south east proudly spout figures like “Heathrow and Gatwick are a three hour public transport journey away from 70% of the UK’s population,” but then fail to mention that Birmingham and East Midlands are three hours away from almost 75% of the population.

Using the same three hour yardstick, cities like Bradford, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool are blessed with catchment areas encompassing about 57% of the UK’s population. What those percentages prove is that regional airports are important, and in the case of the UK, they’re chronically undervalued.

 

[Butty]

Thanks for the article Ray. Clearly Brum always be in the best location for any national project. It will always be the most accessible place in the UK and if you look at history it has been at the Centre of the canal network, the rail network and motorway network. Crossroads was not called crossroads because it was at a road junction. No it was because the mortimer motel was located at the great National crossroads.

So what BHX needs to consider is how can it capture as much of that 75% as it can. But, it is not a London airport - where our friends from around the world want to fly to - and it does not serve the huge northern region. So once again , despite being in the most accessible place in the country try it will find itself diminished.

The best way to deal with this is Promote BHX and promote Brum. Promote Brum and promote BHX. Get it all working as one and we will - airport and region - do just fine. We are after all in the top 6 places to invest in Europe and our status is rising very sharply. So focus on many many new destinations even if it is just one flight a week and build ourselves as a globally connected city. Quality of our connections are what matter not quantity of flights.

 

[Jerry]

With the government losing it's majority I'm wondering how that will effect the third runway at Heathrow? A post in the dried fruit forum said that 31 of the 73 elected MPs for London are against it. I'm wondering if for this parliament at least the 3rd runway will be sidelined now. Would it be too much political trouble for the government now?

 

[Coathanger16]

With the government losing it's majority I'm wondering how that will effect the third runway at Heathrow? A post in the dried fruit forum said that 31 of the 73 elected MPs for London are against it. I'm wondering if for this parliament at least the 3rd runway will be sidelined now. Would it be too much political trouble for the government now?

Expanding Heathrow was part of the Conservatives manifesto, and whilst they failed to achieve a majority, indications are that the government will still pursue many of their manifesto pledges.

Besides the 20 or so MP's around Heathrow, the majority of Conservative MP's would likely vote in favor. The DUP support expansion of Heathrow, so that's another 10, and the SNP are largely in favor as well. There's only around 20 or so Labour MP's who oppose it, so like the Conservatives, the majority would vote in favor.

Getting a vote through parliament has never been the problem for Heathrow. The problem lies in legal challenges, and it will be in the courts and not the commons that expansion of Heathrow will be fought.

Theresa May has previously shown strong leadership in opting for Heathrow. Now, pretty much nobody is seeing here as a strong leader so sidelining Heathrow will be seen as another example of her weakening leadership.

Heathrow faces two challenges politically. Its almost certain that we will have another election before construction starts on Heathrow's third runway.

The first problem is if Labour win the election. The top 2 (Corbyn and McDonnell) are both against expansion of Heathrow, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a Labour government ditch Heathrow expansion.

The second problem, though more uncertain as to whether it would happen, is Boris Johnson. The Conservative party will almost certainly demand a new leader to run the campaign for the next election, and Boris Johnson is the bookies favorite for that position. If Boris is chosen as the next leader of the Conservatives and they win the next election, its almost a given that he will bin Heathrow expansion the day he becomes PM.

Its beginning to look like the only way that Heathrow will get its third runway is if this new government lasts the full 5 years. If not, I think we'll either be looking at a second runway at Gatwick if Labour win, or a new mega hub in the Thames or at Stansted if Boris wins.

 

[Dobbo]

I think that is an excellent summary, although I think the political risk if a vote was taken now is greater than @Coathanger16 suggests.

Labour are in a position to possibly defeat the government and put forward its own agenda for expansion elsewhere - such as LGW/STN in the London area, or MAN/BHX in the rest of England. I think there is a significant chance that they will try to take this opportunity, and they may get significant support from within the Conservative ranks. For example, if there is an internal expectation that an anti-LHR leader may emerge in the coming months, you would expect some MPs to think about positioning themselves accordingly.

All speculation but without cross party support, I think this will struggle to proceed.

 

[Aceshigh]

Thus far Heathrow has run a superb propoganda exercise re RW3 extolling the benefits and keeping mum on the costs.

As was mentioned in the Daily Telegraph on Friday and again in The Sun , the penny does appear to be dropping with a number of MPs that any expansion would incur an eyewatering taxpayer subsidy and this to a wholly owned foriegn company.

These costs were both understated and indeed some might say buried , in the Davies Report instead of being front and centre. The enormity of those subsidies is at last beginning to seep into the psyche our MPs most of whom read the headline benefits with no understanding of the loan guarantees "underwritten by the taxpayer" That was the key phrase that Davies should have had on page 1.

HAL suggests £4billion for road and rail.
Transport for London suggest £18bn

Both have an agenda, one to understate the second to overstate if however we settle for a figure say in the middle £12bn it is still enormous!

£12,000,000,000 million!

Heathrow bases it's positivity on a payback for the country as a whole , sorry the country has moved on. I sometimes think HAL and indeed Whitehall still think most routes from the regions are still still operated by Handley Page Heralds.

Far from joining the lines of domestic feed to heathrow, most passengers, if they can , will avoid !

It's a trend that is unlikely to be reversed.
As for payback to the regions, as Sir Richard Leese said it will be a trickle not a tsunami.

Passengers in the UKs largest cities, Manchester Newcastle Leeds Belfast Edinburgh Glasgow ALREADY have more than adequate multi frequency connectivity to Heathrow, (should they wish to use it), retraction is not due to slot constraints but passengers choosing to take other options! We saw what happened to Virgin. FlyBe have taken over those slots. 3 months in they are not exactly shouting their success from the roof tops ?

I accept it is arguable that there is possible benefit for connectivity to say the Channel Islands Exeter IOM and possibly Humberside, all regions which had service at one time but are now out of Heathrow's reach , BUT "Lord Love us' is a smattering of 2 or 3 daily services to these destinations by an unknown airline, ( which may or may not even consider these viable ), is thst really the best we can do and is it a good investment for the taxpayer ?

I would say politics now do hold the upper hand. Politically Corbyn (love him or loathe him) holds sway. I suspect he would take ALL Labour MPs with him re opposition. The supposition that only 20 would oppose is to say the least naive.

As for May she is a busted flush with her authority in tatters. It is not question of if but when they will turn to Boris, and that will be the end of that as Heathrow finds itself in a political cul de sac !

In closing whilst we talk about a dose of lavish spend in the SE AGAIN ) it would be remiss not to list all the billion pound projects in the North. SEE COMPREHENSIVE BELOW.
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Not great is it !

Our motoways instead of being widened have been replaced by the very cheap and very cheerful "smart" alternative. The only thing which is new are the accompanying placards "powering the NorthernPowerhouse". More accidents waiting to happen !

Liverpool has had zero transport infastructure renewal.

Manchester as epicentre of the North and crossroads between Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield and the airport that supports these cities, has had some focus with the Ordsall link. Pity there is now bickering about platform capacity to actually make this relatively meagre investment work to best effect !

Leeds Manchester line. Slight tinkering at best.

Sheffield Manchester road link. Study undertaken 2 years ago. Gathers dust !

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Infastructure investment by government drives opportunity. I would argue £12bn invested "up North" cross connecting The North is a better payback than £12bn in the SE in order to add a tenth daily Glasgow shuttle. Or a fifth daily Leeds
..... a marginal return at best.

The SE has enjoyed a huge mega spend in terms of
Investment in ;
Elizabeth line
Thameslink
BankUndergnd
Waterloo
DLR
Nine Elms

This amount to £75bn
£75, 000. 000.000 m !

A new Thames crossing was annouced last week. Another £5bn !

So when we get a headline in The Yorkshire Evening Post, Liverpool Echo or Manchester Eveningter News that screams about a £200m investment here or a £100m investment there , well pardon me if I don't scoff a wee bit. Its Crumbs !

 

[Jerry]

The South East will always get the most money when it comes to infrastructure as it's the richest part of the country. With Heathrow expansion if it's all about regional connectivity and possibly getting Easyjet in then they could expand with a 3rd runway that is shorter. I believe that is what was originally intended. Personally though even if LHR does expand and become a better hub to the UK it would need BA to do it and I don't think they would and if they did they'd have to compete against KLM.

 

[Coathanger16]

Re Costs,

HAL stated they'd fund £1bn towards surface access
Davies Commission stated that £5bn would be needed
TfL stated £18bn

The major cost from TfL's assessment comes from providing a connection from the South West Main Line to Heathrow - tunneled the entire way! Both Heathrow and Windsor Link Railway have proposed surface line connections to Heathrow for much less. Any surface access to Heathrow will still most likely be in the range of £5-10bn, but what's the alternative?

As you point out, people in the regions are increasingly more likely to fly from the local airports. Manchester has done very well attracting the airlines it has to serve those long haul destinations in the US and Asia. However that doesn't mean demand to fly to/from London is any less than it was a few years ago.

Heathrow is full - any new routes are from airlines swapping slots.

Gatwick is pretty much full.

Luton and Stansted both have planning caps on them limiting growth. Increasing those caps will undoubtedly help with short haul connections, but long haul routes are unlikely to appear.

What options have been put forward?

Heathrow - as you point out the cost of surface access is substantial.

Gatwick - as much as you criticize Heathrow regarding costs, Gatwick's second runway would allow it to become as big as Heathrow is now. Yet Davies and the airport have costed just £700m for infrastructure links!

New hubs at Stansted/Thames Estuary - likely costing £50bn plus.

From that perspective, in terms of the SE at least, Heathrow still provides the best return - you're kidding yourself if you really think an expanded Gatwick could offer the same as an expanded Heathrow.

Re North South Investment

Whilst yes its true that London gets much more in investment than the regions, is it really a fair comparison?

It is claimed Crossrail, at £15bn, will increase the tubes capacity by 10%. How much would it cost to increase Manchester's metro capacity by 10%? Much less than £15bn I'd imagine.

London's transport network is much much larger than any regions network, and hence any improvements, extensions or new additions will cost more to implement than an equivalent expansion would cost in the regions.

Whilst Crossrail is costed at £15bn, almost half of this came from businesses that would directly benefit from it. If business from across the country were to work with local authorities on infrastructure plans, and go to government with half the cost being funded by those businesses, government would be much more likely to listen and approve those schemes.

The North South divide won't be fixed by constantly complaining about how unfair things are. Get out there, showcase the regions, and if funding doesn't come from Government, look elsewhere.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I've said this before and I'll say it again. It's not really a North/South divide; it's London and the rest of the country.

The government region of the South West which is the largest in area in the country, where northern Gloucestershire is as close to the Scottish border as it is to the far end its region in south-west Cornwall, is largely in an even more parlous and severely challenged economic state than some parts of the North. Apart from the extremely prosperous Greater Bristol area, and to a much lesser degree the Exeter area, the South West is a poor area and is largely forgotten by governments of all parties.

Plymouth has no motorway, no airport and a tardy, albeit spectacular, rail connection. The South West has no electrified railway with no plans to get one apart from Swindon-Bath-Bristol, construction of which from Paddington is years behind schedule and hugely over budget with the Bristol and Bath end now deferred indefinitely.

An expanded Heathrow would be of benefit to the South West (even if there was no direct air connectivity) because there is no possibility of an airport in the region remotely coming close to what could be achieved at Manchester and Birmingham. The same is true for South Wales.

So speaking purely as someone from the South West who could see benefits to his region of an expanded Heathrow I am not wholeheartedly against the idea. For the country as a whole, a much greater programme of direct access to Northern/Midlands airports from around the world would undoubtedly spread the nations's wealth more widely in time, although I suspect the South West with a population of only five million people despite its huge area would not be a consideration in any government's plans one way or the other.

 

[Aceshigh]

I don't believe it's question of complaining Northerners as such but a more a case of what represents value for money.

Any project in the North would have to earn it's corn BUT the problem as I see it is that the SE is just to "busy".

One project is a success it gets overcrowded and so we need another. Yes this attracts private business and then we need yet more investment say in transport and so on another project comes along and so it goes on.

Manchester itself is is experiencing incredible levels of investment and is almost going the same way as London BUT to bring success to other areas eg Leeds Liverpool etc there has to be a catalyst?

And yes lord help the SW and the NE nobody in Whitehall seems to even know where they are.

 

[Aceshigh]

I don't believe it's question of complaining Northerners as such but a more a case of what represents value for money. And all I'm asking for is a few billion NOT the eye watering levels London actually gets.

Any project in the North would have to earn it's corn BUT the problem as I see it is that the SE is just to "busy".

One project is a success , it then gets overcrowded and so we need another. This attracts private business and then we need yet more investment in more transport infastructure as yet more choke points appear and so it goes on and on and on.

Manchester itself is is experiencing incredible levels of investment albeit private and is almost going the same way as London BUT to bring success to other areas eg Leeds Liverpool etc there has to be a catalyst.


And yes lord help the SW and the NE nobody in Whitehall seems to even know where they are.

 

[Coathanger16]

All very valid points.

When I say North South, I say it more just because that's what its become known as by the media, politicians, etc. As you point out, its more a case of London (and the SE) compared to the rest of the UK.

I think its clear that the country as a whole needs an unprecedented amount of investment in infrastructure - not only in airports and railways, but also in housing, broadband, and well pretty much everything.

I think as this stage its also worth pointing at that even though we say its London vs the rest of the UK, not everyone living in London is living in good conditions - the Grenfell Tower is tragically one such example. The divide between some parts of London is even more extreme than between London and other parts of the UK.

 

[Jerry]

There's been an alternative plan proposed for R3 by the Arora Group. The gist of it is moving the runway further to the east only building a 3200m runway and not bridging the M25. Apparently this would save over £5billion on the project.
http://heathrow.thearoragroup.com/proposal/smarter-runway-modifications/

 

[Aviador]

Britain bids to build bigger Heathrow

• Overwhelming response as 121 sites from across Britain bid to become a Heathrow logistics hub and help build Britain’s new runway
• Heathrow’s logistics hubs set to revolutionise UK construction – pioneer off-site manufacturing to reduce overall cost of expansion, cut local emissions and create a new industry for the UK
• Key plank of Heathrow’s plans to use £16bn expansion project to boost growth in every corner of Britain

Over 120 sites from across Britain have applied to help build an expanded Heathrow, an overwhelming show of support for the nation’s most critical infrastructure project.

In April, Heathrow invited communities across Britain to showcase how their area could help build expansion by hosting one of four UK logistics hubs. The hubs are a key part of Heathrow’s plans to promote SMEs and ensure every corner of Britain benefits from the building of an expanded Heathrow by decentralising the supply chain.

Expanding Heathrow will be Europe’s largest privately-funded infrastructure project. By promoting the up-take of off-site manufacturing on such a high-profile project, Heathrow is aiming to drive a step-change in Britain’s construction industry and give Britain a leading-edge in an untapped new sector that can then be leveraged to support other major projects around the world. Communities across Britain are keen to take up the challenge with such an overwhelming number of sites bidding for the chance to upskill their communities with a world-class construction legacy for decades to come.

Heathrow will be the first major infrastructure project in the UK to pioneer the large-scale use of logistics hubs – aiming to build as much of the project off-site as possible. The hubs will work by pre-assembling components off-site before transporting them in consolidated loads to Heathrow just as they are needed. This method will boost the project’s efficiency and cut emissions by transporting components to site in fewer lorries. Research by WPI Economics earlier this year revealed that integrating an offsite manufacturing supply chain into a major project has the potential to reduce the overall cost of the project by as much as 25% whilst speeding up delivery by up to 30%.

Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said:

“Expanding Heathrow is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to really boost growth across Britain – and not just with more capacity at the nation’s hub airport, but from building it. Over 100 communities across Britain have put themselves forward to host one of our pioneering logistics hubs and we couldn’t be more impressed by the applicants. Together we’ll build an expanded Heathrow – boosting growth outside London, leaving a world-class construction legacy for the UK and delivering expansion faster, cheaper and with less impact on our local communities.”

All applications will be considered by Heathrow and a list of potential sites is expected to be announced later this year. Suitable locations will demonstrate the logistics hub will have a positive economic impact in their area as well as having good connectivity, access to a relevant supply chain, strong local skills, support in their region and adequate facilities. In a Memorandum of Understanding with the Scottish Government, Heathrow agreed that one logistics hub will be based in Scotland.

Heathrow Press Release

 

[Jerry]

Looks like Heathrow are going to present new options to save £2.5 billion off the bill for Runway 3.
https://www.businesstraveller.com/b...hrow-unveils-options-save-2-5bn-third-runway/

 

[TheLocalYokel]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48118100

Campaigners have lost a High Court legal challenge against the government's decision to build a new runway at LHR. Judges ruled the plans are lawful.

There are still many obstacles to be overcome before a third runway emerges, not least the planning process.

Today's judgement was only concerned with the legality of the government's process, not its merits.