Finally, the fourth argument is that such a conclusion ignores the scope for regional airports to take more of the strain, if only the government were prepared to intervene to make this happen. Many passengers from elsewhere in the UK use south eastern airports. They might be expected to prefer to use an airport nearer to home.
Some regional airports have indeed grown quickly in recent years, and have established profitable niches in the national market. There is nothing to prevent that happening, and airlines have an incentive to run flights from regional airports, which offer cheaper landing charges and, often, faster boarding times, with cheaper parking for passengers. These are welcome developments.
But it remains the case that the largest market and the highest propensity to fly are in the south east of England. On average, a resident of Greater London takes 2.5 flights a year, compared to just over 1.5 for the country as a whole. This will always make it an attractive market for airlines, even before you take into account the significant projected population growth in the region. The population of Greater London has grown much more rapidly than forecast in the last decade.
Also, some routes will only ever be available from the largest airports. We have been given a clear message from many regional stakeholders that while their local airports are important to their economies, so is access to the international connectivity available in London and the south east.
Links to other European hubs from regional airports provide an alternative to some degree, but this is not always the best solution either for passengers or for the environment. The journey from Glasgow to Chicago, for example, is roughly 17 per cent longer via Frankfurt than via London.
An increasing number of regional airports now also have services to the Gulf hubs, and there are some routes which these are well-placed to serve. Birmingham to Mumbai is only fractionally further via the Gulf than via London – and the range of onward destinations offered on the Indian Subcontinent is huge. A passenger going from Tyneside to Sydney only needs to make one stop if travelling through Dubai, compared to two if she goes via London. But these airports will not provide the most attractive option for every journey, even when heading east. The distance from Glasgow to Beijing via Dubai, for example, is more than a third longer than via a London airport, with all that implies in terms of convenience and carbon emissions.
It is important to recognise, too, that the tools available to the authorities to influence the location of flights are very limited. The European framework governing the use of traffic distribution rules puts tight bounds on the scope for intervention and other EU rules prohibit any market-distorting use of subsidies. It has been put to us that the government could use the rates and incidence of APD to encourage new routes, especially long-haul routes from regional airports. There is currently one example of such an arrangement, in Belfast. In our interim report we will explore the options, but our early analysis has suggested that even with a significant differential the effects would not necessarily be substantial, and there could be perverse consequences. Distributing demand to some destinations across a number of airports could see a higher number of smaller flights being needed to achieve the same degree of national connectivity. We will say more on this point later.....
....So our provisional conclusion from this analysis of the four arguments put to us is that we will need some net additional runway capacity in the south east of England in the coming decades. (Some of the options presented to us envisage the closure of existing airports to provide headroom for expansion elsewhere: in our scenario planning we need therefore to take account of potential ups and downs in gross capacity over time). An attempt to rely only on runways currently in operation would be likely to produce a distinctly sub-optimal solution for passengers, connectivity and the economy.
It may also not be the best solution in terms of minimising the overall carbon impact of flights and travel to and from airports. More point to point flights in smaller aircraft, together with long passenger movements to airports remote from them, bring significant disadvantages. A mechanism for managing the carbon impacts of aviation will be needed if the UK is to achieve its statutory carbon targets – just as it will in other countries. But this is the case whether new runway capacity is provided in the south east or not.
