29.07.10
BAA CEO Colin Matthew has questioned the Government's logic in refusing it permission to build a third runway at Heathrow while making it easier for people to get to the airport by improving rail links from the Midlands and the North of England via the planned high speed rail network.
Announcing the company’s quarterly results yesterday, which included a £104 million write off of costs incurred on the now blocked third runway, he said: ‘If you can persuade the 4.5 million people currently travelling via European hubs to come to Heathrow instead, that will increase demand at the airport.’
With the first phase of the high speed rail network unlikely to include a spur to Heathrow (according to a report by a Tory peer last week this does not represent value for money), and so do little to cut the demand for domestic links to the airport, and the second phase unlikely to be delivered for 20 plus years, it is unclear how the new Government will improve passenger experience at Heathrow, as it has promised.
The airport is virtually full, but cannot expand its runway capacity and will not be allowed to operate its existing runways on a mixed mode basis, so seems set to stagnate. This cannot be good for the UK in the long run.
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