The Heathrow third runway idea was first officially suggested by the UK Department for Transports (DfT) White Paper under the title ‘The Future of Air Transport’ in December 2003, which aimed at providing a strategic framework for the development of airport capacity in the United Kingdom over the next 30 years. The UK Government agreed that additional capacities at Heathrow would generate the largest direct economic benefits of any new runway option. The Oxford Economic Forecasting Studies, a UK based research centre, once estimated that even a relatively short third runway could add £7bn to the UK economy by 2030. LHR capacity could potentially grow from 480,000 to 702,000 aircraft movement per year.

The demand for Heathrow has been extremely strong. It is in fact the busiest international airport in the world in terms of international passengers’ throughput. This is mainly due to the influential role London plays in the global economy and cultural development. London has long been a strategic location in the world’s transport sector, bridging Northern America and Europe. Of course, its role is further reinforced by its strong Home Base Operators (HBOs) such as British Airways with their extensive hub-and-spokes networks and their very privileged connections all across the world during the highest point of the British Empire and its legacy still lives on.

Compared with its major competitors in Europe, Heathrow has the least amount of runways with only 3, 2 parallel runways and 1 cutting the 27L/09R runway. The latter one has no operational benefit to Heathrow as cross traffic would generally reduce runway capacity at major airports. (The only reason an airport has runways varied in direction is due to crosswinds, which are particularly an issue if the airport is located at a strong crosswind region, e.g. Amsterdam. Or those airports that experience a large amount of GA traffic, e.g. a majority of the regional airports in the US, where the small aircraft are vulnerable to crosswinds).

The key to modern airport planning often centers around the concept of ‘sustainability’.

Many of the opposition suggest it’s pointless to build an extra runway at Heathrow since there are at least 4 major airports in the London area: Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and London City. However, what they don’t realise is that airlines don’t just go to where slots are available, factors such as flight connections, surface access to the airports, airport infrastructure and frequencies play a role.

Boris Johnson, has suggested a new airport in Thames Esturary, however, given the location of the proposed area, plus potential land reclamation, its environmental impact should not be anything lower than the LHR 3rd runway. Plus there would be another issue of how the Government would handle the impact on the rest of the London airports if the suggestion was to go ahead. Gatwick, Stansted and Luton are also potential areas for expansion, however, given the lack of efficient transportation to the City and relatively lack of reputation, many overseas passengers (inc. myself) would prefer sticking to the “Good Old Heathrow’. Putting the potential big logistic exercise involved aside, bear in mind that many legacy carriers in the world still see having slots at Heathrow the symbol of dominance in the market. So, airlines will not be easily shifted from one airport to another when slots are available, even though it’s at the same city. It’s unlikely to see BA or CX give up their slots at LHR for more slots at LGW or STN. That’s why Heathrow has always been the main bargaining chip when it comes to Open-skies.

In aviation, airports behave a very different way in comparison with aircraft. Aircraft, as mobile assets, can move and generate revenues wherever their operators please. Airports on the other hand, are fix-based which require airlines (aircraft) to operate to/from them in order to generate revenue. In order to draw business airports are heavily dependant on the attraction of where they are based and the service they provide. So it doesn’t surprise us that successful hubs are located on those cities which are popular tourist destinations and global business centres with strong home based airlines. Heathrow is totally on the edge on this.

Air pollution and aircraft emissions are always the bargaining chips that environmentalists and opposition use. However, surprisingly, majority of the pollutions around the airport areas are not from aircraft engines, but in fact from the ground vehicles to/from the airport. Modern aircraft design are extremely fuel efficient, their large size, more payloads, aerodynamic improvements enabling reducing in the number of engines required make aircraft achieve a low pollution level per head. The A380 for example produces only 75g of CO2 per RPK, almost half of the target set by the European Union for cars manufactured in 2008. Noise levels have also been significantly reduced. But of course, this will need careful calibrations with the Government and what’s allowed to operate out of the new runway.

During this economic downturn, the new runway at Heathrow could actually bring higher levels of employment, providing 65,000 jobs and aircraft movement that will stimulate billion dollars of tourism and trade to the UK. Although the new runway and terminal would cost £9 billion, it will generate an additional £5.5 billion more to the economy, annually. The runway is a long term asset to the airport since it will forever provide the extra capacity, unlike aircraft which would be de-valued as time goes on..

It’s important to bear in mind that the capacity problem at Heathrow didn’t just happen yesterday, Heathrow has long been suffering from its lack of capacity but the issue has just reached a very critical level. Rival airports such as Amsterdam (5 runways), Paris Charles de Gaulle (4 runways), Madrid (4 runways) and Frankfurt (3 runways, getting a 4th in 2011) all have more runways than LHR. Some argue that the new Terminal 5 helps relieve the capacity constraints; this is in fact not the case. An airport terminal is only there to provide accommodation to passengers and its ‘Meeters and Greeters’. But doesn’t help increase runway capacity to the airport.

Although expected to be finished between 2015-2020, it’s very unlikely that the process is going to be easy. Case in point - BAA had made an initial application in 1993 to construct Terminal 5, and had experienced significant objections from local communities. Key factors considered by the inquiry panel formed were: the economic case for expansion, developmental pressure and regional planning, land use policy, surface access, noise, air quality, public safety and construction. The planning application was finally

granted in late 2001 by the Transport Minister, following the longest public inquiry in British history for nearly four years. Construction work for Terminal 5 only began in 2002, almost 10 years after the initial application. Given the scale of the new runway project, it will be very likely to experience an even longer public inquiry if there is significant opposition being voiced, as is likely to be the case.

So in my view, for the good of the UK economy and global aviation, I strongly support LHR 3rd runway. However, like what Jake, our NY-based aviation analyst has suggested, what we are worrying about now is how this would harm the plane spotting opportunity from our Ascend London Office!