HAL and CAA disagree over Heathrow Operational Freedoms Trial findings
Both organisations have published their final reports following the trials.
HAL:
"While reaching clear conclusions from the evidence produced is not easy, it is Heathrow's view that, on balance, Operational Freedoms, as trialled, delivered useful operational performance improvements in limited areas. While their use did not provide the wholesale significant benefits that could be required to facilitate recovery from the most severe episodes of disruption, Heathrow believes that operational freedoms do help to mitigate against, and recover more quickly from, those less serious disruptive events which still result in poor performance and passenger experience. It is recommended therefore, that the following operational freedoms should be integrated into standard procedures as soon as practically possible ..."
CAA:
"The hypothesis being tested by the trial, as proposed by the South-East Airports Taskforce, was that granting additional operational freedoms at Heathrow could potentially deliver:
significant benefits for passengers by improving the resilience and reliability of the airport, and
environmental benefits, with fewer unscheduled night flights, lower emissions and less stacking.
However, the data from the trial is inconclusive.
The CAA would agree with Heathrow Airport Ltd (HAL) that it is possible that the freedoms trialled did benefit airport operations. Intuitively, greater operational flexibility should help air traffic controllers to get the airport back on schedule. But the benefits claimed in the HAL report have not been statistically proven."
In the absence of any statisticians on the Airports Commission, one assumes it will be relying on the CAA to interpret the 150 pages of regression analysis that accompanies the HAL report on the trials.