The Nr Fairy
5th Jun 2001, 18:56
Seen in today's Times ( see here (http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/Forum1/HTML/014113.html) for another slant on the same story ) :
BRITAIN’S main airport is becoming so overcrowded that it may have to borrow a tactic from the Tube and lock passengers out to prevent a crush, BAA said yesterday.
The airport operator said that the delay in constructing Heathrow’s fifth terminal at a cost of £2 billion meant it was “inevitable” that by 2010 Paris would overtake London as Europe’s aviation hub.
Mike Hodgkinson, BAA’s chief executive, said that passengers would have to pay an airport surcharge of up to £3 a ticket once terminal five opened in 2007 but fares would fall overall as increased capacity allowed greater competition among airlines.
He said he expected the new Government to grant permission for terminal five in the autumn after a four-year £80 million public inquiry. The inspector’s report, which is believed to approve terminal five with conditions such as a ban on night flights, was sent to ministers last December.
Without the new building, passengers will have to “queue in the rain” outside the existing terminals, which are overcrowded at peak times.
Mr Hodgkinson likened the conditions at Heathrow to London Underground’s Victoria station, where passengers are held at the top of the escalators in the rush hour because the platforms are too packed.
He said that Britain’s dominance of the aviation industry in Europe was at risk of “disappearing down the tubes”. He said foreign airlines relished the prospect of Britain “handing on a plate this great aviation industry to the continent”.
“Everyone can now see the legacy of underinvestment in the railways and Tube. The simple question for the country is do we want our airports to decline in similar fashion?” He condemned the “staggering delay, during which Paris Charles de Gaulle has built two runways and two terminals”.
Mr Hodgkinson said that the decline in the manufacturing industry meant Britain’s economy was increasingly dependent on knowledge-based companies whose staff frequently needed to travel overseas. They would relocate to other countries unless they could be sure of good flight connections.
BAA accepted that the price of building terminal five to accommodate up to 20 million more passengers might be a cap on the number of flights at Heathrow. BAA’s original submission to the terminal five inquiry proposed a limit of 473,000 flights a year by 2013. But Heathrow has grown much faster than anticipated and is already only 7,000 short of that figure.
Mr Hodgkinson said that the 600-seat Airbus superjumbo, due to enter service in 2006, would allow the airport to handle more passengers without increasing the number of flights. BAA has also changed its line of attack on terminal five, arguing that the space is needed to offer a better flying experience to the traveller rather than simply to cram in more flights and passengers.
Clearskies, which campaigns against aircraft noise at Heathrow, said it feared that BAA would wait until terminal five was under construction before asking for the limit on the number of flights to be lifted.
“The game is to get approval for the terminal before moving the goalposts. We also then believe British Airways will push for a third runway,” Dermot Cox, Clearskies’ spokesman, said.
Mr Hodgkinson said that a new runway was urgently needed in the South East but declined to suggest where it should be built.
My questions : There may be excess passenger capacity required, but how the hell are they going to move all the aircraft without a) another long time spent on a public enquiry or b) moving towards A380s for shuttles to Edinburgh when most airlines seem to be using smaller aircraft ?
Feel free to answer either here or on the other thread mentioned above.
[This message has been edited by The Nr Fairy (edited 05 June 2001).]
BRITAIN’S main airport is becoming so overcrowded that it may have to borrow a tactic from the Tube and lock passengers out to prevent a crush, BAA said yesterday.
The airport operator said that the delay in constructing Heathrow’s fifth terminal at a cost of £2 billion meant it was “inevitable” that by 2010 Paris would overtake London as Europe’s aviation hub.
Mike Hodgkinson, BAA’s chief executive, said that passengers would have to pay an airport surcharge of up to £3 a ticket once terminal five opened in 2007 but fares would fall overall as increased capacity allowed greater competition among airlines.
He said he expected the new Government to grant permission for terminal five in the autumn after a four-year £80 million public inquiry. The inspector’s report, which is believed to approve terminal five with conditions such as a ban on night flights, was sent to ministers last December.
Without the new building, passengers will have to “queue in the rain” outside the existing terminals, which are overcrowded at peak times.
Mr Hodgkinson likened the conditions at Heathrow to London Underground’s Victoria station, where passengers are held at the top of the escalators in the rush hour because the platforms are too packed.
He said that Britain’s dominance of the aviation industry in Europe was at risk of “disappearing down the tubes”. He said foreign airlines relished the prospect of Britain “handing on a plate this great aviation industry to the continent”.
“Everyone can now see the legacy of underinvestment in the railways and Tube. The simple question for the country is do we want our airports to decline in similar fashion?” He condemned the “staggering delay, during which Paris Charles de Gaulle has built two runways and two terminals”.
Mr Hodgkinson said that the decline in the manufacturing industry meant Britain’s economy was increasingly dependent on knowledge-based companies whose staff frequently needed to travel overseas. They would relocate to other countries unless they could be sure of good flight connections.
BAA accepted that the price of building terminal five to accommodate up to 20 million more passengers might be a cap on the number of flights at Heathrow. BAA’s original submission to the terminal five inquiry proposed a limit of 473,000 flights a year by 2013. But Heathrow has grown much faster than anticipated and is already only 7,000 short of that figure.
Mr Hodgkinson said that the 600-seat Airbus superjumbo, due to enter service in 2006, would allow the airport to handle more passengers without increasing the number of flights. BAA has also changed its line of attack on terminal five, arguing that the space is needed to offer a better flying experience to the traveller rather than simply to cram in more flights and passengers.
Clearskies, which campaigns against aircraft noise at Heathrow, said it feared that BAA would wait until terminal five was under construction before asking for the limit on the number of flights to be lifted.
“The game is to get approval for the terminal before moving the goalposts. We also then believe British Airways will push for a third runway,” Dermot Cox, Clearskies’ spokesman, said.
Mr Hodgkinson said that a new runway was urgently needed in the South East but declined to suggest where it should be built.
My questions : There may be excess passenger capacity required, but how the hell are they going to move all the aircraft without a) another long time spent on a public enquiry or b) moving towards A380s for shuttles to Edinburgh when most airlines seem to be using smaller aircraft ?
Feel free to answer either here or on the other thread mentioned above.
[This message has been edited by The Nr Fairy (edited 05 June 2001).]