Author: John Stewart

“BA’s lack of interest in a third runway has important implications for the future of aviation policy in the UK.  It leaves Heathrow Airport without a critical ally”.

Heathrow Airport, formerly known as BAA, is looking ever more isolated in its support for a third runway at Heathrow.  On Friday (30^th November)  British Airways chief Willie Walsh told a major conference that he did not believe a third runway at Heathrow would ever be built and that his company was basing its future plans on that belief by buying slots from other airlines at Heathrow and expanding its operations in Madrid – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/aviation/9717087/Willie-Walsh-rules-out-third-runway-at-Heathrow.html 

Walsh told the conference organized by British Airways (BA) that it is “my personal belief that a third runway will never be built” and that “we are planning for life without it.”  He also said he was opposed to mixed-mode at Heathrow.

It became clear at the conference, which I attended, that British Airways no longer sees a third runway as in its commercial interest.  Walsh made it clear that, since a new runway would offer a significant number of slots to other airlines, BA would be less dominant than it is with the current two runway airport.  Therefore, rather than look for a third runway, he said it was in BA’s commercial interest to buy up slots from other airlines using Heathrow and develop at Madrid.   The newly-acquired Heathrow slots could in due course be used to serve the emerging markets of Asia and Africa and Madrid had good connections to South America.

BA’s lack of interest in a third runway has important implications for the future of aviation policy in the UK.  It leaves Heathrow Airport without a critical ally.  During the 3^rd runway campaign, Willie Walsh proved to be one of its most articulate supporters.

Heathrow Airport will now need to fight its corner without him at a time when it is facing more competition than ever before from other UK airports eyeing up the chance to expand.  The new owners of Gatwick are intending to submit a plan for a second runway.  Birmingham is lobbying for expansion.  Stansted expansion has its supporters.  And of course Boris is backing his island.

All the signs are there.  Support for a third runway is slowly draining away.

Boris gets it. Former transport minister Steve Norris gets it.  I think Heathrow Airport – BAA as was – gets it.  Maria Eagle, Labour’s shadow transport minister, gets it. Willie Walsh certainly gets it.  I am not sure, though, that a lot of those backing a third or even fourth runway at Heathrow seem to get it.  It is simple:  it will be politics – not economics, noise or climate change – that will determine where, if anywhere, new runways will be built.  I don’t mean that the decision will necessarily be narrowly party political; simply that it will based on a political assessment of how deliverable any proposal for a new runway actually is.

Steve Norris has consistently argued that a third runway at Heathrow is politically undeliverable.  British Airways chief Willie Walsh has come to the same conclusion.  He is now planning his business on the basis that a third runway will not be built.  He is buying up Heathrow slots from other airlines and consolidating his Madrid base through his link up with Iberian airlines.

I think they are right.  The last Labour Government tried and failed to expand Heathrow.  It lost out to a vibrant, rainbow coalition of local residents, local authorities, MPs and peers from across the political spectrum, trade unionists and business people as well as large sections of the environmental movement including direct action activists – http://www.hacan.org.uk/resources/reports/how.the.heathrow.campaign.was.won.pdf.  That coalition is merely dormant.  It would come back.  It would come back more confident than before.  It now knows how to defeat a runway. Moreover, it knows it provided inspiration to campaigners across Europe – from Munich to Siena – to see off runway proposals.  This is the reality that would face any political party that tried to expand Heathrow.  Politicians are realists.  Not one would want to risk losing another 10 year battle, having achieved nothing.

And then there’s the voters.  725,000 of them live under the Heathrow flight paths, according to EU statistics (see table below).  That, incredibly, is 28% of all people disturbed by aircraft noise right across Europe.  That’s more people than live in Glasgow or Manchester.  A third runway, according to Department of Transport figures, would add at least another 150,000.

It is difficult to assess how much those bodies – think-tanks, businesses, trade unions – which back a third or fourth runway have thought through the political barriers to Heathrow expansion.  I suspect they instinctively feel that the Coalition’s decision to scrap a third runway and mixed-mode (more planes on the existing runways) was a one-off, an aberration, something David Cameron repents of in private.  George Osborne, they claim, is on their side.  The tide, they feel, is turning in their favour.  It is only a matter of time before Sipson is flattened and normal service has been resumed.

That, I think, is to misunderstand the history of protest.  I was involved in the campaigns against road building in London in the late 1980s and early 1990s; road building plans that would have flattened dozens of communities.  The scale of the protests killed off major new roads as a solution to London’s traffic problems.  Equally, the national ‘anti-roads’ protests in the 1990s changed the course of UK transport policy.

The anti-expansion campaign at Heathrow over the last decade or so is likely to be equally significant.  It will frighten off any political party from supporting further expansion of the airport.  Boris knows his former constituents in Henley would be up in arms.  Maria Eagle, backed by her leader Ed Miliband, has made an astute political decision to oppose expansion.  Heathrow Airport knows it has the fight of its life on its hands to get a new runway.  That is the political reality.  If George Osborne – or Ed Balls – doesn’t get it, they are in for a very noisy wake-up call.

How Heathrow compares with other UK airports.

Justine Greening would have approved

Justine Greening would have nodded in approval when, last Friday, Sir Howard Davies explained the remit of the Airports Commission the Government has asked him to head up.  The former transport secretary, who was moved from her post in the September reshuffle because of her principled and implacable opposition to Heathrow expansion, would have warmed to Davies’s explanation that he wanted the findings of the Commission to be based on evidence-based submissions.  Earlier this year she memorably dismissed the aviation industry’s failure to back up their sound-bites with sound arguments as a ‘pub-style debate’:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/minister-in-shock-warning-on-more-heathrow-runways-7880609.html

Greening, though, would have been uncomfortable with the fact – as I am – that the expansion of Heathrow is one of the options Davies and his fellow commissioners are being asked to assess.  But I came away from Friday’s launch of the Commission a much happier person than when I arrived.  Davies made it clear that his Commission will be doing a serious piece of work; that they will not simply be recommending where expansion should take place.

I wrote in my blog on 3^rd September

To propose a new airport or runway without first analysing demand is like Tescos building a superstore without checking whether it’s required.  It runs counter to the basic laws of business. Yet that is the approach being urged on the Government.  In recent weeks the cheer-leaders for the different airports have been taking to the airwaves: Birmingham, Boris Island, Stansted, Gatwick, Heathrow, even Manston in the remoter regions of Kent.  Stories of shiny new airports and guessing games about which one will be chosen by the government are great copy for the press.  It is like an ‘X Factor of the Air’.  You almost expect Simon Cowell should be given the casting vote.  But it’s very bad economics.

It’s clear that will not happen.  The Commission will start by assessing future demand – in my view, an essential first step.  Davies also made it clear that any proposals they recommend will need to be consistent with the Government’s climate change targets, and that they will take full account of noise and other more local environmental considerations.

It is less clear how much work will be done on the extent demand could be managed through fiscal measures, such as ending the tax-free fuel the aviation industry enjoys, though consideration will be given to the potential of high-speed rail and video-conference to cut demand.

At the end of 2013 the Commission will be required to publish an interim report which Davies said will set out some short-term proposals but will also flag up “plausible” options that will be worked up in some detail for the final report due out in Summer 2015, two months after the General Election.

I suspect the final report will recommend expansion at some airports.  I know that any mention of expansion at Heathrow – be it a third runway or mixed-mode (more planes on the existing runways) – will generate huge opposition and will once again galvanise campaigners into action.  The same would happen at other airports.  But the Davies Commission will have done a job: it will have dragged the debate out of the pub. And that’s a much sounder basis on which to plan future policy. 

•   The full remit of the Commission, plus the list of commissioners, can be found at http://bit.ly/RywwEz

The Head of Justine Greening on a Platter

The aviation industry got what it wanted: the head of Justine Greening on a platter.  Immediate policy on Heathrow is unlikely to change – the new Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has a record of opposing a third runway (http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2009-01 28&number=26&mpn=Patrick_McLoughlin&mpc=West_Derbyshire&house=commons) and the Liberal Democrats remain firmly opposed – but the industry’s marketing onslaught has paid off.

That onslaught started the day Justine Greening was appointed.  On the day she was appointed in October 2011 BA chief Willie Walsh called her “compromised” because of her opposition to a 3^rd runway and because she had a constituency under the Heathrow flight path (As had her predecessor Philip Hammond, but that was never mentioned by the industry) – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/8829387/New-minister-compromised-over-Heathrow-expansion-says-Willie-Walsh.html.

From day one the criticism by the industry and its allies was relentless.  Last month (23/8/12) Richard Wellings, head of transport at the Institute of Economic Affairs think-tank told The Financial Times Justine Greening’s position was “untenable”: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c881f3a0-ed00-11e1-9980-00144feab49a.html#axzz25ZihFSMr.

But the industry’s campaign was more subtle than simply personal attacks on Greening.  They put it in the context that she was standing in the way of urgent decisions being required to expand our airport capacity or UK plc will lose out.  They know that is nonsense.  They know Department for Transport figures show that that Britain has enough airport capacity until almost 2030.  They know that London is voted the top city in Europe for business in survey after survey.  The influential Cushman & Wakefield found: “London is still ranked – by some distance from its closest competitors – as the leading city in which to do business.” (Cushman & Wakefield, The European Cities Monitor (2011)

https://www.cushwake.com/cwglobal/docviewer/2120_ECM_2011__FINAL_10Oct.pdf?id=c50500003p&repositoryKey=CoreRe).  And just this month a Bircham Bell Dyson came to the same conclusion, even putting a plane on the cover of their report to illustrate it! (http://www.bdb-law.co.uk/media/440379/settingupbusinessintheuk.pdf).

The industry know all this.  They also know that their oft-repeated assertion that Chinese firms are locating to other European cities because of an alleged lack of airport capacity in the UK is playing hard and fast with the facts.  They know that the number of flights between China and the UK is limited to 62 a week by bilateral treaty.  They know that the difficulty and cost of Chinese people getting visas to come to Britain is a major disincentive.  Ian Birrell wrote in the Guardian (14/5/12)>: “Getting a visa for the UK is “torture with a system judged the worst in Europe. Perhaps stupidest of all is how we treat the Chinese.”

The industry know all this as well.  But facts have not been their main concern.  Nor lofty thoughts about what is best for the UK economy.  Their aim has simply been to generate headlines to make the position of Justine Greening – and, ideally, also the aviation minister Theresa Villiers who was also firmly opposed to a third runway – untenable.  The industry has produced no hard economic evidence.  That was never their intention.  It was simply, as Greening put it in an interview with the Evening Standard ‘a pub-style’ debate. 

And it worked.  Greening was moved not because she was a poor Transport Secretary.  She had won plaudits across the board for her policy of developing a long-tern strategy.  She went in order to get aviation out of the headlines.

My guess is the frenetic campaign by the aviation industry and its allies will now cease.  They’ve got their prey.  They’ve always known no big decisions will be taken until after the next Election.  But they could not live with independent-minded ministers at the Department for Transport.  It was all very predicable.  As Chris Mullin, a former aviation minister who tried to stand up to the industry, said. “During my 18 months as a junior minister responsible for aviation policy, I learnt two things. First, that the demands of the aviation industry are insatiable. Second, that successive governments usually give way to them”. 

Why I’m backing Justine….and Maria

It may be a first.  I certainly can’t recall any previous occasion when voters have taken direct action in an attempt to influence a cabinet reshuffle.  Reshuffles are usually of less interest to most people than the football results of the Scottish third division. (I’m an exception to that incidentally having watching my parent’s home team Ross County move from the lowest tier of Scottish football to a proud fourth in the premier division). 

However, David Cameron’s reshuffle is different.  And all because of one woman:  the Transport Secretary Justine Greening.  West London residents have taken to posting ‘I’m backing Justine’ stickers all over the underground – see report in the Evening Standard:  http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/poster-battle-to-save-greening-from-reshuffle-8078787.html.  The fact that residents are going to this length – and are now calling for a demonstration in favour of the Transport Secretary – shows the strength of  support there is for her and for her stance on a third runway.

Justine Greening must be the first member of any Cabinet to be under threat because she is supporting Government policy.  But the aviation industry has been gunning for her from day one.  Her position was untenable, its representatives argued, because of her well-known opposition to Heathrow expansion and because her Putney constituency was under the flight path.  Just like the Egham constituency of her predecessor, Philip Hammond.  But the industry never raised that as a problem.

The current argument that the industry and its friends in business and the media use is that she must go because she is a block to a sane discussion about future aviation policy which must include the option of a 3^rd runway.  What actually bugs them is that the debate about a 3^rd runway has been had and they lost it.  What bugs them even more is that there are three ministers at the Department for Transport – Justine Greening, Theresa Villiers and the Liberal Democrat Norman Baker – who are independent-minded and not in the pocket of the aviation industry.

As Chair of HACAN, I know these ministers have changed the department.  The previous “collusion” with the aviation industry – ironically exposed by Justine Greening when she was in opposition http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/Test/politics/article82312.ece – has been replaced by a serious debate about future aviation policy which includes environmental organizations and residents’ groups as well as the aviation industry.  

And that brings us to Alastair Darling….and Labour’s Transport Secretary Maria Eagle.  When I read in today’s Independent on Sunday that Darling was still supporting a third runway – http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/darling-defies-miliband-over-third-heathrow-runway-8081429.html – I had to remind myself that he was once Secretary of State for Transport.  I just don’t recall anything he did.  He certainly didn’t attempt to shake the Department for Transport out of its bias towards the aviation industry.  Somehow it is difficult to imagine an ‘I’m backing Darling’ campaign.

With the backing of Ed Miliband, Labour’s current shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle has reversed Labour’s backing for a third runway.  I’m not too sure either of them would than me for saying this but I see real similarities between Justine Greening and Maria Eagle.  Both were educated in comprehensive schools in the North of England.  Both are more interested in developing serious, evidence-based polices than giving into the demands of interest-based groups.  Both value practical results above empty rhetoric.  That’s why I backing Justine….and Maria.

It’s beyond parody.  The call by the Free Enterprise Group of MPs for TWO new runways at Heathrow is bad news……for them.  To ignore the successful fight that stopped the third runway (http://www.hacan.org.uk/resources/reports.php?id=290) is politically naïve.  To spell out a range of destructive options for a fourth runway is bordering on political suicide.  It will simply result in a myriad of communities being up in arms.

It reminds me of the disastrous mistake the then Roads Minister Peter Bottomley made in the 1980s.  He publicised all the options for new roads across London.  It resulted in 250 local groups banding together under the umbrella of All London against the Road Building Menace (ALARM).  Just a few years later, in 1990, the Government was forced to abandon all the road schemes (http://www.roadblock.org.uk/alarmuk/roadblock.pdf).

Yet, people like Spelthorne MP Kwasi Kwarteng, a leading figure in the Group and author of the report on which the proposals are based, are not stupid.  So why are they doing this?  I suspect that most of them know their current proposals are folly.  If they don’t, they are not living in the real world.  Any attempt to build two new runways at Heathrow would result in the defining environmental battle of our time.  Even if the thousands of people who stood to lose their homes and businesses meekly accepted generous compensation packages, the amount of opposition the proposals would generate would be enormous:  hundreds of thousands of residents under the flight paths, climate activists, environmentalist from across Europe, anarchists of every hue…….the resulting campaign would make Occupy St Pauls look like a sedate church service on a quiet Sunday morning.  Surrey ladies would be standing shoulder to shoulder with the children of Swampy.      

It would be the campaign against the third runway writ large.  Ian Martin, writing in the Daily Telegraph (1/04/08), said of that campaign quote “There is an anger and a rebellion that runs from eco-warriors through to merchant bankers.”  No government could contemplate two new runways at Heathrow.

So what are the Free Enterprise MPs up to?  Their proposals are so off the wall it is difficult to be certain as to their motive.  They do seem to be trying to show that Heathrow, even with two new runways, is a cheaper option than an Estuary Airport.  Many of the MPs are close to business and are probably reflecting the views of the many businesses who don’t want to see Heathrow replace by an Estuary Airport. 

But they are probably also using their report to make a business case for airport expansion per se.  Their aim is to create a climate of opinion where it becomes generally accepted that expansion is required; the only question that remains to be answered is where?  They seem to challenging the Transport Secretary: “If not a Heathrow, where will expansion take place, Justine?”

Justine Greening, the most informed Transport Secretary on aviation for a generation, is sticking to her guns.  She first wants evidence-based responses on whether more capacity is needed and, if so, how much would be required long before looking at the question of where is should be.  These proposals from the Free Enterprise Group are a parody of the sort of evidence-based arguments Justine Greening is looking for.