Category: BLOG

Heathrow still have a mountain to climb.  Today’s launch of their revised plan for a third runway http://www.heathrowairport.com/static/HeathrowAboutUs/Downloads/PDF/taking_britain_further.pdf shows they understand the need to pull out all the stops to make it politically deliverable.  But it also shows the extent of the task they face.

Their last attempt to get a new runway ended in failure: http://www.hacan.org.uk/resources/reports/how.the.heathrow.campaign.was.won.pdf   Since then, they have changed their name and their tactics.

The new tactics were to the fore in today’s announcement.

There was a clear recognition that, unless a enough “goodies” for voters living under the flight paths and around Heathrow, governments will continue to be reluctant to commit to a 3^rd runway in case history repeats itself and they fail to deliver.

The climate impacts of a new runway are important – and the airport’s claims about CO2 need be assessed to see if they stand up – but it is the proposals to deal with noise and community destruction that most politicians will be interested in.

The offer to people in the 750 homes that Heathrow estimates will be demolished (down from 950 last time because the alignment of the new runway has been moved a little further south) is more generous than before:  the value of the house plus 25%; payment of relocation costs and any stamp duty.  It will be a tempting offer to many residents who have faced years of blight and uncertainty.  But what of those left behind yards from the new runway?    The immediate reaction we are getting is the Heathrow will need to do a lot more to quell local opposition to a third runway.  The quality of life in whole communities in places like Sipson, Harlington, Longford and West Drayton, as well as the village in the eye of the storm – Harmondsworth – will be changed forever.  With so much to lose, expect a big fight back.

The attempt to deal with noise for people living under the flight paths further afield is much more sophisticated than last time.  Quieter planes, improved operational practices and more respite periods are promised.  Runway alternation is guaranteed – long gone is any thought of all-day flying on any runway.  And there is an acknowledgement that aircraft noise is a problem outside the discredited 57 noise contour.  All this is welcome – and, indeed most of the proposals need not be dependent on a new runway – but could I convince our members in Hounslow, Ealing, Richmond, Windsor, Clapham, Brockley and Tower Hamlets that their noise climate will be less disturbing with a 3^rd runway and its extra 260,000 flights a year?   They would tell me it would need a miracle.  And, so far, Heathrow have not proved they can deliver that miracle. 

And then there’s Heathrow M25 problem.  Heathrow has said that 600 metres would go into a tunnel with a runway built over the top.  Possible in engineering terms but messy, disruptive and costly.  Any government would want to know how much it would be expected to cough up.

Heathrow has tried to show it can deal with the air pollution and traffic problems around the airport through a mix of a congestion charge on cars using the airport and improved public transport links.  The proposals are proof that Heathrow is addressing these problems with a seriousness that was missing previously.  Only time will tell whether they have done enough to convince the Airports Commission and any future government to take a punt on a third runway.

And all the time Gatwick – and also still Boris Island – are breathing down Heathrow’s neck.  Heathrow’s strongest argument has always been its economic case, principally the fact that, with a new runway, it could have direct links to around 40 more destinations (although all these destinations can already be reached with just one change).  However it still hasn’t been able to shake off the challenge of the other airports.  

Liverpool, with a new manager and a new style of play, fell just short of winning the League title this season.  Like Liverpool, Heathrow are adopting a much more creative approach.  Whether they can do enough to persuade politicians that a third runway is politically deliverable is still open to real doubt.  The top prize may remain out of reach.

Last week Heathrow Airport claimed that there was more support now for a 3^rd runway than when it was proposed by the last Labour Government.  It cited a recent opinion poll of more than 1,000 local residents by Populus which showed 48% are in favour of a third runway while 34% oppose.

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Heathrow-Borough-Poll-March-2014.pdf

The reality is different.  HACAN unearthed a Populus poll which revealed that in 2007 50% supported a 3^rd runway and 30% against were against.  http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/download_pdf-170907-BAA-Heathrow-Future-Heathrow-Poll.pdf

In fact, as we blogged last week, a third of people stubbornly refuse to back expansion at Heathrow.  Although some of the other figures fluctuate, the common thread in the Populus polls is the 30% or so of people who oppose expansion.  Here are the last three polls:  

March 2014:  http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Heathrow-Borough-Poll-March-2014.pdf and 

Nov 2013:  http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Heathrow_Poll_Nov131.pdf

May 2013:  http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Heathrow%20Airport%20Local%20Resident%20Research.pdf

Heathrow Airport must be concerned that after more than a year of concerted, expensive and high-profile campaigning support for a third runway is little different than it was at the height of the protest six or seven years ago.

And, indeed, the referenda and surveys that were carried out by Hillingdon, Richmond and Hounslow show even less support for expansion.  Around 72% of residents opposed a 3^rd runway: http://www.richmond.gov.uk/100000_say_no_to_heathrow_expansion 

There has been no UKIP-style surge in support for a 3^rd runway.

Heathrow have only one year in which to change this.  The airport will be acutely aware that they lost the battle for a 3^rd runway last time around because the one the residents who opposed expansion in the 7 boroughs closest to the airport (over 525,000 people in total) were able to forge an effective alliance with residents further afield, environmentalists, politicians from across the political spectrum as well as some key business people and trade unions.

Heathrow Airport will know that, unless they can shift opinion in the next year, the odds against a third runway being built will lengthen…….whatever recommendation the Airports Commission comes up with in summer 2015. 

It was a momentous result.  It was the victory against all the odds.  No one expected the coalition of local residents, environmentalists, direct action activists, local authorities and sympathetic politicians to pull it off.  Except perhaps ourselves.  In the latter months of the decade-long campaign to stop a third runway at Heathrow Airport we sensed we were on the verge of a famous victory.  And so it proved.  The Government of the day and the aviation industry failed to get what they wanted above all else: a third runway at the UK’s only truly international airport.

However, industry and business when the want something badly enough don’t usually take no for an answer.  Within two years they had regrouped and persuaded the current government to look again at a third runway.  It is not yet Government policy to build it but it may become so.

So how do campaigners fight a battle a second time round?

Firstly, by being fully aware, even in the moment of victory, that business has the money and motivation to bide its time and will strike again.  Let go of the daily round of campaigning but never let your guard down.

Secondly, from day one after the victory party (and always have one) remind the powers-that-be again and again that you won last time round.  We were the Andy Murray and they the Novak Djokovic.  These reminders put pressure on them and pep up your supporters.  The worst attitude to adopt is that ‘it’s only a matter of time before they win’.  Because that way they will win!

Thirdly, when they do come back, remember why you were successful last time.  Do those things again!  But won’t the campaigners be worn-out?  That’s the tactic of big business. To grind people down.  But what we are finding at Heathrow is that, although there is a sense of déjà vu, we are in a much better place than when we started out 13 years ago.  Then we hardly knew each other and lacked the confidence we could win.  Now we are a confident, united team knowing we conquered the highest of mountain peaks.

Finally, always remember, although business will come back, they are unlikely to do so forever.  Business needs certainty in which to operate.  If there is forever uncertainty about a project, they will move on.  It is generally recognized that business won’t hang around if a third runway is knocked back again.  We just have to climb that mountain one more time.  Come on, Andy!

It’s got ‘em talking.  And fuming.  Back Heathrow’s latest news-sheet and questionnaire.  I didn’t get one dropped through my door but many of our supporters did and they sent me copies.

The newsletter is a work of art.  The art of not quite telling it as it is.  Take the front page “Hillingdon Council want Thousands of Houses on Airport”.  What message does that convey to you?  The clear implication is that Hillingdon wants the airport to shut.  They have never said that.  It leader, Ray Puddiford, has merely said that, if an Estuary Airport opened and Heathrow had to close, there would be the opportunity for the land to be used for housing and new businesses.  Back Heathrow turns that into “Hillingdon Council Leader Ray Puddiford: Ungrateful – Shutting down Heathrow represents a ‘remarkable opportunity’.”

The sleight of hand goes on.  It quotes from the report commissioned by three London boroughs which indicates that thousands of jobs are at risk if Heathrow were to close.  It conveniently overlooks another key finding of the report that the impact of a second runway at Gatwick would have a ‘negligible’ impact on employment at Heathrow.

And then there are “local residents” who are quoted.  Steve Ostrowski may live in Hillingdon but what we are not told is that he also works at the airport.  And then there is Gary Dixon who says he’s “lived near the airport for years.”  Local Hillingdon people tell me his area is not impacted by planes.  Not forgetting Shaun Brimacombe from Harlingon who asks “If noise does affect them then why did they choose to live next to a major international airport?”  Back Heathrow’s bosom buddies at Heathrow Airport know full well that there are people distraught by aircraft noise living 20 miles from the airport.  They didn’t “choose to live next to a major international airport.”  They don’t get a quote.

Although we don’t share it, HACAN recognizes there is an argument to be made for the expansion of Heathrow Airport but this news-sheet does nothing to advance it.

You can contact Back Heathrow at Premier House, 50-52 Cross Lances Rd, TW3 2AA or by email hello@backheathrow.org or via their website:  www.backheathrow.org 

Thinking of filling in the survey?  Don’t risk it!  You could be quoted out of context in their next news-sheet.  Better to say nothing.  Return an empty envelope.  It’s Freepost! 

The Chancellor’s announcement on Air Passenger Duty (APD) in yesterday’s budget speech was significant.  Less so because of the changes he announced; more for his underlying assumption that APD is here to stay.  This is a considerable blow to the aviation industry which for some years now has been united in its opposition to the tax.  But it was never going to be abolished.

Successive governments have recognized that aviation is under-taxed.  When Kenneth Clarke, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced APD 20 years ago in his budget of November 1993 he said: “First, air travel is under-taxed compared to other sectors of the economy. It benefits not only from a zero rate of VAT; in addition, the fuel used in international air travel, and nearly all domestic flights, is entirely free of tax. A number of countries have already addressed this anomaly”.

At present there is a huge discrepancy between what motorists are taxed and the tax paid by the aviation industry.  Revenue from car travel (tax on fuel and VAT) bring the Treasury about £12 billion a year.  APD raises around £2.8 billion.  It would need to be quadrupled match the income from car travel.  Other European countries are bringing in APD-type taxes (through, so far, at a lower level than APD is charged).   

Yesterday’s Budget sorted out some anomalies in the system.  Currently passengers travelling to the Caribbean, Asia or Australia pay more tax than those going to America.  By April 2015 all long-haul passengers will pay the American rate – currently £67 (for a single journey) rising to £71 when the change comes in.  The change has probably come about more from political pressure than a desire to please aviation industry lobbyists.  The rate on short-haul flight – £13 for a single journey – will remain the same.  APD will be imposed on private jets.

The details of the changes can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/293853/TIIN_6063_air_passenger_duty_banding_reform.pdf 

The changes outlined will cost the Treasury £985m over four years from 2015, according to Budget documents.  It does mean that aviation is even more under-taxed but the big message is:  APD is here to stay.

Daniel Moylan, the Mayor’s aviation adviser, told the londonnoisesummit earlier this week that “millions on waiting lists have no choice about living under flight paths.”

Decision-makers would do well to heed Moylan’s words when deciding Britain’s future aviation policy.

Planes using Heathrow go over areas of deprivation unmatched by any other major airport in the South East.  It is true that the planes also fly over some very smart areas but anybody proposing the expansion of the airport has got to face up to its impact on some of the poorest communities in the land. 

The figures speak for themselves.  According to the latest Indices of Deprivation (2010), the three local authorities with the highest percentage of deprived people in the country are Hackney, Newham and Tower Hamlets (http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/mar/29/indices-multiple-deprivation-poverty-england).  All are disturbed by noise from both Heathrow and London City.  A report commissioned by HACAN in 2007 from the independent acoustics firm, Bureau Veritas, found that the cumulative noise impact from both airports meant that Poplar in Tower Hamlets was experiencing levels of aircraft noise akin to parts of West London: http://www.hacan.org.uk/resources/reports/st0699.pdf

http://www.hacan.org.uk/resources/reports/hacan.flight.paths.study.pdf (summary).

A total of 10 London boroughs (Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Islington, Waltham Forest, Barking and Dagenham, Greenwich, Lewisham and Lambeth) rank amongst the top 50 most deprived local authorities in the country.  With the possible exception of Barking and Dagenham, all are troubled by Heathrow aircraft.  There is no local authority in the Gatwick or Stansted areas listed in the top 50.

The loudest voices of complaint may come from the wealthier areas of West London but make no mistake many people in the poorer areas are suffering from aircraft noise from Heathrow.  Here’s an email HACAN received last week from the Lambeth/Southwark border:

I really need your advice.  How do we (by we I mean as an area) start to pursue the different people responsible for air traffic and planes to review the use of airspace over the SE11/SE1 area.  In this area we are at the crossroads of the airports (City and Heathrow) and river helicopter traffic and it seems to be an inconvenient truth that is completely ignored.  Perhaps because the area is largely a poor borough and it is a well know fact that less affluent people complain less but that does not mean they are not suffering.  The areas are under constant air plane traffic, no matter the wind direction.  We get both Heathrow and City aircraft.  The level of noise has reached the point that it is disrupting the life of residents, workers, students and those in spiritual prayer. The flights first pass over the area at 04:30 and often continue until 23:00.  At many times of the day there is a plane passing every 60-90 seconds.  This is 7 days a week.  No respite periods are worked into the scheduling.  The flight paths throughout the day are very precise and do not vary much, this means the area gets no respite.  There needs to be better planning for the use of the airspace over the area.  What has been created since mid-2012 is a noise ghetto.  There must be a better way to manage the plane traffic so that they do not use the same route over the same area with such intensity 7 days a week.

In a quality of life survey, looking at all the world’s major cities, published recently, London was way down the list in 38^th place: http://fw.to/qn9igGb   It lost out because of the quality of its environment and the traffic congestion on its streets.  The survey didn’t drill down into the quality of life in particular communities within the cities but studies consistently show that the living environment tends to be worse in low-income areas.  For example, the policy of successive governments of concentrating traffic on main roads and often traffic calming ‘residential’ roads has worsened noise and pollution for many poorer communities who live, in disproportionate numbers, on main roads.  A study I did (Poor Show, 1998) found a fifth of council tenants in the London Borough of Greenwich rated traffic noise as big a problem as crime, with those living on main roads the most concerned.

These are the communities that fly the least.  Whether it is from traffic, trains or planes, they are the victims of what Les Blomberg, the executive director of the US-based Noise Pollution Clearing House called ‘second-hand noise’:  “noise that is experienced by people who did not produce it. Like second-hand smoke, it’s put into the environment without people’s consent and then has effects on them that they don’t have any control over.”  There will be even more second-hand noise from a 3^rd runway at Heathrow.    

I understand the argument made by Heathrow Airport that a new runway could help increase the prosperity of London and thus lift some communities out of poverty and so give more people more choice about where they can live.  But two inescapable facts remain:  there will always be a huge number of people living in social housing in London; and planes using Heathrow go over areas of deprivation unmatched by any other major airport in the South East.       

I’ve been asked why we are jointly organizing a Noise Summit of Tuesday with Let Britain Fly! and London First, two organizations with whom we don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye with on the question of airport expansion.  

The answer is simple.  Doing nothing about noise at Heathrow is not an option.

For some other airports in the country noise may not be a pressing, daily problem.  At Heathrow it is.  According to the European Commission, over 725,000 people live under the Heathrow flight paths (28% of all people impacted by aircraft noise across Europe).  A recent report from MVA consultancy suggests it could be closer to one million: http://www.hacan.org.uk/resources/reports/Understanding_UKCommunity_Annoyance_for_2M_Group_final_03092013.pdf .  Very obviously, not all these residents are seriously disturbed by the noise but even if 5% are, that means that 50,000 people are badly affected.  Many more will find the planes at least very irritating.

Whatever happens regarding Heathrow expansion, the current noise climate created by Heathrow requires action.  With or without a third runway, the aim has got be to cut the number of planes going over any one community in any one week.  There is the possibility that could be achieved through a creative use of respite periods.

Fifteen years ago neither the Government nor the aviation industry were not acknowledging the problem, far less engaging in finding solutions.  That has now changed.  The Noise Summit is an example of that.  I am under no illusions that what helped change attitudes was the defeat of the plans for a 3^rd runway at Heathrow and the subsequent realization by government, business and industry that, if they were to stand even an outside chance of ever getting a third runway, they would need to deal with the noise problem.  But change has happened.  No longer is it taken for granted that the Heathrow noise climate – the worst in Europe and, by some distance, the worst in the UK – is an immutable fact of life.  It is accepted that it must be improved.  The Noise Summit is part of the process to look at ways in which that can be done.     

Today the London’s Mayor is due to launch his low-emission zone for London.  It is an attempt to bring down the seriously high levels of air pollution in London – the highest NO₂ levels of any capital city in Europe, way above the EU legal limits.  

Last month the EU took the first step towards taking legal action against the UK.  It follows the announcement of the European Commission’s Clean Air Policy Package on 18 December which required member states to meet current EU legal limits by 2020 and to achieve further reductions by 2030.

Look at any map and it becomes clear that two of the biggest problem areas are Central London and Heathrow.  The problem at Heathrow arises not just from the aircraft but also from the traffic on the M4 and the M25.

The impressively knowledgeable Simon Birkett, who heads up Clean Air for London, estimates that, for the Heathrow area to meet the EU legal limits by 2020, only 10% of the traffic on the M4 and M25 could be diesel.  And he says that, if a 3^rd runway was in place by 2026 (the planned date for its opening if it is ever built), there would need to be a virtual ban on diesel cars and lorries on the two motorways to meet the legal limits.

This is a very big ask.  Another huge barrier to building a new runway at Heathrow.  Of the other UK airports, only London City risks breaking the EU rules.

For more information: www.cleanairinlondon.org 

On Saturday Nantes was ablaze.  The anger at the proposed new airport outside this city in Western France boiled over:  http://youtu.be/eIgNvAHIVmw.  Up to 60,000 people took part in what was largely a peaceful demonstration:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyZ9aDDqWfQ&list=PLYfjo3JyLy2TBtLWV_afrBLvUCVOzdOWa&feature=share   The local campaign group ACIPA say that the tension rose when the police refused to allow the march to take the normal route through the city.   When part of the march tried to do so it “faced violent police repression shot with rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades”: http://communiques-acipa.blogspot.co.uk/  

I have been to Nantes several times over last few years (although wasn’t there not on Saturday).  The campaign has become a cause célèbre in France.  It has “support committees” in over 200 towns and cities across France and Belgium.  On a regular basis each committee lobbies and demonstrates in its own area.  Over 60 coaches arrived in Nantes on Saturday with supporters from across the nation.

During the last Presidential elections four “peasant” farmers, whose land was threatened by the new airport, went on hunger strike for a month.  They were visited by most of the presidential candidates.  All, except for Hollande and Sarkozy, came out against the airport.

The profile of the campaign wasn’t always so high.  I first met the campaigners in 2008 when five desperate farmers drove through the night to promote their case at a major Heathrow rally.  They subsequently modelled much of their campaign on the successful fight against the 3^rd runway.  In particular, they built up the widest possible alliance of support.

The proposed new airport would be built around 15 miles from the city of Nantes in a landscape dotted with small farms and attractive villages.  It is the classic French countryside, but without the British and their second homes!

The rationale for the new airport has never been entirely clear.  Nantes already has a single runway airport which is under-used.  The regional government argues that the new airport would regenerate the area.  This is hotly contested by the campaigners who commissioned their own report which challenged the government’s economic case: http://www.cedelft.eu/publicatie/review_of_the_social_cost-benefit_analysis_of_grand_ouest_airport_%3Cbr%3E_comparison_with_improvements_of_nantes_atlantique/1191   They argue that the new airport has more to do with boosting the egos of the local politicians – including the former Mayor of Nantes Jean-Marc Aryault who was made Prime Minister under Hollande – than beefing up the economy.

It remains unclear how much support there may be from people in Nantes living under flight path to the current airport for the new airport.  Certainly, it is not visible.  In contrast, the opposition has mushroomed over the last six years.  Local people have been joined by a range of political and environmental organizations as well as the direct action campaigners, many of whom live in tents and tree houses in a local wooded area known as the ZAD.

There have been tensions from time to time between the local community and the direct action activists in the ZAD but last winter the ZAD won huge respect from other parts of the coalition when, in freezing cold conditions, they defied attempts by authorities to remove them.

It is probably impossible at this stage to know what will happen next in Nantes.  But I think it is part of an emerging pattern:  it is becoming increasingly difficult to build major new projects anywhere in Western Europe.  The Nantes campaigners have links with those opposing the HS2 high-speed link in Britain (http://stophs2.org/news/5792-les-grands-projets-inutiles-imposes) through what is known as the Campaign against Useless Imposed Mega-Projects.  It is what is says on the tin!  It includes the NO-TAV movement against high-speed rail in Northern Italy and Save Rosia Montana, the Romanian campaign against a vast cyanide-mined gold extraction project in Western Transylvanian.  Last year the Nantes campaigners hosted the Useless Imposed Mega-Projects’ annual meeting. 

Iain Martin wrote in the Daily Telegraph (14/1/09) about the Heathrow anti-third campaign: “the coalition assembled outside Parliament is extraordinarily wide. It runs from radical eco-warriors to middle-class mothers in west London, hedge fund managers in Richmond, to pensioners and parents in Brentford”.  The links now being made by opponents of mega-projects are in some ways an extension of this.  The anarchist on the streets of Nantes has little in common with the millionaire executive in the Chilterns…….except they are both passionately against a mega-project.

Certain things seem to need to be present for a mega-project to attract opposition from very disparate people.  

• There is a real doubt whether the mega-project is essential for the economy.  The economic case for the new Nantes Airport, HS2, the Rumanian gold-mine and the third runway at Heathrow are all hotly contested.

• The mega-project is site-based, i.e. there is land, homes, countryside or communities to defend.

• The mega-project is attracting significant local opposition.  If the local opposition is non-existent or small, the essential first building block is missing.

• The mega-project must attract outside opposition.  Nantes has become a magnet that has drawn a diverse range of protesters each there for a differ reason: environmentalist; anti-capitalist etc.

The new Nantes airport proposed for this unfashionable part of France has become the classic ‘useless’ mega-project.  I suspect Heathrow Airport – and probably also the promoters of HS2 – will be looking closely at what happens next at Nantes.

But, win or lose, the Nantes protests are part of a pattern.  It is becoming increasingly difficult to build a new runway anywhere in West Europe.  The 3^rd runway at Heathrow has been dropped (for now).  Attempts to build a new runway in Munich and new airports in Siena and Viterbo in Italy were defeated.  Plans for a third runway at Vienna have stalled.  The 4^th runway at Frankfurt only went ahead after an almighyly struggle and  2 ½ years after it opened  there are still constant protests.

Airport expansion protests are bringing together a wide rahne of bedfellows from local residents to anti-captialist anarchists.  It has become an inevitabklre fact oif life.  And a challenge to aynbodty who wants to build a new runway, p[robably anywhere in Western Europe.

The Economy is not dependent on a 3^rd runway at Heathrow.  

Here’s the evidence.

Heathrow Airport is more honest than many of its supporters when making the economic case for a third runway.  They acknowledge that it is not the only game in town.  The issue was highlighted last week when DeAnne Julius, a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England and British Airways chief economist in the 1990s, wrote a piece in the Financial Times (No one answer to the London airport question, 14/2/14 – http://on.ft.com/1c4OyKj) suggesting that a two-hub solution may be best for London’s economy, i.e. a second runway at Gatwick rather than a third runway at Heathrow.

I will return to Julius’s case for Gatwick in a moment but first to acknowledge there is merit in Heathrow’s argument.  Their case is well-known.  The Airport argues that, unless  a third runway is built, London will have fewer direct flights than other European hub cities (Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Madrid) to the key business destinations in emerging economies like China, India and Mexico.  And that this matters because there is evidence that direct flights are an important tool in attracting business.

Heathrow argues that it is only a major hub airport which can provide those flights because the transfer passengers which a hub attracts provide the extra passenger numbers which make frequent flights to these destinations commercially viable.

Organisations like the Independent Transport Commission support this view.  Peter Hind, author of research they commissioned and highlighted in the Financial Times (16/2/14), said “Regular long-haul routes need transfer passengers to supplement those starting or ending journeys locally. Hosting a hub will remain key to sustaining and or developing global aviation connectivity.”  He added: “More UK passengers already transfer via Schiphol and Charles de Gaulle hubs than through Heathrow. Amsterdam, Paris and others are able to compete with London by hosting growing networks.”

Boris and the backers of an Estuary option make a similar argument but go further.  They are arguing for a mega-hub (4 or more runways, 24 hour operation) that would give London the hub airport in Europe.  It would be in the super league alongside Dubai and the fast-expanding airport in Istanbul.  Paris, Frankfurt and the other European hubs would be left behind.

The argument Julius makes is different.  Here’s how she put it in the Financial Times:

“There are clearly advantages to large hub airports, especially for cities with small domestic markets. For Singapore or Dubai, it is imperative to have an airport large enough to attract transfer traffic on which the small domestic market can piggyback. But London is the very opposite of Singapore or Dubai. It is the quintessential international city. It has a big domestic market of business and leisure travellers who want to fly from London. It also attracts large numbers of business and tourist visitors from other countries who want to come to London, not transfer through it. The larger this so-called ‘origin and destination’ traffic is, the smaller will be the benefit to a city of attracting transfer traffic. According to the Airport Commission, London is the largest aviation market in the world (in terms of passenger numbers) and the largest ‘origin and destination’ market. In other words, like New York, London is both large enough and international enough to support two international airports. It does not need to consolidate capacity in a single mega-hub – whether at Heathrow or in the Thames estuary – in the hope of attracting more transfer passengers”.

Her argument rests on this key fact: more passengers (business people and tourists) terminate in London than in any other world city.  Because London is the magnet, Heathrow does not need to expand as a hub in order for transfer passengers to provide sufficient numbers of people to fill flights to destinations across the world that would not otherwise be commercially viable.  If airport capacity is provided – at whatever airport – people will flock to the capital in even larger numbers, drawn by the magnetic pull of London.  London is the hub.  

It is becoming clear that the economy is not dependent on a third runway being built at Heathrow.

Britain’s aviation future will depend on a three-runway hub airport, says a leading transport think-tank, lending weight to the option of expanding London’s Heathrow.

Only such a hub would allow airlines to provide an extensive network of long-haul routes, according to research by the Independent Transport Commission.

Heathrow has been shortlisted by the body set up by the government to study how best to increase the UK’s flight capacity. Gatwick airport has also been shortlisted in the interim report from the panel, chaired by the economist Sir Howard Davies.

Adding its voice to many in the aviation industry who have urged the government to take action to expand flight capacity, the think-tank warns the UK is already falling behind its European rivals.

“Regular long-haul routes need transfer passengers to supplement those starting or ending journeys locally,” said Peter Hind, author of the ITC research. 

“Hosting a hub will remain key to sustaining and or developing global aviation connectivity.” 

He added: “More UK passengers already transfer via Schiphol and Charles de Gaulle hubs than through Heathrow. Amsterdam, Paris and others are able to compete with London by hosting growing networks.”

Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam offer many times better connectivity to emerging market destinations such as Brazil, Russia, India and China, and especially to those such as Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey. Direct flights to these destinations would prove valuable to companies looking to export or extend business to those countries.

The research points out that Heathrow now serves fewer destinations than in 2005. Without new capacity, airlines would be likely to focus on safe routes to mature markets, it noted.

Heathrow is operating at virtually full capacity, with Gatwick also close to that point.

A hub airport, such as Heathrow, offers transferring passengers a wide range of connecting flights to onward destinations and contrasts with airports that offer so-called point-to-point flights.

The research does not explicitly recommend Heathrow over an option such as the London mayor’s Thames estuary hub, however, the estuary hub was not shortlisted by the panel and Boris Johnson has fought to keep the idea alive.

The Davies commission will make its final decision next year.

The findings go against Gatwick’s plan to add another runway, in its dispersed hub model.

John Strickland, an aviation consultant, said: “A three-runway hub is certainly what’s needed. There are no cities in the world where hubs are split into fragments, because the idea will not work.”