Heathrow Flight Numbers Reach BAA’s Terminal 5 Forecast 13 Years Early

BAA had greatly underestimated the number of planes that would use Heathrow.

Pressure Group, HACAN ClearSkies, presents abacus to BAA top management to help them with their sums

The pressure group, HACAN ClearSkies, which represents residents living under the flight path to Heathrow, presented BAA with an abacus to emphasise the extent to which they got their sums wrong over Terminal 5 (1). BAA have proved to be 13 years out-of-date with their forecasts regarding flight numbers at Heathrow. They told the Terminal 5 Inquiry in 1995 that by 2013, passenger flight numbers would reach 453,000 with Terminal 5 and that they would remain at that level. In fact, they reached that number in July of this year.

John Stewart, Chair HACAN ClearSkies, said, “BAA have been utterly discredited. The Inquiry Inspector, who is currently writing his report, must now look very carefully at all their figures. We have made an application to the Guinness Book of Records for the worst forecasting yet by a FTSE 100 Company. Residents fear that unless a cap is set on the number of flights landing at Heathrow the noise will become even more unbearable and safety problems will inevitably get worse.”

Notes for Editors

  1. A group of members of HACAN ClearSkies presented the Abacus, nicely mounted in marble, to BAA headquarters at 130 Wilton Road, London SW1 on Friday 25th August at 11am.

Follow-up: The press release received major coverage in both the local and national media.

October: HACAN ClearSkies launches an illustrated report on the way London’s parks are being blighted by aircraft noise.