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City bosses tell Heathrow to reduce flights
Joe Murphy, Political Editor25.06.08
Heathrow is hopelessly over-stretched and should consider fewer flights, a report said today.
Cutting the number of flights could have a dramatic impact on the pig's ear of delays, queues and cancellations at the airport, claimed the study by business group London First.
"The costs to passengers of losing the flight, particularly at peak, would also need to be weighed against the benefit of greater certainty that flights will take off and arrive on time," it said. "Nevertheless, this intervention could have a dramatic impact on flight delays."
Heathrow currently runs at 99 per cent of its official capacity, carrying 218 million passengers. A reduction to 94 per cent would cut delays by 15 per cent, said the study. In the long term, a third runway would raise capacity.
In the short term there should either be fewer flights or a higher capacity by using "mixed mode" take offs and landings in each direction on the two runways. The report castigated long delays, queues, poor service and shabby, substandard facilities. It blamed the Civil Aviation Authority for allowing outdated regulations to act as "warped incentives" towards overcrowding and against efficiency and better customer care.
The findings were presented to Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly today. London First said Heathrow was so bad that the capital's future as a global business centre was at risk.
"London needs Heathrow to be world class. It isn't," said the report.
"The poor quality of the passenger experience at Heathrow poses a substantial threat to the sustainability of and the UK, as a fulcrum of the global economy." It follows years of growing criticism of "Heathrow hassle" and frustration that improvements have not been delivered.
Today's report uniquely analysed how red tape governing the airport affected the way it is run - and concluded that many problems could be
tackled simply by abolishing or amending regulations.
Some regulations even made the situation worse. They encouraged the maximum number of flights to be squeezed into the schedules, with the result that any disruption turned into chaos. With the airport at 99 per cent full capacity, anything from a technical fault to bad weather had " severeknock on effects".
In another example, price controls meant operators were rewarded for new facilities but lost money on repair and maintenance. The result was that new buildings soon turned shabby.
London First chief executive Baroness Jo Valentine said: "Heathrow has been turned from a silk purse to a sow's ear."
Reader views (3)
You only have to go back to the Public Inquiries of Heathrow's Terminal 4 and Terminal 5 to realise how BAA and BA aims were to get more planes meaning more transfer passengers who added - apart from a cup of tea or coffee- nothing to this UK economy.
Now LondonFirst have joined the long queue of people who have suddenly realised that it's quality, not quantity, that will draw in the customers.
BAA's final admission that they couldn't manage a much advertised "smooth opening" of Terminal 5 must raise serious doubts, all round, about how they could ever manage any other developments.
No wonder they stuck to the "good for the country economy" routine at these public inquiries. There was no other excuse.
- Mark, London UK
Can anyone explain why we don't invest in and use Manston in Kent as a major London airport - long enough runway, room to expand (especially flights able to go over the sea instead of urban centres) and not too hard to expand the rail that already goes close by!
- Rs, London, UK
Heathrow may be one of the world's busiest airports, but it doesn't have to be one of the world's most inhospitable. Curiously, I have found many European (and some US) airports to be of a far better standard and actually want passengers to relax within them ... great incentive to get people to spend. Sadly, I can't think of many UK airports that would fall into that category. The predominant thought seems to be to treat passengers as a herd ... hardly likely to make people want to repeat the experience on a regular basis!
- Matthew, United Kingdom
