News: Report gives green light to airport expansion plans

Flights > News > # 1125 (15/12/2006)

A host of ambitious airport expansion projects have been given the green light from the Government despite increasing concern about the damage caused to the environment by the aviation industry.
Transport secretary Douglas Alexander published his progress report on the Government’s 2003 Future of Air Transport White Paper yesterday, outlining New Labour’s vision of UK air travel up to 2030.
The report will send a shiver down the spine of anyone hoping for a slowdown in the growth of the UK flights market. Controversial plans for a third runway at Heathrow, a second runway at London Stansted and a runway extension at Birmingham International have all been given official stamp of approval subject to planning approval. There was also further encouragement for regional airports to grow. Mr Alexander said the Government must ensure that the UK has the airport capacity it needs to enhance its economic performance.
In a nod to the environment, Mr Alexander added that the report confirmed the Government’s intention that aviation should meet its climate change costs and should limit noise and pollution at airports across the country. He said that since the original White Paper was published in December 2003 there has also been progress within Europe on including aviation in the EU emissions trading scheme.
Anti-airport campaigners have been left bewildered by the report. The chairman of Heathrow protest group HACAN ClearSkies, John Stewart, said: “Air travel is growing at an unsustainable rate. This is another example of the Government talking tough on climate change but doing nothing.”

Comment:

This latest White Paper update was never going to go down well with the environment lobby, even considering the latest increases in air passenger duty.

The problem that many of the local airport opposition groups will have to face is that even if all their wishes come true - higher air passenger duty, VAT on flights, duty on aviation fuel and higher oil prices - we still think that the number of flights taken from UK airports would continue to grow. Some of the above challenges airlines face can be counterbalanced by increasing fuel efficiency, better management of airspace, and other cost-cutting measures, but even if the days of the very cheapest flight giveaways might now be over, the cat is out of the bag, and we have all become accustomed to catching cheap flights just as easily as we can catch a train.

The Stern Report has given more fuel to the anti-aviation fire, although airlines are still claiming that this document, together with the latest White Paper update, shows that their contribution to carbon dioxide emissions remains, and will remain, negligible. So putting these concerns aside (we have made plenty of comments on this topic elsewhere on Flightmapping.com), how much of the global warming debate is really just an additional tool for airport objectors to use when their complaints are really (and quite understandably) about noise and increased traffic?