News: Newquay airport rebuffs Greenpeace claims
Flights > News > # 1226 (20/03/2007)
Newquay airport has rebuffed claims that domestic flights to Cornwall are bad for the environment.
Airport bosses were angered claims made by Greenpeace in an article in Saturday’s issue of The Independent newspaper. This week sees the launch of British Airways’ new daily flights from London Gatwick to Newquay, but whilst many in Cornwall see this as a much needed lifeline to the capital, the green lobby have other ideas.
Greenpeace is trying to encourage people who have booked on BA’s flights to Newquay from Gatwick to take the train instead. The environmental campaign group has even offered to give free rail tickets to passengers who swap the plane for the train.
Greenpeace claim planes produce ten times as much carbon dioxide emissions as trains, but Newquay airport argues that flying to Cornwall from London is no more environmentally damaging that taking the train or driving.
A spokesman for the airport’s owners, Cornwall County Council, said taking into account the wider environmental impacts, flying is probably the most environmentally sustainable mode of transport, as well as being far quicker and cheaper.
He added that passengers using the service have also paid for the social costs of the carbon emitted five times over through the air passenger duty and paid double in tax than they would on a return flight to Malaga.
He said: "In seeking to mark Newquay out for a wider campaign against the aviation industry, Greenpeace has failed to understand the special circumstances which mean that the averaged statistics used by anti-aviation lobbying organisations do not apply in this case. They have also completely ignored the important role the airport and air services play in meeting the travelling needs of Cornish residents and visitors to Cornwall and in supporting the Cornish economy."
Greenpeace say the rail service compares positively on both price and convenience on the route between London and Newquay. Greenpeace's senior transport campaigner, Emily Armistead, told The Independent: "This is absolutely unnecessary. There are already companies flying this route. It demonstrates BA does not give a damn about climate change no matter what they say.”
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Comment:
Greenpeace have been trying to whip up a tidal wave of controversy over these flights without making any effort to substantiate their figures. Comparisons between flights and train journeys need to make a true account of the actual occupancy levels of the journeys, because it is all too easy to make the disingenuous claim that trains will always be full. In the long run, we believe that high speed rail services ought to be able to offer a true alternative to short-haul flights, but in order for this to happen, there have to be a number of provisos:
Trains need to be electric powered, and this electricity needs to be produced from renewable sources.
High-speed trains need to run on their own dedicated tracks, or better still, be contact free Maglevs.
New rail routes need to be financially viable, and in order to do this, they need to connect urban areas with high population densities.
To be a realistic alternative for flights on the main trunk routes, train services need to be high frequency and direct.
However much we support the principle of substituting flights for train journeys, just how many of the above criteria apply for journeys between London and Newquay? By our count, precisely zero, thus making Greenpeace's claims completely irrelevant. It might be true that First Trains will be launching a new direct train service to Newquay, but this route does not even start until June. Moreover, our understanding is that these new Gatwick to Newquay flights are operated by an aircraft which was previously allocated on London to Glasgow flights. The transport corridor between London and Scotland is sufficiently heavily trafficked for high-speed rail facilities to be a very realistic alternative to flying, but we don't see how any major rail upgrade in the West Country is ever going to be viable beyond Plymouth.
Meanwhile, environmental groups' continued obsession with domestic flights will do nothing to further their cause. Domestic flights currently only account for around 13% of all departures from UK airports, and less than 4% of all the pollution caused by flying from the UK. Despite this miniscule contribution to the problem, there is an irrational demand from both environmentalists and politicians to introduce new taxes on these flights. Air passenger duty is already applied twice on these routes, because it has to be paid on the return journey, as well as on the outbound flight. As well is shooting themselves in the foot with insane and illogical arguments, there is also the potential for considerable and unnecessary economic damage to the UK tourism industry if we do not apply some commonsense on these matters. Of course, aviation should cover its environmental costs, and in terms of global warming, it is perfectly clear that this is already done so many times over through air passenger duty. Don’t blame the airlines for the government’s failure to put this huge pot of gold into improving public transport or aiding green causes.
The environmental impacts of aviation extend well beyond global warming, and the noise footprints around airports should not be discounted, however small they might happen to be in this case. It would be far more useful if Greenpeace could apply a little bit more honesty in their arguments, and spend some time producing some realistic figures for the local impacts of aviation. In the meantime, passengers looking for flights to and from Newquay now have a choice of three different airlines, and the real battle of Newquay will be how competition unfolds between them.
Newquay is a tiny player in terms of the overall UK aviation market, but it is growing quickly, and this development itself has not been without controversy, regardless of the green brigade. With Ryanair having already halved their number of Newquay flights in protest at the imposition of an airport development fee, and British Airways themselves having previously pulled out of the southwest, we are sure that the surf is not up yet for this market.
