News: Tories fight back over BA Heathrow jibe
Flights > News > # 1922 (06/10/2008)
The Conservatives have accused British Airways’ chief executive Willie Walsh of “spinning the figures” over the number of Heathrow flights that could be replaced by high-speed rail services.
Mr Walsh slammed the Tories last week after they said they would scrap plans to build a third runway at Heathrow in favour of developing a new high-speed rail link between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.
He said the idea that a rail link from Leeds and Manchester to Heathrow would be an adequate substitute for a third runway “beggars belief” because flights to Manchester and Leeds were less than three per cent of Heathrow’s current traffic.
Shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers, accused both Walsh and the Government of trying to play down the positive impact of high-speed rail lines to bludgeon through the runway project.
She said: “BA and the Government are trying to spin the figures on flights which could be displaced by a high-speed line. They are assuming that flights to destinations like Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Rotterdam would carry on as normal, but high-speed lines into the Channel Tunnel Rail Link would have a dramatic impact on them.
"Willie Walsh is challenging our figures on the basis that only Leeds and Manchester flights are included.”
Ms Villiers said that, based on the Government’s own figures, there were 63,200 flights last year between Heathrow and the six destinations – 13,200 to Leeds and Manchester and 50,000 to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
“If roughly 63,200 flights were substituted by high-speed rail, that would free up slots at Heathrow equivalent to 28pc of the total 222,000 capacity the Government say would be generated by a third runway,” she said.
She added that her calculations could be conservative because flights to other European destinations might also be affected by a new high-speed rail network.
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