APPENDIX 8
Memorandum submitted by London Redhill
Airport
London Redhill Airport would like to address
the second bullet point, relating to the problems facing Northern
Ireland as a peripheral region of the UK, and suggesting that
the Committee may wish to address in more detail the associated
issue of runway capacity in South East England. We believe that
if this issue is left unresolved for 15 to 20 years as is highly
probable under the current Aviation White Paper proposals, it
is inevitable that more and more UK regions will either have their
frequency of air services to London reduced or lose them altogether.
This is the most critical air transport issue facing the UK regions
today.
The purpose of the recent White Paper on Aviation
was to solve the current and increasing crisis in runway capacity
in particular the London area. We believe that the recommendations
of the White Paper are too little, too late and partly in the
wrong location. Your Committee will be aware that the solution
favoured by the Department for Transport is agreement for BAA
to seek planning permission for one extra runway at Stansted by
2011-12, and one new short runway at Heathrow between 2015 and
2020. If the Heathrow proposal fails to meet environmental concerns,
it could be replaced by planning permission being sought for a
second runway at Gatwick "after 2019".
A speech by BAA's Chief Executive Mike Clasper
to the Institute of Logistics and Transport earlier this year
acknowledged that Stansted would not be ready until 2014 at the
earliest. Many privately believe that it will take longer, and
some that it may never be built. Some of the major UK airlines
are actively lobbying against the development of a runway at Stansted,
a runway which would do very little to enhance regional air accessibility
to the UK's major hub airports, Heathrow and Gatwick, and to London
and the Southeast generally.
Thus, while demand continues to increase, the
capacity to serve it will not. The pressure that this will place
on existing runway capacity will be enormous, and the first victim
is regional air access to London and the SE, as the smaller, regional
aircraft are forced out of London's airports by larger and more
profitable services. This process is well under way now (Heathrow
has lost over half its regional services and Gatwick has also
lost services whilst others cannot be developed or increased in
frequency due to lack of appropriate runway slots). As an example
British Airways pulled out of the London Heathrow Belfast route
to use the slots for other more lucrative routes after over 50
years service. Without new runways or slot protection, which the
Government seems to disfavour, more regional routes will be lost
over time. It is worth noting that if PSO slot protection is introduced,
particularly for a third runway at Heathrow, such slot protection
will have the effect of lowering the income to the Airport Operator,
and thereby its ability to fund the runway.
London Redhill Airport is a privately owned
and managed airport, totally independent of the BAA, which operates
just four miles north of London Gatwick Airport. Detailed plans
have been put before the Department for Transport to upgrade the
current grass runway into a reliever runway for Gatwick, the two
terminals linked by a short stretch of dedicated rail track, while
the airport itself will be linked to the adjacent M23 by a short
spur. The proposed 2,000 metre runway at London Redhill Airport,
with full parallel taxiway, would enable short and medium haul
jets to operate up to 250,000 air transport movements a year,
and could be in operation within four years of planning approval.
It is intended to find a mechanism whereby a significant number
of these "slots" can be reserved for domestic regional
scheduled routes. Not only will this runway provide links to central
London by road and rail as good as those already enjoyed by passengers
to London Gatwick, but the direct rail link between the Redhill
and Gatwick airports will be frequent and fast, and offer onward
connections as quick as those today between the two separate terminals
at Gatwick. This will be at no cost to the taxpayer.
The Future of the Air Transport White Paper
neither supported nor discounted the development of Redhill. It
said that in the "absence of evidence to prove or disprove
Redhill's contentions, we remain unconvinced that development
of Redhill would be a feasible proposition". The Government's
reservations were based on unsubstantiated concerns expressed
by NATS and the CAA about ATC and airspace issues. We understand
that these concerns were based entirely on limited work done in
1992 for a completely different project. NATS have told us that
none of the short-listed runway sites in the White Paper have
been subject to detailed ATC or Airspace appraisal or simulation
and they are therefore in exactly the same position as London
Redhill. Air Traffic Management and Airspace Planning work on
the Stansted and Heathrow options is, we understand, currently
taking place.
The significance of the Redhill proposal to
Northern Ireland—and indeed to all peripheral regions of
the United Kingdom—is that there appears to be no other
way of protecting lifeline routes from the remoter parts of the
nation to London, and specifically to an airport with onward links
to the wider world. In the wake of British Airways withdrawal
from Heathrow to Belfast, we could understand that bmi, as a member
of the Star Alliance, will increasingly come under pressure to
use its scarce Heathrow slots for the inter-continental services
of its part owners, Lufthansa and SAS and others. We are aware
that FlyBe has recently sold some of its Heathrow slots for £12
million a pair to British Airways, Qantas and Virgin Atlantic,
and now recognises that its slot portfolio is worth more to its
shareholders than most of the routes currently operated, which
probably includes its services to Belfast.
The root cause of all these problems is the
shortage of runway capacity in the South East of England, and
the lack of any plans to rapidly increase such capacity to protect
routes from the regions to London.
Your Committee will be aware that the Department
for Transport is currently holding its own consultation on the
Protection of Regional Air Services to London, to which we will
also be responding.
You may have noticed the paragraph away on page
4 of Appendix A of that Consultation which states:
"there are currently 17 routes from UK
regions to London airports. We have no evidence that any of these
services is about to be withdrawn or reduced and consider that
there is very little risk of reductions to trunk domestic routes.
However the pressure on slots at London hubs will increase in
future years and it is possible that more regional services out
of London might be threatened".
We find the relaxed attitude of the Department
to this major threat to the regions surprising and worrying in
view of the market pressure.
We wish the Northern Ireland Committee to be
aware of the possibilities that could be available to the Northern
Ireland community so that, if it so chooses, it may follow up
this concept by seeking discussion with the House of Commons Transport
Committee who have twice endorsed the unique potential of Redhill
in their reports on Regional Air Services in 1998 and Aviation
in 2003, or directly with the Department itself.
16 September 2004
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