Air, Freight News

Has Boris finally accepted defeat over airport in the estuary?

[ September 1, 2014   //   Chris ]

The Government’s Airports Commission is on the verge of finally ruling out Mayor Boris Johnson’s plan for an airport in the Thames Estuary to replace Heathrow, according to the Heathrow Hub campaign. It adds that Mr Johnson has already started to subtly change his strategy, suggesting now in a newspaper column today (1 September) that Heathrow could remain open though as “an Orly-style airport.” (Orly being the second Paris airport after Charles de Gaule.

And a new report by the CBI published on 1 September reiterated themployers’ organisation’s belief that having a single UK hub with spare capacity to add new routes is critical to the UK’s long-term sustainable growth.

CBI says that with the UK’s hub capacity at Heathrow already full, the UK is falling behind on direct flights to emerging markets. The report highlights that by drawing heavily on transfer passengers, the UK’s EU competitors with their own unconstrained capacity are creating connections to new destinations such as Xiamen in China and Recife in Brazil, as well as links to the major markets of the future, like Peru, Indonesia, Taipei and Chile.

Tags: CBI, Heathrow Hub