The UK’s eight largest airports have plans to fly nearly 150mn extra passengers a yr, the equal of 300,000 additional jumbo jets, in a wager that local weather targets is not going to maintain again the business.
A Monetary Instances evaluation of their growth tasks discovered that mixed they might be capable of deal with 387mn passengers yearly, a greater than 60 per cent enhance on the 240mn travellers who used the airports in 2019.
The figures spotlight how airports are planning for a interval of breakneck progress regardless of important monetary losses in the course of the pandemic. In addition they reveal how the business believes that transformational progress continues to be potential within the lead-up to the deadline in 2050 for the UK to achieve web zero greenhouse gasoline emissions.
Greater than a 3rd of the expansion would come from London Heathrow’s proposed megaproject to construct a 3rd runway. This is able to enhance passenger capability on the UK’s largest airport to 142mn a yr in contrast with the 81mn it dealt with in 2019 earlier than the coronavirus pandemic hit. The airport paused planning in 2020 as Covid-19 shut down the worldwide aviation sector however final month signalled it might resume quickly.
Its chief government John Holland Kaye instructed the FT in February that it was working “with the intention of restarting the planning course of . . . We’ll share what our plans are later this yr.” Any resolution to proceed with the applying is topic to an inner evaluate, which has but to be accomplished.
The opposite tasks are extra modest in scale, and vary from Gatwick’s proposal to fly 30mn extra passengers a yr by bringing its emergency runway into common use, to Manchester’s deliberate growth of one in every of its terminals to deal with an additional 15mn passengers. Edinburgh accomplished the work to boost its capability to 20mn passengers in 2019.
Airport executives and traders mentioned airports have been seeking to push by means of progress plans as a result of many within the business believed that it might solely get harder sooner or later as environmental pressures grew.
Aviation, which is seen as a key driver of financial progress, accounts for 8 per cent of UK emissions and is troublesome to decarbonise due to the challenges concerned to find a viable inexperienced propulsion know-how.
The UK’s most up-to-date coverage framework for airport growth was printed in 2018, and backed a brand new runway at Heathrow and different airports “making finest use” of present infrastructure.
Business executives argue that there isn’t a motive to dam growth on condition that the business has pledged to achieve web zero by 2050. In addition they level to fast advances in quieter plane to assist assuage native considerations about noise air pollution.
That is supported by a Division for Transport paper on decarbonising aviation printed final yr that mentioned airport growth was potential inside the authorities’s local weather change commitments as a result of new applied sciences, similar to cleaner fuels, would assist the aviation business hit web zero by 2050.
However the Committee on Local weather Change, the federal government’s unbiased local weather advisers, has warned that if annual passenger numbers elevated by greater than 25 per cent from 2018 ranges by 2050 then emissions financial savings would wish to return from different sectors to satisfy the legislated carbon targets.
Environmental teams query whether or not any progress in flying is appropriate with reducing carbon emissions, pointing to the numerous technological and monetary hurdles standing in the best way of decarbonising the business.
They argue that the federal government wants a brand new overarching technique to observe the general price of airport growth, and benchmark the mixture image towards local weather commitments.
Alex Chapman, senior researcher on the New Economics Basis, a think-tank that opposes growth, mentioned that at current authorities coverage “successfully sanctions limitless progress within the sector”.
The 2018 airport coverage framework, which guides planning selections, states that the rise in greenhouse gasoline emission attributable to any growth mission should not have “a fabric influence on the flexibility of presidency to satisfy its carbon discount targets”.
However Alistair Watson, accomplice and head of planning and atmosphere at regulation agency Taylor Wessing, mentioned the planning system was “failing” due to a scarcity of nationwide oversight, which meant that every airport’s software was thought-about in isolation and assessed on its native influence. “This planning system . . . shouldn’t be constructed for the debates we now must have,” he added.
Chapman known as on ministers to “take accountability and put exhausting, enforceable targets in place”.
The federal government mentioned the UK had “probably the most formidable methods on this planet to cut back aviation emissions with out impacting this very important sector, and we’re supportive of airport growth the place it may be delivered inside our environmental obligations”.
Bernard Lavelle, a guide and former senior government at London Metropolis and Southend airports, mentioned airports have been “very critical” about reducing their emissions.
He mentioned continued progress was important for the sector, which had extraordinarily excessive mounted prices, starting from safety to air visitors management. “You’ve a number of outgoing prices actually to open the entrance door, however [as passenger numbers rise] airports can then change into fairly worthwhile as a result of prices don’t enhance on the identical price,” he added.
Some smaller airports have managed to push by means of growth plans lately, together with Bristol which received permission to extend the cap on passengers from 10mn to 12mn final yr.
However not all have succeeded, the smaller Leeds Bradford airport scrapped plans for a brand new terminal in 2022 after the federal government intervened and overruled the native council’s resolution to approve the applying, citing considerations concerning the impact on the greenbelt and the broader influence on local weather change.
The problem is prone to transfer up the political agenda once more later this yr if, as anticipated, Heathrow submits its plans for the third runway. Holland-Kaye insisted that the pandemic had strengthened the case for rising the dimensions of the UK’s essential hub airport, after a patchwork of border restrictions minimize off UK passengers from different giant European hubs, similar to Paris and Frankfurt.
“Every little thing we mentioned about the way it was the correct factor to do has been validated,” he mentioned.
Further reporting by Camilla Hodgson
