Tuesday 23 April 2013

Why Boris is wrong about another airport in the Estuary




According to an airport chief executive the UK has enough airports to serve 300 Million people, instead of the 60 Million odd we actually have.  So why do we need yet another airport in the Thames/ Medway estuary? The correct answer is that we don’t.

The Chief Executive of Birmingham airport, Mr Kehoe, says that we have overcapacity in our regional airports. There are 20 airports handling commercial flights in an area stretching from Southampton to Leeds.

The Department for Transport reports that passenger numbers in the UK have now fallen for the third year running after a boom in 2007 which Mr Kehoe attributes to a short lived boom in budget travel. The Department for Transport figures show there were nearly 211 million terminal passengers at UK airports in 2010, a fall of 12% since the peak in 2007
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/9010/aviation-summary.pdf

Several airports have closed recently. Plymouth City Airport shut in 2011 and Bristol’s Filton Aerodrome closed last year.

Blackpool’s passenger numbers have fallen by 42 per cent since 2007 and Norwich’s have halved.
http://www.birminghampost.net/birmingham-business/birmingham-business-news/other-uk-business/2013/04/04/birmingham-airport-chief-fears-cardiff-sale-could-skew-airline-industry-65233-33114006/

So please will someone tell Boris that we don’t need any more airport capacity – we already have too much.

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