Regional airports have an essential role to play, says Sir Howard Davies
REGIONAL airports such as Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh have an “essential role” to play over the next decade in helping the UK meet a “capacity crunch” in the South East, the chairman of the Airports Commission has said.
Speaking at the Runways UK conference at Manchester Airport, Sir Howard Davies said a new runway at Heathrow or Gatwick – which is the Commission’s recommendation – would not be ready until 2025-2016, and before this point the regions should continue to develop new long haul routes.
He told the audience that the Airports Commission had decided that the region’s do not pose a long-term answer to the essential question that it was set up to address which is how does the UK maintain its status as a global hub for aviation?
He said the Commission had considered, and then rejected measures to incentivise airlines to route away from Heathrow and Gatwick to the regions.
“We looked at an ability to reduce air passenger duty and also some kind of congestion charge on the airports where capacity is full,” he said.
“We felt though that this could weaken the UK as it may lead to fewer long haul routes. We also felt that on environmental grounds – which is an important part of the debate – that it was not a long-term solution, because it could ultimately lead to more journeys (if they have to travel back to the South East) and inconvenience for passengers.”
He also told TheBusinessDesk it is “not ideal” that traffic is being diverted away from the UK via regional airports to European hubs such as Amsterdam Schipol, and that most regional airports had told him that they would like to be able to offer their passengers more links to Heathrow and Gatwick.
