Bigger airports will get growth off the ground
Anyone who believes in growth should applaud rumours that Rachel Reeves will allow London’s airports to expand, says Jasper Ostle
Rachel Reeves is rumoured to be throwing her authority behind the expansion of Britain’s airports, particularly Heathrow, Luton and Gatwick. It’s a courageous effort to accelerate necessary development: she will face opposition from colleagues, local blockers and environmentalists. Anyone who describes themselves as pro-growth should be supporting it.
After all, Britain’s airports have been operating beyond their capacity for a long time, as anyone who’s spent two hours queueing in security at Luton can attest. Heathrow, for example, is – by passenger volume – the busiest airport in Europe. A staggering 83 million globetrotters passed through its boarding gates last year. And yet, unlike almost all the other top-10 busiest airport in the world (Heathrow is fourth), it’s limited to just two runways. Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest, has five runways for only 25 per cent more flyers.
But how would expansion benefit us? To begin with, additional runways make flights cheaper for Brits. Frontier Economics forecast that prices could fall as much as 20 per cent from Heathrow’s third runway. It also bypasses Britain’s archaic airport regulations. As the Adam Smith Institute previously explained, runway access is inefficient, based on ‘grandfathering’ systems that allow established airlines to inherit runway slots for free, without competition from more efficient alternatives. A third runway would open space to platform cheaper competitors.
More flights carry tourists and their spending. Our World in Data calculates international tourist expenditure in the UK to be over £70bn, beating France, Italy and Mexico. And it’s not just tourists arriving in the UK, but trade too. In 2019, more than a fifth of total UK trade passed through – that’s £188bn. In 2015, the Airports Commission calculated a third runway would deliver another £55bn and 180,000 jobs to the British economy. Increased freight capacity and more direct routes would also make the UK a more internationally competitive trade partner, especially to distant-yet-emerging markets in, for example, South East Asia. Pertinent, considering our recent ascension to the trade-liberalising CPTPP last month.
Other airports deserve expansion too. Increasing Luton’s passenger capacity could provide an additional £1.5bn each year. Moving Gatwick’s Northern Runway 12 metres to the left could raise another billion, allowing its concurrent use with its main runway.
Misplaced fears
We must embrace opportunities for economic growth, not decry them. Yet some do. Local residents near Heathrow fear another runway will increase noise pollution. However, it would actually allow for greater runway alternation – distributing noise more equally amongst local communities by rotating where planes depart and arrive. In 2014, the Civil Aviation Authority modelled that, come 2040, 15 per cent fewer people would be affected by noise disturbances thanks to the flight path alterations a third runway affords.
Well-meaning environmentalists hear the mechanic whirrs of air traffic as the death knell of Britain’s green ambitions. This is not the case. Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs) are made from non-fossil based sources. Reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent, they’re being implemented across the industry. UKDayOne illustrates other ways that air travel can grow alongside greater carbon-neutrality: “fleet upgrades… nature based carbon sequestration, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and other carbon offsets” are all being developed and deployed.
Aviation is innovating towards decarbonisation. But that can only happen by letting airports expand, because decarbonisation is paid for by growth in the industry itself. It’s private companies that have phased SAFs into Gatwick for the past four years. Stagnant industries don’t innovate.
Aviation is innovating towards decarbonisation. But that can only happen by letting airports expand, because decarbonisation is paid for by growth in the industry itself. It’s private companies that have phased SAFs into Gatwick for the past four years. Stagnant industries don’t innovate
D R Thorpe’s biography of Harold Macmillan recounts an occasion when the former Prime Minister rebutted his grandson’s lamentation of the ever-present noise from nearby Gatwick, disturbing him in their peaceful Sussex garden. Macmillan retorted that it was a good thing – people were taking holidays they could previously only dream of. He identified such formative experiences would encourage them to vote Conservative at the next election, which they did. Politicians could learn from the 1st Earl of Stockton to enjoy the gentle hum of distant aircraft; they carry prosperity – and future votes – with them.
Jasper Ostle is engagement and operations manager at the Adam Smith Institute