Volume 02 (2009, Week 02)

Heathrow Third Runway
The Labour government has approved plans to build a third runway for London Heathrow Airport.

On this Thursday (15th of January, 2009), Geof Hoon, the Transport Secretary, announced that the government has approved plans to build a third runway for the-most-hated major international Airport, London Heathrow.

London Heathrow is operating very close to its full capacity (99% of the full capacity according to Geof Hoon). Even though it is the third busiest airport in the world in terms of passenger numbers (behind Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson and Chicago's O'Hare), it has got only two runways, while its much smaller rival European airports have got more runways, hence more capacity and making the journey more pleasant. For example, Frankfurt International Airport has got 3 runways and its plan to build 4th runway is already approved and expected to be in operation in as early as 2010. Amsterdam's Schiphol has got 5 runways and it is the-most-favourite airport in Europe according to Skytrax. Frankfurt handles about 80% of the passengerts that London Heathrow handles and Schiphol handles about 70% of what London Heathrow handles.

Even though, the plan to build Heathrow's third runway has been approved by the government it has a long way to go. The Conservatives promise that if they are elected in the next general election, they'll scrap the plan. The planning is expected to take years, and construction of the third runway is not expected to start till 2015, giving a plenty of chance for Conservatives to scrap the plan, as at least two general elections will be held till then. Also, there will be a lot of resistance from the environmentalist and residents in the area, where the third runway will be built, as 700 houses need to be demolished. The government had already seen some serious protests from the campaigners.

However, people in business and financial sectors welcome the plan and says it is "necessary" that Heathrow expands in order keep London competitive place for businesses and financial institutions. They fear that transatlantic traffic will be diverted to other European cities, such as Frankfurt and Amsterdam from London, if Heathrow fails to increase its capacity and improve its services.

In my opinion, the third runway has to be built for the sake of UK economy. In a way, it is like some of the economic concepts that are quite difficult to explain it to the public, like free trade and spending more in a recession. Of course these concepts are absurd for any individual unless they see a bigger picture. It is very tempting to ask for more protection for domestic manufacturers from foreign competitors in this difficult time, but governments know that if they increase tarrifs on imported goods, then everyone will be worse-off and certainly most economic advisers will remember the disastrous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. Similarly, it sounds unreasonable for governments to ask people spend more when people are facing potential salary-cut or even worse, redundancy in the near future. But, of course the governments know that if people start spending less and less, then economic situation will deteriorate even further.

I think it is similar story for the expansion of London Heathrow, the very gateway for London, even though London has 4 other major international airports (Gatwick, Stansted, City and Luton). Most of the routes to North America Asia are handled by London Heathrow.

People talk about air-pollution, noise-pollution etc. But I think actually having more capacity will make air-pollution per aircraft lower, not taking newer and more-efficient aircrafts into account. More capacity means that aircrafts don't have to be circling around the airport for nothing other than waiting, as much as now. Therefore there will be fewer airplanes in London air, probably even reducing the total air and noise-pollution despite an increase in the air-traffic. But that will depend on the-much-doubted efficiency of the airport itself.