Regional Airports Look Set To Grow At Expense Of London Airports

The new coalition government have set out their stall to promote regional airports

having already overturned the previous Labour Governments approval of the third runway at Heathrow and have made it clear that neither Gatwick nor Stansted will get a second runway.

When in opposition they followed the line that London already had more than its fair share of the overall UK market. As at October 2010 the total number of passengers flying from UK airports per year was 212 million of which the four London airports contributed 125.5 million or just short of 60%.

This is lead the by Heathrow with a massive 66 million, followed by Gatwick at 31.5 million and Stansted at 18.8m with Luton the smallest of the four recording 8.7 million in 6th place behind Manchester with 17.6 million and Edinburgh 8.8 million.

Instead of developing the London airports they intend to build a high speed rail network to move domestic internal traffic from airports to rail as parts of its green campaign to reduce the UKs carbon emissions.

By doing this they hope to free up capacity especially at Heathrow which will be taken up by more international traffic. They also want to see more long haul flights taking off from the regional airports such as Birmingham and East Midlands in the centre of the country and at Manchester and Newcastle in the north.

From an airline view point they would rather concentrate these flights in as few places as possible because of the benefits of economies of scale. For instance the more crew, check in staff and aircraft there are based at one airport the greater flexibility they have in operation and less costs.

Moreover, the larger the catchment area the higher the chances are of filling their aircraft. Clearly, it is in the interest of the operator to encourage passengers to travel to where they want them to be rather than the other way round.

In essence the government wants to alter this scenario and the transport minister has indicated that this could be done by having lower airport taxes at the regional airports such as Birmingham which is centrally located and will have direct access to the new high speed rail link.

At present if you wish to fly from a smaller local airport in the UK you usually have to pay a premium to do so, which if you are travelling alone or as a couple may make it worthwhile after allowing for the cost of travelling further, however, for a family the extra may be substantial.

Clearly, the carrot will have to be substantial for airlines to be persuaded both on margins and operational convenience to establish aircraft at these airports. All the signs are that under this government the regional airports should gain ground because without extra runways Heathrow and Gatwick will struggle to manage increased work loads.

Indeed the recent snow has ably shown where there is the slightest delay at these airports because there is no slack in the system the terminals quickly turn into an uncontrollable mass of people and getting back on track can take days rather than hours.

For the travelling public of the UK cheaper flights from regional airports will be welcomed as long as the prices are competitive with the bigger airports.

by: David Cook

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