Want to improve Heathrow? Build railways
The controvery around the expansion of Heathrow keeps on rumbling. There is no doubt that having a hub like Heathrow near London is a boon to the regional economy. Beyond the immediate benefits to employment, the multiplier effect is substantial. You cannot fly (for instance) from Bangui direct to Moscow. However, you can get from just about anywhere to London because lots of airlines use Heathrow as their transfer hub. That has implications for tourism (if it’s easy to reach, more people will visit) and business (it’s a good place to base yourself and to meet).
Expanding Heathrow falls into two broad categories; terminals and runways. While building and revamping terminals can increase the speed of embarkation & disembarkation, make customs easier and generally make the airport experience more pleasant1, they can’t do much about take-off and landing slots2.
The argument is really about building a third runway. There isn’t enough space to run more flights; Heathrow is full and, unless airlines can expand there, they will move to Paris Charles de Gaulle or Frankfurt Hahn airports. To an extent, I accept that logic and I think a loss of pre-eminence for Heathrow would be damaging for UK plc.
However, that view does not look at things in the round. Geography comes into play. The Channel Tunnel notwithstanding, Britain is an island at one edge of Europe. The seaways surrounding Britain mean that many places outside our country can only be reached by air in a way that does not apply to Mitteleurope.
It is precisely that argument that means the UK must use this precious resource - airspace - carefully. One wonders, then, why we are using valuable landing slots at an international airport to fly to Manchester, Paris and other, nearby cities. The answer, of course, is obvious. Transport in Britain isn’t good. For one thing, the trains are slow, unreliable, overcrowded & expensive and the fare structure is bewildering. If you go to Euston wanting a return to Birmingham, you have to work out whether you qualify for a Super Saver, a Network Away Break, an Apex or one of the other fares. To compound it, transfers in London aren’t as easy as they might be. Crossrail will improve matters, as will the other transport improvements coming with the Olympics. The economic benefits of Heathrow are biased towards the south-east because our poor transport infrastructure makes it hard to move about the country.
As it stands, it’s often easier and, amazingly, cheaper to fly between London and Manchester. If, though, we are serious about maintaining Heathrow’s position at the very top of the major airports league, we need to make sure that its slots are being used for flights that can’t be replicated with rail. There is a cascade effect, so if the other London airports have national slots freed up, short & medium haul flights can move there from Heathrow, freeing up space for intercontinental travel.
If we are serious about reducing our carbon emissions and maintaining our good links to the world and the economic benefits they give us, we would be well advised spending at least some of the time and effort we have spent on Heathrow on improving our railways.
xD.
1 - I know people complain about Heathrow, but it’s a lot better than some other airports. Los Angeles LAX, for instance, is dire.
2 - Passenger loading isn’t the limiting factor so much as fuelling; in any case, aircraft spend time ‘turning and burning’ waiting for a slot as it is.
