Special Report: Airport expansion can’t outpace airspace modernisation

UK aviation needs to operate “almost perfectly” every day, with capacity stretched and the system at its limits, according to the head of air traffic management system Nats.

Martin Rolfe, Nats chief executive, insisted “our resilience is pretty high” when he addressed the Airlines 2025 conference in London earlier this month, arguing: “Canada has the same amount of aviation [as Britain] with 10 times more space.

 

“The challenge is that the capacity we have is stretched. It has to run almost perfectly every day.”

 

However, that did not stop Virgin Atlantic chief customer and operating officer Corneel Koster hailing both Nats and Heathrow for a “fantastic summer” this year.

 

More: Government confirms £49bn Heathrow scheme for third runway

 

Koster told the conference: “Our industry’s resilience has been tested this year. The system is so congested, it’s not resilient.”

 

Yet he hailed “great work” by Heathrow and Nats, saying: “Heathrow ran a fantastic summer this year [and] we had great cooperation with Nats.”

 

British Airways chief executive Sean Doyle reported “the best punctuality we’ve ever had at Heathrow this year”, although he attributed the improvement to BA making “a lot of changes to how we operate at Heathrow”.

 

The performance in the UK was in sharp contrast to that across continental Europe.

 

Warren Brody, chief executive of airport ground handler Swissport, told the conference: “We plan for delays in Europe. We assume in advance there will be delays.”

 

Tui Airline chief executive Marco Ciomperlik praised the performance of the UK but also highlighted a challenge specific to Britain when flights are disrupted, pointing out: “People in France, Germany and the Benelux countries are used to going to the airport two or three hours by rail. [But] people in the UK love to fly from their home airport.

 

“That is operationally quite challenging. If there is a problem, it’s tricky to recover.”

 

Questioned about the power failure which closed Heathrow for 24 hours in March, Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye admitted it was “embarrassing” that he had slept through the first night of the shutdown but insisted: “What is important is that all the right decisions were taken. An airport like Heathrow should not depend on one person.”

 

‘Lack of ambiguity’ in government

Rob Bishton, chief executive of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), highlighted the increasing threats to aviation posed by drones and cyberattacks and warned: “It would be unrealistic to say they are not going to cause disruption. What is important is that we limit the impact when something happens.”

 

However, Bishton noted two advantages of the UK aviation sector when it comes to growth.

 

He argued: “The lack of ambiguity in this government’s thinking is helpful. We need a stable and clear political environment, which is largely what we have, and a stable regulatory environment which we have.”

 

Bishton added: “The competitive aspect of the UK [aviation] industry is important. We have a very resilient consumer base. The reason people want to invest [in aviation] in the UK is because of the market.”

 

With the government supporting construction of a third runway at Heathrow as well as development of a second runway at Gatwick and expansion at Luton and London City – the modernisation of UK airspace will be crucial, especially in the southeast.

Bishton said: “We’re trying to work through the challenges of airspace modernisation, [with] 2035 a reasonable timeframe for working through the flightpaths for a third runway at Heathrow.”

 

Nats chief Martin Rolfe argued: “You can’t bring new runways online without modernising airspace.”

 

However, he warned: “It’s going to be contentious. As flight paths change, new people will be affected [by noise] and that is controversial.

 

“Aircraft are considerably quieter than they were, but that doesn’t matter to someone who moved into a house not expecting any aircraft noise.”

 

Tui Airline chief executive Marco Ciomperlik hailed the UK’s progress on airspace modernisation to date, saying: “In the EU, airspace modernisation is a non-event.”

 

He added: “When I look at the UK’s [airport] expansion plans, this would be almost impossible in the EU.”

 

Asked about Heathrow expansion, before approval was granted, BA chief executive Doyle insisted: “We support expansion at Heathrow, [but] we need to build this runway as quickly and cheaply as we can.”

 

He rejected the suggestion that BA has an advantage so long as Heathrow does not expand since it holds more than half the slots at the airport, saying: “There are a lot of markets we’d like to expand into that we can’t.”

 

Koster, who is due to take over from Shai Weiss as Virgin Atlantic chief executive from January, agreed. He noted: “We’re very pleased the government is looking at the value of Heathrow expansion. It can’t come at any cost.”

 

Border queues ‘are largely gone’

The head of the UK’s Border Force, director general Phil Douglas, insisted the problem of persistently long delays at Heathrow immigration had been solved.

 

He argued the UK has “a good story to tell” on cutting queues at immigration, insisting: “The airport queues on the front pages of newspapers 10 years ago are largely gone.”

 

Douglas reported “the best summer in years” and said: “We’re not interested in making people queue [and] we’ve not had reports of queues.”

 

He promised further transformation “in the next two years”, saying: “We’re going to enforce ETAs [electronic travel authorisations] from next February. People will go through the e-gates and we’ll target people only where we feel there is a risk.”

 

Douglas contrasted introduction of the EU’s Entry-Exit System (EES), and what he called its “clunky process”, in October with a Border Force trial of contactless technology at Manchester airport in the same month, and said: “I would envisage in 10 or 20 years we’ll have pre-clearance systems so finely tuned that we’re making decisions on who gets into the country when passengers are boarding the plane.”

 

He added: “What next? A lot of the technology is already there – technology that recognises faces, that recognises a passenger has checked in. 

 

“We’re on the cusp of linking that all together. But collectively we don’t really trust each other, so there is a challenge.”