The boss of Gatwick has challenged claims by the Airports Commission that passenger charges would have to more than double to pay for the airport to expand.
Chief executive Stewart Wingate also claimed that plans to build a second runway at the airport would not need support from public money, appearing to contradict a warning issued by commission chairman Sir Howard Davies.
Wingate spoke out after the commission estimated that airport charges for passengers would have to increase from £9 to as much as £23.
He told the Mail on Sunday: “We’ll commit to delivering what we said we would do which is to have passenger charges at £15,’ he said, so fares would not rise as much as Sir Howard fears.
Sir Howard said last week that the proposal for a new runway at Gatwick and rival plans to expand Heathrow could all need financial support from the Government.
He claimed that all of the options could be funded commercially, but the government “may have to consider whether it would have to facilitate that financing” – understood to mean that taxpayers might have to underwrite part of the funding.
But Wingate insisted that taxpayers will not have to finance a second runway at Gatwick.
“We are not looking for a penny of incremental public spending for our scheme,” he said. “We can absolutely guarantee that our plan is properly funded. I do not see why the taxpayer should help us.”
Wingate is sticking by his funding estimate for the second runway at Gatwick of £7.8 billion. The Airports Commission claims the real cost would be £9.3 billion.
Gatwick’s plan would see a new runway built about less than a mile away from the existing one, on land set aside for that purpose – but not used – a decade ago. About 30,000 people would be affected, according to Wingate.
But a new runway at Heathrow would affect 700,000 people with noise pollution while a runway extension, one of the other options up for consideration, would affect 900,000.
The Airports Commission estimates the economic benefits from a new runway at Gatwick would be £127 billion compared with £214 billion at Heathrow – figures that Wingate dispures.
“The only way to realise any economic benefits is to build the runway, until then it is simply a hypothetical figure,” he said.
“The choice is between a more competitive airport network or to reinforce fortress Heathrow. Boris Johnson [prospective MP for Uxbridge], defence secretary Philip Hammond and international development secretary Justine Greening will all be in swing constituencies affected by Heathrow’s expansion.
“I do not believe the Heathrow scheme would ever be delivered.”