From robot taxis to state-of-the-art terminals, Heathrow is preparing for a future without a new runway, reports David Churchill
Heathrow may be facing an uncertain time after the new coalition government blocked its controversial runway expansion plans, but in other respects the airport is embracing the years to come with confidence. In the near future, it is hoping to launch an innovative transport link between Terminal 5 and the N3 business car park. The £25 million Heathrow Pod, which features environmentally friendly, driverless, battery-powered “pods” for four passengers will be available virtually on demand for the brief five-minute journey from the car park to the terminal along 4km of track.
The system has not been without its bugs – it should have been launched last year and a formal opening date has yet to be publicly announced – but Heathrow management is confident it will soon be operational. If successful, the plan is to extend the system to link up all the terminals and car parks.
This is not the only forward-thinking technology being deployed at the airport. A new £900 million underground baggage-handling system is being constructed initially to link T5 to T3 and, eventually, the other terminals, ensuring that luggage for transfer passengers is processed seamlessly. Heathrow claims the system will be the largest of its kind in the world.
In addition, a huge programme to rebuild the terminals is under way to bring the facilities in them up to the standards of T5, home to British Airways. This will include a completely new Terminal 2, being built at a cost of £1 billion following the demolition of the existing antiquated structure earlier this year. Phase one should be fully operational by 2014. Even T5, which opened in 2008 and has recently welcomed its 50-millionth customer, is getting a new satellite building next year (Terminal 5C), which should mean 95 per cent of T5 passengers will be able to access their aircraft directly via an airbridge rather than from a bus – effectively benefiting an extra three million users every year.
All this is good news for business travellers using the airport. The bad news is that Heathrow’s hopes of building a third runway (and a sixth terminal) to help alleviate congestion at the airport, and meet anticipated growth in demand, were dashed on May 11 when the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats formed their coalition government.
As far back as 2003, the Labour party had supported (in a white paper on aviation policy) BAA’s proposals for a third runway at Heathrow, although it was not until early last year that the project was given the official go-ahead. Yet in spite of an extensive lobbying campaign called “Future Heathrow” – backed by the major airlines, trade unions and other bodies including the International Air Transport Association (IATA) – the prospect of significant expansion of flights and passenger numbers, and associated environmental problems, failed to convince many critics of a third runway’s worth. Restricting the growth of Heathrow – and to a lesser extent Stansted – became a rallying cry for the green movement, a policy that, surprisingly, became part of the Conservative’s manifesto.
Long regarded as the traditional party of business, David Cameron’s Tories eschewed the warnings of damage to UK economic growth if a new runway was blocked. Once the Liberal Democrats were on board, the outcome was inevitable and BAA subsequently withdrew its planning application for a new runway. The airport operator’s chief executive, Colin Matthews, still made clear that BAA continued “to believe that new capacity would strengthen the UK’s trading links with the global markets on which our economy and our competitiveness depend”.
For corporate travellers, the impact of the new runway being abandoned is not such a problem, at least in the short term. As Anne Godfrey, chief executive of the Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC), says: “What most business travellers want is for Heathrow just to work better and for them to be able to get to it easily.”
It seems likely that Heathrow management will heed these words and refocus efforts on improving the airport’s operational performance without the distraction of grinding through the planning and implementation stages of a new runway and terminal. BAA has already made clear that the £700 million or so of funds allocated for the early development of the expansion will now be diverted into other improvement measures, and it is talking to the airlines about what’s on their wish-lists. The government has also set up a task force of interested parties to consider Heathrow development, with initial recommendations due next spring.
Yet even proposals to increase Heathrow’s flight capacity through so-called “mixed-mode” use of the existing two runways (this involves using them for both take-offs and landings) have been blocked by the coalition government. Transport secretary Philip Hammond says: “The disadvantages to local communities outweigh the benefits.”
But there are hidden, longer-term drawbacks arising from the decision to block a new runway. The number of airlines using Heathrow, and the destinations they service, have been gradually falling as a result of the growing costs and limited ability of take-off and landing slots. Over the past 20 years, Heathrow has fallen behind other European airports in terms of foreign destinations served, while the number of UK regional cities linked to Heathrow has dropped from 21 to six.
According to research commissioned by the British Chambers of Commerce, which, unsurprisingly, believes there should be a third runway to boost the economy, Heathrow also appears to be falling behind its rivals in the growth of services to fast-growing emerging markets such as Brazil and China. All Heathrow’s major European rivals already have more runways – four at Paris-Charles de Gaulle and five at Amsterdam Schiphol (plus a smaller runway for light aircraft), with Frankfurt due to get a fourth one next year.
Even BA, the dominant airline at Heathrow with 41 per cent of the available slots, is talking about targeting Madrid-Barajas airport (four runways) for expansion if the proposed merger with Iberia is completed later this year.
“Aviation growth is not going to go away – it will just leave the UK and go to other parts of Europe,” says BA chief executive Willie Walsh. His view is reinforced by the fact that it is not just Heathrow that has had expansion blocked – the government has also ruled out new runways at Stansted and Gatwick airports in the foreseeable future.
Unless there is a radical change in the British political landscape, Heathrow will just have to get used to making best use of its current infrastructure. The emphasis is now twofold – improving access to the airport in an environmentally friendly way, and enhancing the experience within the airport itself through investment in terminals, communications and security.
Better access will mainly be thanks to two proposed rail development schemes, which are in addition to the established Heathrow Express direct rail link. First, the £16 billion Crossrail project linking Maidenhead in Berkshire to Shenfield (Essex) and Abbey Wood (Kent) via a cross-London route is due to have a spur linking it with Heathrow Central and Terminal 4. Although Crossrail has had a troubled history, the new government appears committed to its going ahead, although it will not be finished until 2017 at the earliest.
Similarly, the £673 million Airtrack scheme to link T5 to the South West Trains network – including services from Waterloo – is unlikely to be operational until 2016/2017, even if planning permission is approved. A public inquiry has already been postponed twice this year and is now due to start this autumn.
High-speed rail is also at the heart of the new government’s transport policy, with proposals suggesting that an initial 400 kmph London to Birmingham service should be linked to Heathrow. But a review published in the summer by Tory peer Lord Mawhinney cast doubt on this idea, arguing it was unlikely to provide value for money and it would be more effective if passengers joined Crossrail at an intermediate stop in west London for airport access. In any case, the high-speed service is unlikely to start before 2026 even if all goes well.
Long before then, the key to the future of Heathrow probably lies with simply making it work better. Transport secretary Hammond says: “The challenge is to maintain Heathrow as an international hub. It is the government’s objective to secure Heathrow’s future within the constraints of two runways.”
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