Could Heathrow’s third runway finally be cleared for take off?

Heathrow airport often triggers strong reactions from passengers, Londoners, green campaigners and politicians alike. The debate over the third runway is a case in point.
In 2015, the Davies commission recommended a third runway be built to the north of the existing pair of runways. But a combination of legal challenges, the pandemic and political opposition halted the expansion plans. Boris Johnson, who at the time was MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip to the west of London, vowed to “lie down in front of the bulldozers” to stop the strip ever being built, despite having advocated a whole new airport in the Thames Estuary.
Yet the huge post-pandemic demand for flights has reignited the debate about Britain’s crowded airports, with a third runway for Heathrow top of the agenda. The new Labour government has indicated that it will approve a revised expansion plan as part of a “dash for growth” — if Heathrow can meet strict environmental standards.
Heathrow is the busiest two-runway airport in the world, but has a cap on flights and is bumping up against its capacity limits. In the six months to June, 39.8 million passengers travelled through the airport — one million more than during the first half of 2019, before the pandemic. In August, Heathrow set records for its busiest ever day and week.
The hub can cope with the boom for now, but its capacity will be sorely tested soon if travel trends continue. The airport’s chief executive Thomas Woldbye is actively reviewing plans for longer term growth and has indicated that plans for a third runway are being revived.
The post-pandemic resurgence in travel comes as competition mounts both domestically and internationally. Manchester, the largest UK airport outside of London, has long harboured ambitions to be a “Heathrow of the north” for international connections and has seen expanding services to China as a main springboard for that. Its number of flights to China this winter are up while those from Heathrow are down.
Meanwhile, Heathrow’s international rivals are snapping at its heels. According to Cirium, the aviation analytics firm, Heathrow is expected to operate 240,600 flights this year, while Amsterdam Schiphol will operate 231,150, Dubai 216,799 and Paris 211,497. However, due to differences in size of aircraft, this number of flights equates to more seats being available from Dubai than from the London hub. The former will be upwards of 59,000 seats, whereas the latter will be more than 52,000.
Where are we politically? The political playing field seems to have tilted back towards economic growth and away from the green agenda since the new strip was last up for discussion. It’s hard to see how Labour’s growth ambitions can be achieved without the bold large-scale infrastructure projects that airport expansion represents.
Ken O’Toole, chief executive of Manchester Airport Group, puts it succinctly. “As an island trading nation, we are more reliant on our international air routes than other major economies.” He reckons the UK, which is the second-largest exporter of services in the world, could be a “services superpower”.
But getting the green light for expansion at Heathrow is likely to involve another long and bloody battle, unleashing a huge campaign of opposition from residents across a swathe of west and southwest London. We will hear from campaigners that regard the airport as one of the country’s biggest polluters. Others will baulk at the projected £14 billion cost.
There are clearly many factors to weigh (and, admittedly, I do not live in west London on the flightpath) but in my view the airport is an economic asset as much as a travel gateway. The UK has a direct connection to 95 per cent of the world’s economy because of Heathrow’s hub status.
Sir Keir Starmer’s parliamentary majority means he has an opportunity to push it through despite any opposition from within the party. Given we want economic growth, the third runway should be cleared for landing if Heathrow decides to press ahead with it.
How’s this for an own goal? The pace of economic growth in the UK faltered slightly in September because of “jangling nerves” over the budget next month, according to the first estimate of a closely watched barometer of British businesses.
Britain’s companies have heard the government’s message that things will get worse before they get better because of a black hole in the nation’s finances. It follows the news from researcher GfK last week that consumer confidence has tanked after the government cut winter fuel allowances and warned of “painful” tax increases.
So it is good to see a change of mood from chancellor Rachel Reeves who says she has “never been more optimistic about our country’s fortunes”, adding that Labour will govern “as a pro-business party”. That’s more like it, and should mean the investment taps will finally open, but we clearly need to get past next month’s budget first.
The course of drug development never runs smooth. Getting a drug from inception to market is a high-risk and high-cost business, with the path strewn with failures. According to the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, only one in every 10,000 or so potential compounds might prove effective and get to patients. The average R&D cost to progress a drug from discovery to launch is $2.3 billion, Deloitte has found.
So while it is sad to see that AstraZeneca’s trials for Dato-DXd failed to help late-stage breast cancer patients live longer, the disappointment is far from unusual. The news highlights wider pipeline challenges for the pharmaceutical industry. Here AI holds great promise as it can help with the early stages of identifying targets. No wonder Big Pharma is embracing it.