Walsh says Heathwick plans ‘lack credibility’
09.10.11
Willie Walsh, the CEO of British Airways owner IAG, has dismissed plans for a new super-airport connecting Heathrow and Gatwick as lacking credibility, the Telegraph reports. Representatives from budget airlines Ryanair and easyJet have also dismissed the plan, although London mayor Boris Johnson seems to support it.
Mr Walsh said that proposals to link Heathrow and Gatwick with a high-speed rail link - the so called Heathwick plan - would be difficult to deliver, more expensive than the previously rejected plan to build a third runway at Heathrow, may need public funding (unlike the heathrow runway) and would not add much needed runway capacity.
He said that the Government's lack of a coherent aviation policy was a ‘scandal’ and that the UK was in danger of losing out on economic development opportunities by failing to connect with overseas markets. Congestion at Heathrow, which is 98 percent full, and high aviation taxes were putting off business travellers, he said, adding that Heathrow would not be the world's leading hub airport by as early as 2014.
The Heathwick plan was also dismissed by representatives from budget airlines Ryanair and easyJet. Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief executive, said there was ‘no way of moving the budget airlines out of Gatwick’ [the plan involves moving them to Stansted to free up space at Gatwick, which is also full at peak times]. He added: ‘There won’t be a high-speed rail link between Heathrow and Gatwick in my lifetime. The cost of it would be prohibitive.’ An easyJet spokesman also dismissed the idea of linking Heathrow and Gatwick, adding: ‘easyJet will fight any attempt to force us out of Gatwick all the way.’
However, London mayor Boris Johnson seems to support the plan, the FT reports. He said this week that he was ‘not wedded to any particular solution’, adding ‘It may be that there are alternative ideas that people provide. High-speed links between this or that airport creating a dual hub or whatever.’
The Telegraph adds to the Heathwick story that the Government is also looking at proposals to join the RAF base at Northolt, west London, with Heathrow, also with a high-speed rail link. Officials close to the Transport Secretary, Philip Hammond, said that both options were being discussed but that there appeared to be more draw-backs with the Northolt plans as the runway already there was aligned the wrong way and the base was in the middle of a built up area, which threw up more problems than expanding Heathrow.
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