New AOA boss backs London runways
13.07.08
Ed Anderson, the new chairman of the Airport Operators Association, has backed plans for new runways at the London airports, and is on a collision course with the new London Mayor, Boris Johnson, the Independent reports.
Mr Anderson told the newspaper: ‘It seems to me that if London is going to be a world-class city then it needs a world-class hub airport. Look at the airports Heathrow is competing with: Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt – they all have more runways.’ The lack of terminal capacity at Heathrow, he says, means that the regional airports do not have the landing slots at the hub that they require in order to develop.
He has written to the Mayor calling for a meeting and expects this to be set up in the coming weeks. However, Mr Johnson is unlikely to budge; all the mayoral candidates signed an agreement ahead of the election that opposition to a third runway would be a central policy of their term of office. The candidates fear another runway will add to carbon emissions, to which Mr Anderson counters that aviation accounts for only 2% of these.
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