The opposition party have said 63,200 flights a year could be replaced by a high speed railway line from London to the north of the UK, as well as better use of the existing lines to Paris and Brussels. It contrasts this to the 220,000 extra flights the third runway would produce. BAA, the owner of Heathrow, says this figure is a wild exaggeration, and that trains would at best only replace three percent of existing flights, or around 14,000 movements a year.
Members of parliament for the governing Labour party are also lining up against the third runway, with 52 signing a motion in mid November urging the government to consider alternatives. A key concern is that many of the constituencies that would be under the flight path of the new runway are marginal seats with low majorities.
Meanwhile the conservative mayor of London has revised plans for an entirely new airport in the Thames Estuary that would replace Heathrow and offer flight paths over the sea. The government rejected a similar idea in 2003 as being too expensive, however, and the London mayor has no power to act on the issue.
Against this backdrop, London’s third airport Stansted, which has been used as a freighter stop by carriers such as NCA and Asiana in the past, was giving permission by the government recently to increase passenger numbers from 25 million to 35 million, overriding local objections.
A planning inquiry into a second runway for Stansted is due to open next year, but is likely to face fierce opposition from environmental groups. In early December a group of these – calling themselves ‘Plane Stupid’ – invaded the runway at Stansted, bringing the airport to a halt for several hours. A second runway would in any way, not open before 2014, though the UK Competition Commission said it would not be needed till 2017.