Is the Airports Commission's decision based on credible forecasts?
There is very little side-by side comparison of the schemes’ traffic forecasts in the AC’s final report, released yesterday.
This is curious, since the traffic forecasts underpin everything, and therefore were one of the key inputs into the final decision. They directly influence the economic impact, the consumer benefits, the connectivity benefits for the UK, the environmental impacts and the business case assessments.
With a bit of digging, however, we find that AC’s own forecasts suggest the following:
If Heathrow is expanded by one runway, in the first year of operations it will have an additional 12 million passengers a year. That is more than the whole of Luton Airport in one year (they handled 11m last year). Within five years, there will be an additional 35 million passengers at Heathrow. That is almost as much as the whole of Gatwick (they handled 38m last year).
If Gatwick is expanded by one runway, in the first year of operations it will have an additional two million passengers. That airport grew by 2.7 million last year, without a new runway. After five years, it will have an additional eight million, less than Heathrow would after one year.
I consider both of these results to be very unrealistic and my assessment is that the forecasts have been reviewed and signed off from an academic, technical perspective, but no-one has taken a step back and actually asked the bigger questions:
- How could an airport the size of Luton be added to Heathrow within one year?
- How could an airport the size of Gatwick be added within just five??
- And is it really credible that after another ten years of market growth, in a system where no other airport is adding capacity, a Gatwick that doubles from one runway to two will grow less than it did in 2014?
Given the importance of these forecasts in the continuing fight for new runway capacity, I am disappointed that the AC has relied on rubber stamping of a backward looking model and not fully absorbed or questioned its outputs.
Former Aviation Chief Economist
9 年Just adding to that line of debate- it would be interesting to see the 'allocation' of total UK pax traffic by major airport, by year under either (and no) scenario, and then do some calculations on movements, passengers per plane, load factors, airlines etc, etc. at each airport. There is a suspicion the data would creak alarmingly with underlying UK traffic growth projected by DoT at 1-2%pa. Or there may be a LOT of LHR traffic stimulation assumed..
Aviation & Maritime Advisory at Arup
9 年I think the point is interesting. looking at some data I can see that Dubai has added over 12 Million from 2012-14 (source ACI), with a clear strategy to grow long haul.markets. To me the key questions are others: - how much more O&D traffic is capable of generating London? it is argued that more long haul direct connections to Asia are needed, but where are these travellers now? at home or connecting elsewhere? - how much connecting traffic can capture London? Dubai has over 80% of the traffic purely connecting, but a big muscle in Emirates. - Is BA capable of generating the traffic itself, or is it that "everybody wants to go to LHR" is a real thing and airlines will jump to any slot available from day 1? I agree it is difficult that the first year see that sudden jump in traffic, but we also need to see how real are all these myths about airlines willing to fly from LHR and can't do it. Professor Flyvbjerg will also add that there is a clear optimism bias, but we shall see ... in 10 or 15 years ! :-)
Senior Advisor
9 年Interesting. I haven't checked the data, nor current/future constraints in each airport, but conceptually speaking, do you think maybe some capacity would be transfered from other London airports to LHR? Or maybe some new demand for LHR would appear?
Higher Education | Board Advisor | Leadership | Strategy | Change Management | Partnership Development | Stakeholder Engagement | Coaching & Mentoring | Motivational Speaker
9 年Asking broader questions and adding a critical perspective is vital. We need to remember that the airport expansion is an Eco-centric issue that concerns us all and must not be decided on the basis of ego-centric decisions.
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9 年Excellent points. Well made.