When strategic plans go wrong there is always a high price
to pay and lots to learn from, like in the case of Heathrow.
While heated debates and parliamentary
hearings about the future of overused Heathrow runways continue, one thing is clear
– whatever the solution, it will take about two decades to resolve the build-up
of problems created by years’ long traffic overload at UK main hub airport. The
runway usage is well above the official cap on the number of flights set to
keep disruptions at an acceptable level - the limit that has been ignored for about
a decade. The absence of space for recovery from even the smallest schedule change creates long cascading effects at Heathrow spreading disruptions throughout its worldwide network.
The magnitude of runway overuse becomes more clear when
compared with other similar airports - LHR does as many departures and arrivals as New York JFK with
4 runways or Dallas Forth Worth with 7. In terms of connectivity which appeared
to be the major concern of politicians and businesses, London airports currently
have 50% more seat capacity than Paris, the next biggest airport in Europe, and
more connectivity to the top business destination than Frankfurt with 4 runways
and Paris CDG with 4 runways combined.
All suggested solutions - from building new runways, spreading
traffic to other nearby airports (assumes better ground connectivity) to
closing Heathrow and building new airport at environmentally friendlier
location have their pros and cons. Even though the equally important issue on
how to avoid major traffic spills from overpacked and highly disrupted Heathrow
during the interim period didn’t get much of attention, the unpopular question
about capping the aircraft movements to 75% of current traffic in order to improve
resilience was raised during the Select Committee Hearing and passed over to
Airport Commission.
What will this interim period bring to the members of
Heathrow ‘community’ if airport resilience doesn’t improve?
- From airline perspective -
more unstable schedules, more idle resources, more fuel, higher costs,
loss of market competitiveness and reputation
- From passenger perspective
- longer, more inconvenient journeys and more costly travel
- From ATC perspective - more
challenges in controlling the air traffic
- From the perspective of
big influential businesses – impression that they will not be able to
satisfy their expansion needs
- From the perspective of politicians
- more skilful shaping of public opinion
- From economics perspective
– more inefficiencies and more losses in money and time
- From the perspective of environmentalists
- more air and noise pollution in populated areas around the airport zone
- From the perspective of industry
consultants - increased demand for their services
- From the perspective of Heathrow owner - lower business risk backed up with disruptions that
generate more retail revenue, and other ways of raising revenue caused by the
potential drop in demand
Balancing these diverse interests already is and will always
be a challenging task, but chances for doing it right this time including the interim period should not be
missed. If no improvement is made in the foreseeable future, Heathrow reputation as one of the world's most disrupted airports may ruin the efforts for regaining its strong market position at later stage.
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