Dare to Believe...A New Airport for London Part 2

Yesterday the Mayor of London launched his second report examining the economic importance of a new hub airport for London and the UK. What this process is helping to do is make some decisions explicit. And the argument goes something like this. London's success is linked to internationally traded sectors. But London's relative connection to future growth areas like central Chinese cities is declining and it is already falling behind other European airports. Inbound tourism and cargo generate the most potential for the sort of export-led growth that the UK desperately needs now and in the long term. Only a hub airport can provide a comprehensive network of direct long haul routes. Incremental improvements in other airports ('sweating the assets') do not solve the need for a hub airport which is a long term 50 year solution to projected air traffic demand. Regional airports will not be able to operate as a hub of this scale and Heathrow, already at capacity, is suffering 'friction' and resilience issues. High speed rail will only complement rather than replace air travel.  And airports (and to some extent their construction) are good at providing job opportunities at all levels in the labour market. For example we found that there are at least 58,800 air transport and cargo jobs alone in the 15 Local Authorities within a 20km footprint of Heathrow. So with constrained capacity the conscious decision is how much the UK wants to stay in the airport business in the future and how much we are willing to travel via Paris, Amsterdam and Franksfurt if we want to get to the BRIC economies.  As well as some sensible economic arguments there is a sense that a project of this scale will be important to build the UK's ambition and present a confident outward looking face to the rest of the world at exactly the right time.