Stansted Airport is to sign a full-service airline in 2016, its owner said, as the capacity of London’s runways are increasingly insufficient. Now primarily low-cost and charter airlines are based in Stansted.
Stansted Airport is to sign a full-service airline in 2016, its owner said, as the capacity of London’s runways are increasingly insufficient. Now primarily low-cost and charter airlines are based in Stansted.
In London, traditional airlines such as British Airways have concentrated on the country's busiest airport Heathrow. As Reuters reports, Heathrow is full and awaiting permission to build a new runway, but even if they are given the green light, it will not be put into operation until 2025, which is the earliest.
The debate over how best to solve the problem of impending aviation capacity crisis in the south east has so far centred on the choice between new runways at Heathrow or Gatwick, says The Telegraph. The Prime Minister is expected to announce within days whether Heathrow is allowed to build a third landing-strip, after the Government-appointed Airports Commission recommended in July that the west London hub should be expanded.
Charlie Cornish, the boss of MAG, expresses his opinion to The Telegraph that expanding Stansted will not be an effective solution, including the possibility of a second runway. It will also become a more pressing issue if the Essex airport keeps up its current growth rate. He disagrees with the Airport Commission, which say Stansted could be an option for a second runway around about 2040. “We think it’s probably 15 to 20 years earlier than that, given our forecasts relative to the Commission’s forecasts”, The Telegraph cites Cornish. The Stansted is limited to 35m passengers a year (the restriction may be lifted to 45m), which Mr Cornish thinks to be “easily” reached in the next decade.
Another problem about building the second runway in Stansted is the protests of local residents opposing the airport extending. People are afraid that noise levels near their homes will significally increase. The participants of ‘Stop Stansted Expansion’ have been actively campaigning against major expansion at Stansted since 2002, the organisation’s web site says. Its first major success came with BAA's withdrawal in May 2010 of the planning application for a second runway.
As Reuters states, in the six months ended Sept. 30, Stansted increased passenger numbers by 11 percent, which alongside the 4.5 percent more travellers who used Manchester Airport helped lift MAG's core earnings by 11 percent to 202.5 million pounds in the period. MAG, the group, which owns Stansted, Manchester, East Midlands and Bournemouth Airports, said Stansted has added 1.2 million passengers year-on-year this summer, compared to 0.9 million at Heathrow and 1 million at Gatwick. This makes it the fastest growing major airport in the UK. London's Heathrow Airport is now the busiest in Europe having processed 73,405,330 passengers in 2014 (including 34,234 transit passengers).
