RUNWAY CAPACITY at the UK's two prime international airports, London Heathrow and Gatwick, is "close to gridlock", according to a capacity index published by the British Air Transport Association (BATA).
BATA chairman David Hopkins says that the figures give a warning to BAA, the operator of London's three major airports at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. In response, BAA contends that runway capacity in the UK's southeast is sufficient until 2010.
BATA calculates its airport runway capacity index (ARCI) on a formula which acknowledges that airline scheduling makes 100% usage of all available airport slots impossible in practice, so a 100% rating on the ARCI means, effectively, 100% of usable slots. BATA emphasises that the official study on runway capacity for the south east states that "...once an airport's runways exceed 70% of their theoretical capacity across the entire day...an airport is functionally full".
BATA says that Heathrow's morning departures for the imminent 1995 high-season peak period will be 100%, and its whole-day index 99.8%. Gatwick's figures are nearly as high.
BAA disagrees with ARCI and puts Heathrow and Gatwick's annual slot usage rate at 80-85%.
Source: Flight International
