UK transport secretary Alistair Darling deserves sympathy. Inaction by preceding governments has led to a shortage of airport capacity in south-east England. The situation is exacerbated by BAA and the dominant slot-holders at London Heathrow, which are concentrating public attention on existing BAA airports only in the search for more capacity.
But what of the more distant future? A three-runway Heathrow is predicted to be capable of handling 116 million passengers a year. Crucially, however, it is predicted that unconstrained demand at Heathrow could reach 202 million passengers a year by 2030. What sort of airport is needed to handle 200 million passengers annually?
Lydd in Kent is dismissed by the government consultation document, which predicts a passenger total for it of only 125,000 annually. This is 10,000 a month, or 350 a day. More importantly, the enormous area of flat, sparsely populated farmland to the west of Lydd is ignored. Farmland is on one side and the sea on the other. The Channel Tunnel rail link and the M20 are 16km (10 miles) away. Mr Darling should stop concentrating on what British Airways and BAA tell him and look around himself.
Michael Wood Guildford, Surrey, UK
Source: Flight International
