London’s hub airport has been given the green light for a third runway. This will be the first runway laid in the South East since the 1940s. The decision comes just three months after London City Airport was given approval for a £344 million expansion.
With the UK Government decision to back expansion at Heathrow, more than a year after the Airports Commission recommended the building of a third runway at the west London airport, Routesonline takes a look at data over the past ten years and how its existing capacity constraints have blunted its growth.
The new route, announced today, is now just the airport's second link to Europe. Condor’s seasonal service from Frankfurt, which will begin next year, saw the first European route at the airport for more than 30 years.
With the handover last week of an A350-900 to Singapore Airlines it underscored the company’s growth that has transformed a European upstart in the 1970s to a global performer now offering a modern and comprehensive product line ranging from 100 to more than 600 seats.
Under the new Air Service Agreement passenger flights can now increase from the current maximum of 40 per week for each nation to up to 100. There will be no limit on the number of all-cargo services, creating new opportunities for trade and businesses. A restriction on the number of destinations that airlines can serve has also been lifted, meaning services can be operated between any point in the UK and any point in China. Up until now, airlines could only serve six destinations in each country.
London’s hub airport is almost operating at capacity and a decision is expected in the coming weeks about a possible expansion. On the agenda is the extension of an existing runway, the creation of a third runway, or an expansion at fellow London airport Gatwick.
The Highlands and Islands make up half of Scotland’s land mass of 15,000 square miles and are home to a tenth of the country’s population. Regular, hassle-free access to the world from airports like Inverness is vitally important to the increasingly young and entrepreneurial population who live and work there. Half of inhabitants are under 44 and the region is home to 21,000 businesses, according to Highlands and Islands Enterprise.
Tianjin Airlines will become the latest of the country’s airlines to launch long-haul flights when it takes delivery of at least three Airbus A330-200s from the European manufacturer in the coming months. These aircraft will be used to debut flights into Europe and North America and alongside London will see the introduction of flights to Moscow, Russia and Vancouver, Canada.
Delta and Virgin Atlantic’s joint venture is based around offering customers more options and a seamless experience between the US and the UK. The airlines are continuously evaluating their joint Transatlantic network to match the right aircraft to the right destinations and the summer 2017 network growth and route switches are a clear example of this.
BA previously served Santiago between 1993 and 2000 but as a tag on its flights into Buenos Aires. The new non-stop offering from London at 14 hours 40 minutes is nearly an hour longer than BA’s current longest flight of 13 hours 50 minutes to Buenos Aires and covers a distance of approximately 11,645km, versus the 11,085km for the London - Buenos Aires city pair.
From the start of the forthcoming winter schedule, British Airways is to introduce new non-stop flights from London Heathrow to both Doha, Qatar and Muscat, Oman. Both destinations are already part of the airline’s network but are currently served with one-stop direct flight routings via Bahrain and Abu Dhabi.
Although BA can take ownership of these scarce resources over time, it is obliged to make them available to competitors in specific domestic markets. Although Flybe remained tight-lipped about any plan, chief executive Saad Hamaad is understood to believe smaller aircraft could help a Heathrow operation to succeed.
Heathrow’s unique capacity constraints – it is operating at 98 percent capacity – coupled with the high demand from airlines due to strong passenger yields at the airport, mean slots are hard to obtain. The airport currently claims it has a queue of thirty airlines waiting for slots.
The Dutch flag carrier is understood to have already held discussions with the Ministry of Roads and Urban Developments in Iran and is closely liaising with sister carrier Air France ahead of its own return to Tehran.
Emirates Airline will add a fourth daily rotation between its Dubai International Airport hub and London’s Gatwick Airport from October 1, 2016. The additional flight will be operated by a three-class Boeing 777-300ER configured with 360-seats: eight private suites in First Class, 42 lie flat seats in Business Class and 310 seats in Economy.
This new slot pair has been reportedly purchased from Air France-KLM and will provide an early morning scheduling option for the Middle East carrier and allow it to introduce a second daily rotation on the Muscat – London city pair.
The airline’s current three times weekly Jakarta – London Gatwick operation, which acts as a continuation of flights from the Indonesian capital to Amsterdam, will grow to a five times weekly schedule when the move to Heathrow takes place from March 31, 2016 as it draws on SkyTeam alliance transfer flows via the hub airport to bring additional passenger flows onto the city pair.
Extra capacity has helped to grow passenger demand between Dublin and London by 9% over the last calendar year, with almost 4.5 million people flying between the two capital cities in 2015.
Garuda’s plans to introduce non-stop flights to Europe have been restricted by limited runway capacity at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, with the pavement classification number (PCN) of the runways and apron at Soekarno-Hatta Airport not meeting the required level of strength that is typically needed for the operation of a full capacity, heavy duty commercial airliner such as the Boeing 777-300ER.
Although flybe currently provides Inverness with a hub link via the KLM network from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, the new London route will be particularly important for Scottish businesses looking for improved access to global markets and will open up new economic opportunities for the Highlands region and potential inward investment.
The arrival of additional Dreamliner aircraft has enabled Air Canada to grow its long-haul network directly with the modern generation airliner, while also redeploying older aircraft assets into its Air Canada rouge leisure division to bring further new routes. The airline will have a fleet of 21 aircraft by 2016 (it has 37 on order) and is accelerating the conversion of existing routes to Dreamliner service from Toronto to Asia, Europe and South America.
Irish flag carrier, Aer Lingus, a recent addition to the IAG portfolio, is to launch flights between Dublin and Los Angeles, Newark, and Hartford during the summer 2016 schedule, while British Airways will relaunch its New York operation from London Gatwick after a seven-year hiatus.
Air India is one of three airlines to serve the Delhi – London market alongside British Airways, Jet Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways and which together will offer a total of seven daily flights from this winter – Air India three, British Airways two and Jet Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways with single daily rotations.
The type is debuting from this month on the Incheon – Frankfurt route with a three times weekly rotation on the KE905/906 flight from September 2, 2015, replacing a 777-300ER. This will increase to a daily deployment from October 1, 2015.
