1 February 2011
In September 2010, the City of London Corporation commissioned York Aviation to provide an update to the second City Aviation Study published in 2008. The previous City Aviation Study demonstrated City support for addressing the capacity issues and related problems that were affecting Heathrow, which is described as “the City’s most important air gateway”. It also supported capacity enhancements at other London airports such as Stansted to relieve pressure in the London airport system as a whole.
This latest report’s key findings are that:
- air services continue to be of critical importance to the functioning of the City economy. The City’s requirements from airports and air services are driven by the nature of its business. Fundamentally, the City requires breadth (range of destinations), depth (high frequencies) and concentration (on a single airport as far as possible) of connectivity;
- there is a real and tangible benefit from Heathrow’s position as a global hub to City users, and that without the hub, considerable flexibility and resilience for users could be lost;
- the current capacity constraints in the London system must be a substantial future concern. It should be noted that most consultees did not see increasing the size of London’s airports as key in itself but they do want them to be ‘better’;
- the current market dynamic at Heathrow is damaging the short-haul network, which is bad for companies with major European operations serviced or managed from London or potential new investors looking for a European base;
- further runway capacity at either Stansted or Gatwick would be helpful in adding capacity to the London system as a whole but will ultimately have little impact on the City of London’s primary gateway, Heathrow.
The report also looked at a number of key options from the perspective of the City economy in meeting airport capacity in the London system along with the preferred option of an additional runway at Heathrow.