The Institute of Directors (IoD) has urged the government to make a decision quickly on the future of airport capacity in the UK.
Simon Walker, director general of the IoD, said members would like to see “concrete proposals for more capacity in specific locations”.
The organisation surveyed 1,245 of its members, of which 40% believe that airport capacity expansion in London and the South East would have a positive impact on the productivity of their business, compared to 4% who think it would have a negative one.
Meanwhile, only 23% of those asked think a high-speed rail link to Birmingham would improve productivity.
Proposals for increased capacity should be dealt with “in no longer than 12 months”, said Walker: “We cannot have another debacle like Terminal 5, where it took eight years for a decision to be made.”
He warned that the UK is already lagging behind other countries, in the IoD’s response to the Department for Transport’s consultation “Developing a sustainable framework for UK aviation”.
“Aviation is vital to UK trade and investment, but we are already falling behind our competitors in Europe,” said Walker.
The IoD chief also spoke out in support of a new hub airport in the Thames estuary: “If it can be done in Hong Kong, there is no reason why it can’t be done here.”
www.iod.com