Lobby group, Future Heathrow, has mounted a robust defence of short-haul air routes from the London gateway ahead of potential political recommendations to curb short-haul flights.
The grouping, an alliance of trade unions, businesses and airlines, says that it believes the UK Conservative Party is expected to recommend halting flights from Heathrow to ten of its nearest destinations.
The routes ” namely those to Amsterdam, Brussels, Durham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds/Bradford, Manchester, Newcastle, Paris and Rotterdam, are those that appear in a Future Heathrow statement ahead of the Conservatives ”Quality of Life” report due to be released on Thursday (13 September).
Future Heathrow says that scrapping these routes in favour of rail could extend return trips by as much as nine hours, with for example journeys from London to Amsterdam taking six hours and those to Glasgow and Rotterdam, more than five hours.
The group notes that services from Heathrow to all the destinations mentioned, take 1h20min and says that rail alternatives are ”inadequate,” compared to air travel.
”For anyone wanting to travel to these cities and back in a day, rail is simply not a practical option,” said Future Heathrow campaign director, Lord Soley, who countered the rail lobby”s oft-cited view that it is the time taken to city centres that counts.
”That is true for people travelling to and from city centres and even more true for passengers who want to reach Heathrow to take a connecting flight. Transfer passengers account for up to 50% of travellers, even on the shortest routes such as Manchester-Heathrow.”
The Conservative Party, however, was at pains to point out that any discussions in its Quality of Life document were only at an initial stage and in no way represented official policy.
”There have been a few things written in the newspapers,” a Conservative Party spokeswoman told ABTN, ”but the document has been done by a group ” it is not party policy.”
Future Heathrow also said that its research showed that rail load factor was low at 33%, compared to 80% for air travel. ”Stopping ten short-haul routes from one airport is a very simplistic response to a massive global challenge such as climate change,” said Soley. ”This is not a viable policy.”