The Davies Commission report on increasing airport capacity in the south-east of the UK was finally released this week and, as expected, it recommended an additional runway to the north-west of Heathrow. The report, at more than 300 pages, is not the sort of literature you might read at bedtime.
The report is heavy on charts and we thought it would be useful to show some of the more interesting ones for UK and European travel buyers.
The Commission examined Heathrow's links to emerging markets compared with other leading hub airports. One of the key supporting arguments for an extra runway at Heathrow is that it would add more long-haul routes than an additional runway at Gatwick. The Commission's own analysis showed that a north-west runway at Heathrow would see an additional 75 long-haul destinations by 2050 compared with 21 new destinations added under the Gatwick proposal. (By comparison, the Gatwick scheme would see an additional 121 short-haul destinations compared with 85 at Heathrow.)
The report shows that at present Heathrow is only an average performer in terms of links to emerging markets.
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The report says that while Heathrow's North American and European connections are strong, those to emerging markets are similar to its European peers. The Commission said, "A key objective for expansion should be to facilitate new connections on more marginal long-haul routes to emerging markets, without damaging the UK's excellent European and North American connectivity."
This is important because IATA predicts that much of the new demand in the next two decades will be coming from emerging markets, as shown in the chart below.
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Note: OD = origin/destination. A passenger travelling to/from Heathrow from Dubai may well start/end their journey in somewhere other than Dubai. OD models aim to map passengers to their true start/end points.
The commission also assessed the benefits to passengers through reduced fares, new routes and increased frequencies. These are shown below.
Benefits to business passengers, £bn 2014 prices
