Heathrow has lost its status as a global transport hub, says Dubai Airports boss
By Paul Homewood
h/t Paul Kolk
Heathrow’s inability to expand means it has lost its status as a global transport hub, the boss of Dubai Airports has said.
Paul Griffiths, formerly managing director of Gatwick Airport before he moved to the Middle East, said Heathrow is suffering from a shortage of capacity amid an ongoing debate over a prospective third runway.
He said too much weight is given to the environmental impact of travel in the West, which has allowed rival airports abroad to gain momentum.
Mr Griffiths said: “The true competition between airlines and airports is in the transfer market.
“And unfortunately, because of the shortage in capacity, Heathrow has lost its status as a transfer hub.
“I think the problem in the West is that the development of airports is an incredibly political thing. Heathrow’s third runway has been in play for 50 years and we’re no further forward.
“The environmental impact is a very topical subject in the developed world and I think that’s an issue because I don’t think there’s a balanced debate.”
Mr Griffiths, who sits on Dubai Airport’s board alongside Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, added: “It’s quite a sorry sight that the thing that could really put a shot in the arm of the British economy is being stifled because there is not enough capacity.”
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Heathrow’s inability to expand means it has lost its status as a global transport hub
Just checked flightaware.com and flightradar24.com traffic.
LHR looks like a global transport hub to me. In fact, the traffic is very interesting.
But it is clever to tweak The Government with “You’re not the world leader, anymore.” Sushi will be screaming and throwing his toys out of the pram.
GC, I used to think the same but one day I tracked a friend’s flighton flightradar from LHR to Dubai and was amazed at the traffic flying in and out and the sheer size of the place.
Dubai may be a greater, bigger global transport hub, but LHR still is a global transport hub. ‘A,’ but not ‘the.’
Heathrow’s inability to expand means it has lost its status as a global transport hub
Clearly false.
Heathrow isn’t a hub. Transfers aren’t very important. Most passengers are point to point.
By Rick Steves
Rick Steves is one of the foremost travel experts in the US. He says London is a main air-travel hub.
Numbers are hard to come by, but I trust this expert.
As above, it isn’t the biggest anymore, but it is damn sure still a transport hub.
Because bombastic Boris promised to lie down in front of bulldozers.
Mind you he did lie … constantly !!
What did he expect with Net Zero?
Let us not forget that the Climate Change Committee wants UK citizens to be allowed only one flight, up to 1,500 km, every three years. (They didn’t clarify if that was a return flight….).
They also envisage that there will be only three airports: – Heathrow, Glasgow and Belfast. No doubt GangGreen’s (and the CCC’s) private jets will happily fly as often as they fancy, from elsewhere.
There is only one answer to all this. Abolish the Climate Change Act 2008, and the CCC and chain anyone who voted for the former, or has supported the latter, to fixed bicycle generators. I may be past my sell-by date, but I’ll be happy to beat a drum or flourish a cat-of-nine-tails to encourage them.
Won’t happen, unfortunately.
In other news, we learn today that “
“Russia has announced plans to dramatically increase its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production from 33 million tons in 2023 to 110 million tons by the year 2030, according to a report by Russian news agency
Tass.”
“The ambitious target that aims at bolstering Russia’s position in the global LNG market and diversifying its gas supplies was revealed by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.” (energy@aa.com.tr)
Say what you like about Putin. At least he isn’t dopey.
Time to bone up on the hydrocarbon resources of Turkmenistan. A real threat to Russia’s proposed status in the world markets.
Mongolia isn’t doing too badly, either…
Maybe Venezuela will also get their act together.
The UK? No chance.
There’s a lot of resentment when it comes to Heathrow’s operations not helped by the shareholders loading the company with debt and seeking to gouge the passengers to service the debt. Special pleadings by the shareholders for further ‘indulgences’ should be cast aside as Virgin and Ryanair have pointed out.
Some transport experts would remind us that had HS2 proceeded as planned there would be a transfer from air to rail and slots could be released to relieve the congestion.
New York copes with 4 airports: Teterborough, La Guardia, Kennedy and Newark. London has 5: Southend, Heathrow, Luton ,Gatwick and Stansted so is fairly well served but the overseas proprietors of Heathrow want to take most of the business, understandably, and those under the glide path must grin and bear it.
London City?
Absolutely right: London City but it has constraints. You will note others for business flights only, RAF and Royal flights only like Farnborough and Northolt, Biggin Hill, Elstree etc.
Don’t miss out Lydd. Yes, really. It does say London Lydd on the sign.
Once flew from there. To Beauvais, I think.
Showing my age…
I’ve enjoyed this but It must stop!
Utter garbage. Heathrow is a regulated airport. Its charges are set by the Regulated Asset Base, which the CAA regulates and which means only permitted expenditure can be included. Debt has no bearing whatsoever on the size of the RAB. Heathrow has virtually no LCCs, which make up virtually all the traffic at Stansted and most at Gatwick. Southend is neither London nor much of an airport. Heathrow has no interest in LCCs and flights from Heathrow command a significant premium, particularly for business travellers. As for the flight paths, there are plans to ensure that noise is reduced by expansion, not increased. Of course all of this is available on the Internet so there’s no excuse for such utter ignorance.
Dunno if He expected much, but “stifled because there is not enough capacity“ Did he mean BRAIN capacity, perhaps? … Aye people need to be told.
He is correct when he says “The environmental impact is a very topical subject in the developed world“
Gatwick have been trying to extend / move the ’emergency runway’ for a long time and the planning process is tortuous.
Lots of anti-airport groups banging on about environmental impacts and Carbon emissions.
Gatwick are also celebrating that a number of new airlines are starting to use it. Most likely because there are not enough ‘slots’ at Heathrow. No airline wants to us any airport except LHR, but slot capacity is limited.
Still you will be glad to know that Gatwick is deploying new hydrogen busses as a key measure in reaching netzero and touting the new eco jet fuel.
I live adjacent to the flight path to the east which generally means incoming flights more than take offs. It has busy periods given a lot of the traffic is to city destinations with business travellers more in mind and at times it goes quiet. Take offs end quite early as I recall leaving there for Portugal one evening around 8pm and there were only a few flights on the board. I presume the intention is to have dedicated runways so what we will get is an increase in the morning and evening peak traffic. The emergency runway is closer to my house but the difference is small.
Gatwick is a predominantly leisure airport.
With their heavy weight and quick acceleration, EVs tend to burn through tires about 20% faster than internal combustion vehicles do, according to AlixPartners. And the tires cost about 50% more.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/19/why-evs-are-causing-a-tire-boom.html
Hankook advertises battery car tyres on the perimeter boards of European Cup games.
“But mama, that’s where the fun is.”
My view on this is do we really want to suffer the disturbance that goes with being a hub? Is the income for the economy really worth it? Are the extra jobs worth it if it just brings in more immigrants who increase the pressure on housing and damage our cohesion as a society? Some of the same claims are made for the Gatwick expansion but a lot of it is just bullshit to try to win approval. Gatwick has staffing problems already especially on the ATC side where flights have to wait until staff are available.
An earlier post refers to the shareholders of Heathrow but did not make it clear that Heathrow is foreign owned following a debt laden buyout by a Spanish company. BAA had been doing a good job of running it and had even delivered a new terminal on time and on budget.
BAA were dreadful. Bad strategy, wasteful overseas acquisitions, overstaffed, underperforming. And T5 was neither on time nor on budget, and the opening was a total shambles – 2 of my close colleagues at BA got fired because of it. It took over 20 years to get planning permission for T5 and a few years after opening to get the baggage sorted. And Heathrow has numerous shareholders, and Ferrovial recently agreed to sell its stake. The expansion at Heathrow was about point to point flying to the new mega cities in the East, not cheap flights for immigrants. It’s about having Asian companies invest in the UK because we have world-class connections rather than investing in Germany or the Netherlands.
Heathrow is the most inconvenient airport to transit through for global business…. expensive and inefficient….