Archived press release

Passenger growth figures conjured out of thin air

2 May 2003

Responding to the latest passenger forecasts for South East airports, Friends of the Earth's aviation campaigner Paul de Zylva said:

"BAA has stuck its finger in the wind around Heathrow Terminal 5 and come up with some misleading and unreliable guesstimates. There is no evidence to show that vast growth in the number of flights is either inevitable or necessary. To claim and push for such growth is simply irresponsible, given the pollution and climate change effects they would inevitably cause..

"The Government's own computer says that the number of passengers at Heathrow would be 85 million a year. But this is by 2030 not by 2013. For Gatwick the figure is 41 million a year by 2030 and for Stansted it is 26 million. And that is without any tax changes designed to make civil aviation pay the bill for the environmental damage it causes [1].

"BAA want people to think that more air travel and airport growth are inevitable. They are not."

Notes

[1] Friends of the Earth, CPRE and the Aviation Environment Federation obtained the Department for Transport's permission to re-run its SPASM computer model using a different set of assumptions From those fed in for The Future Development of Air Transport in the United Kingdom:

1. that aviation fuel should be taxed at the same rate as motor fuel (45.8p per litre), and; o

2. that all air travel should be made subject to VAT at 17.5%;

3. that duty free is abolished on all flights;

4. it was also assumed that APD would be abolished;

5. that these changes should be phased in gradually between 2005 and 2025.

The total value of these tax measures amounted to ?9.2 billion (at 2002 levels). The Department agreed to rerun the model on these assumptions, and the results were produced in February 2003. We regard our assumptions are conservative, reasonable and in keeping with the Government's oft-stated policies of ending the anomaly of tax-free aviation and ensuring the industry covers its costs.

The results of the rerun SPASM model are:

• The total number of passengers using UK airports would increase at a much slower rate from 200 million in 2000 to 315 million in 2030, compared to the official forecast of 501 million used as the basis for the 2002/3 consultations.

• There would be no need for any new runway anywhere in the UK in the period to 2030. The forecast numbers at each major airport in 2030 would be:

  • Heathrow 85 million passengers per annum (mppa); Manchester 51 mppa;

  • Gatwick 41 mppa; Birmingham 30 mppa; Stansted 26 mppa; and Luton 11 mppa.

• The rerun of the SPASM computer model also showed that, with these levels of tax, the economic `benefit' from building a new runway at, say Stansted, would be negative.

For more details see www.airportwatch.org.uk

If you're a journalist looking for press information please contact the Friends of the Earth media team on 020 7566 1649.

Published by Friends of the Earth Trust