Comment
Airport choke hold ahead
February 1st 2025
As airlines have discovered, including Asia-Pacific carriers, coping with strong growth and matching capacity to demand are formidable challenges, particularly as supply chain delays are continuing into 2025. Read More »
Now another capacity challenge is threatening airline operations in the years ahead - the ability of airports and air traffic services to accommodate a forecast boom in air travel.
By 2040, it is estimated, air passenger traffic will double to eight billion a year. To cater for this demand in the Asia-Pacific, billions of dollars are being invested in airport expansion and new facilities. Hong Kong’s third runway is but one example of the investments in aviation infrastructure being undertaken.
It is an entirely different story in Europe, where investment in airport development is at a virtual standstill. Major hubs are already working at the outer limits of their capacity.
It is a similar situation in North America, mainly as a result of political and environmental issues. In recent years environmental protests, among other factors, have closed Frankfurt airport, forced plans for a new terminal at Paris Charles de Gaulle to be abandoned and effectively stymied construction of a third runway at London Heathrow.
No-one argues that the environment and protection of the planet is not critically important. Airlines fully understand this.
What other global industry has invested billions to improve their environmental performance? In the case of airlines, they are ordering new, more fuel efficient and quieter aircraft at a pace manufacturers cannot match in output.
And what other group of industry suppliers has spent billions of dollars on research and improving their products, aircraft and engines, to lift performance and efficiency?
Yet the environmental lobby has convinced many governments to take idiotic decisions. Most recently, they included the Dutch government’s December announcement that it will impose an annual cap on flight movements at Amsterdam Schiphol.The decision effectively bars the airport from meeting any growth demand.
Despite their obviously strong beliefs, environmentalists need to understand the importance of aviation to national and global economies.
If they, or some of them, holiday to Asia or visit relatives in Australia, they are certainly not going to walk or take the train.
They need to recognize the efforts and huge amounts of money aviation is investing to become greener industry.
There has to be a middle ground that allows aviation to meet the spectacular demand that is coming and to satisfy the environmental lobby that aviation is not the bad guy.
If this does not happen, airlines will face serious operational and financial burdens because aviation infrastructure is not matching looming demand.
TOM BALLANTYNE
Associate editor and chief correspondent
Orient Aviation Media Group
