Reject airport expansion plans, urges AEF and other NGOs
16th December, 2024
AEF, alongside a group of NGOs, has written to the Secretary of State for Transport, encouraging her to immediately review the case for airport expansion. The urgency for this strategic review comes ahead of a decision on Luton Airport expansion, which is expected at the beginning of 2025*. A similar decision on Gatwick Airport is expected a month later in February 2025. If these expansion plans were to go ahead, they would not only undermine the UK’s climate goals, but they would also negatively impact local residents with increased noise and air pollution.
*Update: After publishing this article, the Secretary of State announced that the deadline for determining Luton Airport’s expansion plan has been pushed back by 3 months. The new decision deadline is 3rd April 2025.
The NGOs concerns are threefold:
1) Giving any airport expansion plan the green light goes directly against the Government’s own climate advisor’s guidance. The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has repeatedly reported that UK aviation has yet to show it is on track to decarbonise, and therefore expansion should not be considered until a capacity management framework is in place.
2) There is compelling new evidence that the economic benefits of airport expansion have been overblown.The New Economic Foundation’s analysis shows that, in recent years, there has been a weak correlation between air traffic growth and GDP.
3) The rate at which so-called ‘Sustainable’ Aviation Fuels are being scaled is concerningly slow. AEF, as well as the signatory NGOS, has extremely low confidence that these fuels will be able to guarantee the aviation industry’s emission reductions. With this in mind, any expansion in flight numbers is irresponsible.
Collectively, AEF and the other NGOs urge the Government to review the central planning guidance documents around aviation, and to take into account the CCC’s advice and its upcoming recommendations for Carbon Budget 7, before taking any decision to expand airports which will surely throw the UK’s climate targets into disarray.
Celeste Hicks, AEF’s Policy Manager, had this to say:
In early January 2025 the government is expected to make a decision about expanding Luton airport. Make no mistake, expanding this airport will put our climate targets in jeopardy, and lead to a nearly 70% increase in flights, bringing noise and disruption to local residents.”
The full letter sent to the Secretary of State for Transport can be accessed below:
Cover image courtesy of Flightradar24.