Airport Expansion

Since the Labour government came to power in 2024, airport expansion is back on the agenda. For the latest news and updates on recent and current airport expansion plans, visit our Airport Tracker.

Airport expansion brings misery to local communities, affected by increased noise and disturbance from new flight paths, air pollution from the planes and airport traffic, which also means more congestion on local roads. AEF continues to represent residents affected by airport expansion, and is working to push the CAA for community voices to be better represented in the design of new flightpaths in the airspace modernisation process.

There is also ample evidence that despite claims that expanding airports leads to economic growth, the UK has likely reached a point where increasing capacity does not lead to increased productivity or growth. Business use of air travel – a key argument for expansion – has declined by 50% since 2013. Similarly, air travellers spend £41 billion more abroad than foreign travellers spend when visiting the UK. A 2025 report into airport expansion by the Environmental Audit Committee forensically analysed claims about economic growth and concluded that the evidence was lacking.

Expansion and carbon budgets

Aviation emissions have historically not been included in carbon budgets, because as an international industry, the emissions are accounted for at the international level. In 2019, the UK government committed to reaching Net Zero by 2050, and two years later confirmed that international aviation and shipping emissions (IAS) would be included in the Sixth Carbon Budget, running from 2033-37. However, the necessary secondary legislation to enact that has yet to be tabled.

In its advice to government on achieving the UK’s Sixth Carbon budget, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) recommended that there should be no airport expansion until the sector had begun to make meaningful progress on decarbonisation. However, that advice subtly shifted in the CCC’s advice on Carbon Budget 7, which was published in early 2025. In this report, the CCC noted that aviation was still on course to become the biggest emitting sector by 2040, but nevertheless changed tack to recommend that instead of restricting airport capacity, demand growth management could be achieved through increased carbon pricing and ticket prices rising as decarbonisation technologies are rolled out.

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Expansions given the go ahead

In early 2025, the government announced support for expansion at Heathrow Airport, and in October 2025, a review of the Airports National Policy Statement (ANPS) was launched, which should guide planning decisions on the proposals. This followed an announcement in summer 2024 that London City Airport would be allowed to expand, and an announcement in April 2025 that Luton would be allowed to expand, and finally an announcement in September 2025 that Gatwick would be allowed to expand. You can read the latest expansion plans here.

The decision to allow expansions, despite the obvious implication that carbon emissions will increase if the number of flights increases, appears to have been based on assumptions that decarbonisation trajectories detailed in the 2022 Jet Zero strategy would deliver the necessary emissions reductions. AEF’s view is that this is a high-risk strategy that puts the UK’s carbon budgets in jeopardy.

AEF also believes that the cumulative effect of these all these individual proposals on climate change should be taken into account in decision making. However, as recent planning hearings have revealed, planning inspectors have struggled to contextualise the impacts of individual airport expansions on the UK’s climate targets and carbon budgets as a whole.