Low-cost airlines will be welcome at Heathrow once the slot-constrained London airport gains its third runway, according to chief executive Thomas Woldbye.
“There is no reason we should not have low-cost carriers with our third runway,” he told the Airlines 2025 conference in London on 10 November. “Our job is not to tell people how to fly, but to have the widest range of products on the shelf. My job is to create growth, and we will do that by attracting airlines.”
Kenton Jarvis, the new chief executive of EasyJet, has said a third runway would give the budget carrier the chance to operate “at scale” at the UK’s largest airport and allow passengers in the nearby Thames Valley to benefit from low fares, without having to travel to Gatwick or Luton, EasyJet’s other main London bases.
However, with Heathrow close to capacity and its pricing model under scrutiny, operating from there has never been a realistic option for low-cost carriers.
Speaking at another event on 10 November, Jarvis said that “up until now” Heathrow has not been an option for the carrier due to its slot constraints. It is, he says, the the “only primary capital airport” in Europe it does not serve.
While noting that EasyJet “will have to see what the commercial proposal is” before making a commitment, he adds that ”if they can find some way of making it commercially attractive then it’s a great opportunity.”
The UK government has said it will this month choose its preferred option for expanding Heathrow during the next decade. Heathrow’s own plan to commission a third runway as part of £49 billion ($64 billion) scheme faces a rival proposal from Arora Group.
While Heathrow’s plan for a 3,500m runway would involve building a tunnel to reroute the M25 London orbital west of the airport, Arora’s 2,500m runway would fall short of the motorway.
However, Woldbye insists that Arora’s plan would be more expensive, complicated, and disruptive, encroaching on a rail line and entailing the demolition of more homes than Heathrow’s own scheme.
“We have a huge bank of data that shows that there is no better option [than ours],” he says.
The government’s “ambition” is to have flights operating from a new runway by 2035.
