ADS Group reports that aircraft production between January and November 2015 was up 5 per cent per cent on 2014 levels and there was more good news for aerospace at the end of last week.
On February 5, 2016 the department for business, innovation and skills (BIS) announced that Loughborough University would receive £9.8m to create a new open access National Centre of Excellence in Gas Turbine Combustion Aerodynamics.
Due to be operational by 2018, the new centre is expected to lead research and technology development in gas turbine combustion and give industry access to advanced facilities within it.
The funding follows a government commitment in the 2015 Spending Review of an extra £900m over 10 years for aerospace R&D. With match funding from industry, a total joint commitment of £3.9bn is available from 2013.
BIS said the aim of the Centre will be to “research and test new greener and more efficient combustion technologies required to meet emissions targets and drive product competitiveness.”
According to ADS, commercial aircraft production levels have grown by nearly 50 per cent since 2009, with a new aircraft ordered on average every four hours and delivered every 6.5 hours globally in 2015.
In 2015, 1,397 aircraft were built, bringing with them an increase in value to UK industry of around £3bn.
Interesting that the UK can – in this briefest of recent industry snapshots – present a compelling case for continued investment in the hardware that makes flight possible whilst the infrastructure on which it can operate remains open to debate.
For this reason, the government Transport Committee will today question Patrick McLoughlin, Secretary of State for Transport, on his reasons for avoiding a decision on a new runway in the south east of England, and on his future timetable for airport expansion.
A decision on a new runway was expected by the end of 2015, but this has been postponed until after London’s mayoral election in May.
In July 2015, Airports Commission Chairman Sir Howard Davies said that a third runway at Heathrow ‘presents the strongest case and offers the greatest strategic and economic benefits’.
Mayoral candidates Zac Goldsmith (Conservative) and Sadiq Khan (Labour) oppose expansion at Heathrow and many are keen to remind PM David Cameron of his pre-election promise of 2009 not to build a third runway at Heathrow.
Louise Ellman MP, chair of the Transport Committee says that businesses are making investment decisions now and need to know that the UK is capable of making ‘tough choices on infrastructure and international connectivity.’
Over the weekend, 13 construction and development firms are said to have written to George Osborne urging him to support a third runway at Heathrow.
According to the Express & Star, the letter to Osborne said Heathrow has provided a “steady base of work” during the economic downturn and expansion would bring “a £15.6bn order book to the UK supply chain”.
Furthermore, according to today’s City AM, hedge fund boss Crispin Odey has weighed in with an open letter saying: “The answer to the government’s conundrum is actually quite plain: stop fixating on Heathrow and expand Gatwick.
“Gatwick faces no legal impediment to expansion, whereas Heathrow’s expansion has been permanently stalled by noise and air quality issues and will continue to be so in future. Above all, the business community wants something to happen – and Gatwick is the option that can happen. We should get on with it.”
What do you think? Let us know below.
I was at Gatwick last week. It’s a no brainer: Gatwick with good rail connections is the place to expand. Not Heathrow.
Heathrow is a dead duck,the costs alone are prohibitive. Has anyone looked at Manston in Kent, it’s available; has all the aviation facilities and just needs a terminal building plus a high speed rail link to the capital.
This has to be lower cost and LESS DISRUPTIVE to Gatwick or the dreaded Heathrow whilst works are taking place, remember how successful Ryanair has been with its destination airports a few miles from large cities.
There’s the answer: Manston and a rail link.
Barber – Heathrow will just add to more congestion and during busy periods is a nightmare. Gatwick is more accessible but too far away from everyone in the country. Why not expand Birmingham or Manchester. London is not the only area in the UK. Both Manchester and Birmingham have excellent transport facilities to accommodate increased traffic.
Heathrow is far too busy already and the surrounding area cannot cope with more – traffic, pollution, etc. It should be retained but only for freight traffic -giving plenty of scope for continued use.
Meanwhile the now discarded estuary option should be restarted and a whole new passenger airport should be build there. Access is potentially problematic and is one of the reasons many want to retain Heathrow – as a reasonably accessible access point for air travel. This is well demonstrated by the growth of businesses in the western corridor -out as far as Bristol.
The solution is to create two new access points for the new airport – one to the north and one to the west of London (hence Heathrow could still be one) and these must have check-in facilities and ultra rapid transport (e.g. high speed train) direct to the new estuary airport.
[Perhaps along the lines of another cross rail project]
So passengers could check in at the Northern or Western
access points and arrive at the airport proper carrying only hand baggage.
This solution could serve the UK into the 22nd century -and we should be planning for it now.
“passengers could check in ,,, and arrive at the airport proper carrying only hand baggage.” Who’s old enough to remember Buckingham Palace Road Air Terminal, Westminster, which had exactly the quoted facility? Maybe introduce one or two more e.g. near Basingstoke, Reading, or High Wycombe? When did the former Terminal close and why?
Expand Birmingham or Manchester and stop HS2. Gatwick is at the back of beyond for most of the country.
There is lots of capacity in the south east for people who live in the south east. The roads are full of people driving south to catch a flight. After a while, they get tired of driving and move here .
No one (let alone the politicians) seems to have any concern about safety, when considering where to locate or expand airports.
Every aircraft that takes off has to return to the ground, and there are regular cases of the arrival back on terra firma not being on a runway, or anywhere near one, and/or not being under control.
If you have one of the largest cities in the world (London) right under the flightpath for one of the busiest airports in the world (Heathrow), then it is a matter of inevitability that an aircraft will land on the city at some point in time. As Heathrow is so busy (and now the wish is to make it even busier and more congested), then it is also perfectly possible that two aircraft will land on the city together, having just collided with each other. Now that would be quite a napalm bomb. Number of casualties?
OK, you statisticians may not agree with my ‘inevitability’ comment, but as we have to recognise the VERY long timeframe during which the risk applies, you would at least have to accept a ‘probable’ rating. And that is still far too high a risk for the city of London to accept.
The solution is obvious.
1. Build the Boris airport. An amazing infrastructure would result, with huge development opportunities. The replacement Hong Kong airport would be a minnow in comparison. If you don’t like the Boris idea, then look at Manston.
2. Then close Heathrow, and what a valuable site that would turn into for industry and housing. Another amazing infrastructure project.
I don’t how when the catastrophe will happen in London, but it will. When it does, remember that it was predictable, and 100% avoidable. And when it happens, there will be nothing to stop it happening again on the very day that Heathrow re-opens for business.
“should be planning for it now”. I have to believe that those offering various suggestions as above are sensible, intelligent, technically trained and well educated persons who use rational thinking and analysis to come to any decision about any element of their areas of expertise and interest.
I have specified above six(6) areas of competence that any Nation that hopes to be amongst the leaders in the world (and that is a world now completely interlinked) would suppose its own leaders had. And used to make vital decisions. Sadly, Eton, Arts, self-seeking, selfish, political sycophants have and use none of these criteria. They sit at the top of a corrupt pyramid of enforced ‘power’ created by a conn-trick: the once every five-years sop to the population to allow it to believe it participates in the way they are governed…and every now and then offer a ‘jury’ of purchased persuasion the role of rubber-stamping the decision of a Cabal![ If I recall, cabal is a word formed (from the first letters of a group then in power in the 15th century) and frankly, what has altered.
With the increase in defence cuts and the number of military airfields recently shut down I can’t believe these are being overlooked, especially the former RAF Lyneham.
A huge former military airfield designed for large aircraft (the Hercules, TriStar, and C17 were either resident or regular visitors). As far as infrastructure goes London Paddington is only 45 minutes from the nearby Swindon by rail. The M4 corridor is immediately adjacent.
It would be a relatively short task to put rail and motorway stubs to provide direct access.
I suspect the problem is money! No private operator currently runs Lyneham (or other ex-military bases around Britain). They would be reluctant to pay the licence and limited infrastructure costs associated with such verses a very expensive extension to either Heathrow or Gatwick.
Further to this if a former military airfield were taken over the jobs increase would benefit an area that inevitably lost a significant number of jobs when former military presence ceased, and additionally a range of new jobs would be created in a new economic area as the services would not merely be an expansion of the existing infrastructure.
Airfield infrastructure is mostly present at former military airfields include bulk fuel pipeline into the national network, large amounts of Hangar space and goods laydown. Granted terminals would need developing building (military infrastructure had little in terms of the comfort factor) but at the rate we can build such I doubt this would take too much effort.
http://tinyurl.com/z729myq – Lyneham