Airports: Heathrow

Lord Rotherwick Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I understand noble Lords’ passion about the problem with Heathrow, but we must also recognise that there are over 200,000 people around Heathrow adversely affected by the noise of airport operations.

[Lord Rotherwick]

My Lords, although people are saying that Heathrow is full up, nearly saturated or working at 98% capacity, is it not true that that in reality is in good weather? During bad weather when the time between landings is extended significantly, considerable delay is caused. It really is time that we should respond to this because it is totally detrimental to the UK that other nations should see that we are incapable of operating an efficient transport system.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I believe that we are responding and that we have handled the bad weather better by proactively cancelling flights in advance in order to reduce the activity at the airport so that the runways can be cleared. It is interesting that at Gatwick, which does not run at 100% capacity, it is much easier to keep the runways clear. Gatwick has the time to do it without having to cancel aircraft.