London Mayor in about turn

Boris Johnson, once the Member of Parliament for Henley, which is effectively a Heathrow constituency, has done something of an about-turn calling the Government “crazy” over its unwillingness to discuss new airport capacity in the south east of England.  Mr Johnson, as Mayor, opposed the Heathrow (LHR) third runway project and heavily promoted a questionable scheme for an airport in the Thames Estuary. 

Speaking at a People’s Question Time event last week, Mr Johnson warned that a lack of new runways is hindering London's long term competitiveness highlighting figures that Beijing (inevitably – Editor) had overtaken LHR in the pecking order of world airports in terms of passenger throughput, and also behind Atlanta and Chicago.  It still leads as the world’s busiest international airport.  Soaring air passenger taxes he called “an absolute disgrace”.  He did not make it clear if he was now in favour of expansion at Heathrow, or Gatwick/Stansted.

BAA Ltd took the opportunity of issuing a press release.

“We believe that London needs more airport capacity to strengthen the trading links on which future economic growth depends, and we welcome the Mayor’s comments,” said Nigel Milton, Heathrow Airport’s Director of Policy and Political Relations. www.baa.com

Index/Home page
 

OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum