Walsh blasts Cameron’s dismissal of transfer passengers

British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh has hit out at Tory leader David Cameron’s suggestion that London Heathrow’s transfer passengers bring no economic benefit to the UK.

Walsh told delegates at a conference on sustainable aviation today that the argument showed little understanding of how an international hub like Heathrow worked.

He said: “This argument does not bear examination – and it has been sad to see Bob Ayling, my predecessor-but-one, put his name to it. This suggestion is extremely insulting to the millions of UK residents in the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland who regularly fly to Heathrow to catch connections to distant parts of the globe to win or maintain business and jobs for Britain.”

He explained that on Heathrow flights to and from Manchester, 75% of passengers were transferring. On services to and from Leeds/Bradford, Newcastle and Tees-side, the proportion was between 55% and 60%.
On flights to and from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, transfer traffic accounted for nearly half of all passengers.

He added: “Try telling these legions of hard-working men and women that their value to Britain is, as Bob Ayling put it, worth ‘little beyond the price of a cup of tea.”
He said non-UK residents transferring at Heathrow also made a difference to the UK economy, by maintaining routes from London that otherwise would not be financially viable.
Heathrow operates 110 scheduled long-haul routes – more than three times the total of any other UK airport. Sixty of those routes were not operated from any other UK airport.

Walsh added: “The importance of transfer traffic is obvious. If those 60 routes were viable on the basis of demand from the London area alone, then surely someone would operate them from a cheaper, less congested airport like Gatwick? Or Stansted? Or Luton? But no-one does. Because they are not viable as stand-alone, point-to-point routes.

“The critical financial strength of transfer passengers means that Heathrow can offer a far bigger network of direct, long-haul services for people who want a non-stop journey from London than would otherwise be the case.”

Walsh also told the conference why he thought runway capacity should be increased.

He said: “The absence of spare runway capacity has caused Heathrow’s global network to shrink from 227 destinations in 1990 to 180 today. This is a cycle of decline that must be reversed.”

By Dinah Hatch