Virgin pulls support for 3rd Heathrow runway unless charges cut

UK-based Virgin Atlantic has pulled support for Heathrow airports’s plans to build a third runway plans as the two organisations continue to row over fees.

Heathrow wants to hammer airlines with a 120% rise in landing charges, which would ultimately be paid by passengers. Virgin chief executive Shai Weiss called the move “abuse of power by a de facto monopolistic airport”.

He urged the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which regulates the business to intervene.

“Until that happens, it is difficult to see how expansion at Heathrow can be supported,” he told an aviation conference

The CAA has allowed Heathrow to hike charges by 56% next year, or more than £30 a passenger, but would have to trim them by 2026.

Weiss said Heathrow’s plan to raise charges was “great for the airport and its mostly foreign shareholders” - including Qatar and China’s sovereign wealth fund – but “a bad deal for consumers, airlines, and the UK economy”.

Speaking at the Airlines 2022 conference in central London on Monday, Weiss said that, along with other carriers, “we have fought long and hard to ensure the CAA uses its powers to ensure this would not happen and encouraged the UK government to pay closer attention to the abuse of power by a de facto monopolistic airport”.

“Whilst overseas carriers can more easily absorb the increasing costs of UK flights or move their aircraft and investment elsewhere, British carriers cannot.”

Heathrow has been embroiled in a war of words with airlines after a summer of chaos and finger pointing as staff shortages led to flight cancellations and passengers arriving at destinations without their luggage.

The West London airport was forced to impose a 100,000 passenger-a-day cap as it blamed airlines for not staffing up quickly enough.

Thousands of workers were sacked during the Covid pandemic as global air traffic was virtually grounded and airlines haemorrhaged cash.

Weiss added: “This is not just about the next price control period in four years’ time. Everyone in this room will recognise the damage to consumer confidence that summer disruption caused.

“A repeat of this in summer 2023 is completely avoidable if honest and accurate passenger forecasts are used now for resource planning and building resilience.”

“The regulatory framework and process is simply not working. It is broken and must be reformed.”

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com