The UK Regional and Business Airports (RABA) Group, which represents 39 of the UK’s smaller regional and local Airports with scheduled pax throughputs of less than 3 million passengers per annum, welcomes today’s High Court decision and trusts that it will allow Heathrow Airport Limited to focus on delivering their third runway project, creating opportunities for enhanced regional links to the UK’s national hub, offering amongst the best network of international connections of any airport in the World.
RABA Group Chair Neil Pakey said “With the prospect of additional capacity being delivered in the next decade at a south east English Heathrow there is also the prospect of new services being established to other members airports in UK development areas or serving the UK’s secondary and tertiary cities. Such links will do much to help re-balance the UK economy, a goal that is supported across the political spectrum.
We note that in recent times connections with Heathrow have been re-established from Inverness, Cornwall Airport Newquay, Guernsey and Isle of Man with great local celebration, and we are looking forward to seeing the benefits this brings extended to other RABA airports and their catchments.
As set out in the government’s draft Aviation Strategy, an expanded Heathrow will provide an unprecedented opportunity to strengthen and develop these links, enabling all UK regions to develop new business, tourism and cultural links across the globe. In our view a significant increase in connected domestic nodes will be transformative to local and regional economies all over the UK.
We will be publishing our thoughts on these potential new destinations as part of our response to current DfT consultation on the development of UK Aviation Strategy.”
Neil Pakey
Chair