Written evidence submitted by London Biggin Hill Airport (NPS0061)

Airports National Policy Statement (NPS) Inquiry

The comments below are intended to accompany the previous evidence submitted in April 2017.

With the busiest airports system in the world, the United States has developed a highly effective management system called the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS), by which all airports are organised into seven categories. This distinguishes large hubs from reliever airports, and is designed to free up capacity at congested airports.

Such a tiered system would be of great economic benefit to UK airports, because it recognises the need for different types of airports to meet unique industry demands. For example, airports like Stansted and Luton are suitable for busy airlines, but their slot restrictions makes them increasingly unsuitable for high value business aviation, a thriving sector, where passengers contribute nine times as much to gross domestic product (GDP) as a passenger on a scheduled flight. Dedicated business aviation airports like London Biggin Hill are emerging to serve the business aviation market by providing prime connectivity to global cities.

In turn, airports like Biggin must then, for safety reasons (fast jets vs slower and training circuit) need to reduce their light aviation traffic. So airport capacity is needed for each of these sectors as market demand develops. These individual sectors are not compatible on any meaningful scale, and should each have their own capacity safeguarded.

Such a strategy, to identify and align airports with market demand through a process of categorisation is a huge benefit to the future of a sustainable general aviation sector in the UK. The recent RAeS enquiry into the future of UK airfields highlighted the alarming rate at which smaller GA airfields are at risk of closure. It is incumbent upon the UK Airports Strategy to recognise the emergence of business aviation, so that club and circuit flying, which is a thriving industry in its own right, is similarly decanted to more suitable, dedicated club flying airports and away from business aviation and private owner airports.

We recommend the inclusion of reference to General Aviation, Business Aviation and reliever airport models to chapter 2 (“The Need For Additional Airport Capacity”) of the Revised Draft Airports National Policy Statement, alongside a similar structured approach to airport capacity, like the US model.

December 2017