‘HS2 all over again’: Heathrow expansion plans ‘f***ing off the wall,’ says Ryanair boss
Heathrow and Gatwick Airport’s plans for another runway are “f***ing off the wall” and far too expensive, Ryanair’s chief executive Michael O’Leary has said.
In an interview in London, the Irish businessman told City PM the projects were “pie in the sky stuff” and that rival Stansted Airport would make a more suitable place for expansion.
Heathrow and Gatwick are at separate stages of multi-billion proposals to build third and second runways, but the feasibility of both plans has been questioned.
Heathrow’s £14bn development, one of the most expensive private sector infrastructure projects in the UK, has been in the works for decades. It has a seal of approval from the government but costs are rising with inflation and it has been described as a civil engineering nightmare.
“I don’t think it’s possible to fund another runway in Heathrow. I mean the cost, I think the last estimate of cost was like £15bn, it’s like f***ing HS2 all over again,” O’Leary said.
“The concrete cost of a runway is about 250m quid, how the f**** did you get to £15bn?” he added, describing it as “mad money.”
The West-London hub’s proposals would involve diverting the M25 into a tunnel to make space for the third strip but O’Leary argued that would never work. “There is simply no way you’re going to move the M25, nor can you f***ing tunnel under the M25,” he told City PM
Lowering a section of the motorway would result in the demolition of some 750 homes, a primary school and an energy facility. The construction would also disrupt traffic between Junctions 14 and 15, which is used by over 200,000 drivers each day.
Europe’s busiest airport, under new CEO Thomas Woldbye, is still mulling over whether to push the long-delayed project forward amid a looming general election later this year.
Gatwick submitted a more modest £2.2bn plan to bring its emergency runway into routine use last summer. It estimates the proposals would create 14,000 new jobs and inject £1bn into the local economy each year, with construction remaining within the airport’s boundaries.
But local opposition argues that “nothing has changed” since the government turned down Gatwick’s former expansion plans in favour of Heathrow in 2016, following a recommendation from the Airports Commission.
Gatwick sits on a single arterial road (M23) and a single railway line that can’t be expanded. The campaign group Cagne say local rail stations and residential roads would be flooded by vast increases in traffic overflowing from the major routes nearby.
The typically combative comments from Ryanair’s chief come amid a drive to boost capacity in the UK’s airport sector. Alongside Heathrow and Gatwick, Stansted and Luton have both got the go-ahead for their own proposals over the last year.
O’Leary argued that airports should be encouraged to expand, but the government needs to “free up the planning restrictions over here in the UK.”
He added the “obvious place” for a new runway would be a “greenfield in Essex,” referring to London Stansted, Ryanair’s largest base. “There’s not a very big built-up area around it… It’s less environmentally troubling than trying to put in another runway at Heathrow or Gatwick.”
“If the government was serious about infrastructure, and I’m not sure the current government is serious about anything, but if they were serious about infrastructure and making sensible infrastructure investments to serve London… the next runway should be in Stansted.”
A London Gatwick spokesperson said: “Our plans would also benefit many communities across the South East by providing new economic and business opportunities as well as benefits for tourism and international trade.”
“Our plans are in-line with Government policy of making best use of existing infrastructure and the majority of construction activity will take place within the existing airport boundary.”
Heathrow declined to comment.