Sixty kilometres or so from Dubai International Airport, they are working flat-out, building the world’s biggest airport.
Khalifa Al Zaffin, executive chairman of Dubai Aviation City Corporation, says Al Maktoum International Airport will be completed in phases, with the first set to be operational in 2032. Key contractors are mobilised, construction is proceeding and a contract has been issued to develop a second runway for the new airport. When completed, the initial section will be capable of handling up to 150 million passengers annually. In all, when it is finished, Al Maktoum International will cater for 260 million passengers a year. It’s intended to fully replace Dubai International Airport within 10 years.
In the UK, they can only look at what is unfolding in Dubai with wonder and envy. The sheer scale, the numbers, the dates – they make the country’s own history of airport expansion look anachronistic, desperately cack-handed and cumbersome.
They’ve been arguing about expanding Heathrow since 1968. If the third runway is ever built, the main London airport will accommodate 150 million travellers a year, which just happens to be the same as that first phase of Al Maktoum International.
Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, has set a deadline of 2035 for the new runway to be operational, so three years after Al Maktoum International is up and running.
The contrast between the two could not be greater. Still, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ms Reeves insist Heathrow’s third runway is to go ahead. But if you were prone to gambling, which would you select as most likely to hit its targets?
It’s not only the comparison with Dubai that is stark. Other airports have been planned and built and expanded all around the world while the UK prevaricates. Britain argues while others get on and do the job.
Looking at how civil aviation develops and operates elsewhere is not only a statistics game. It matters for a simple reason, that airlines and passengers are examining like-for-likes on a daily basis. Air travel is a global industry; Dubai, London and other destinations are all bound up in international competition. Customers, whether they are companies like the passenger and freight operators, or business and leisure travellers, are scrutinising prices and what they receive for their money.
Decades of flight through Heathrow - in pictures
At present, the most expensive airport in the world is Heathrow. It is set to become even more costly should the new scheme receive approval. Under plans submitted to the government, Heathrow is reckoning on spending £49 billion ($65.14 billion), to be recovered from increased landing charges that will in turn be recouped by the airlines from higher fares.
Again, Dubai rears its head. The bill for the new Al Maktoum International is estimated at £26 billion. By the end, Heathrow will have only three runways compared with Dubai’s five.
Heathrow’s funding will be private, reflecting a British way of paying for major infrastructure improvements that effectively encourages spending without financial comeback to the developer. They can "gold-plate" in the knowledge they are not bearing the expense, which ultimately the end user, in this case air passengers, will cough up.
The most glaring example of how this can play out, to the detriment of the consumer, is the UK water industry. It, too, was privatised, along with the British Airports Authority, operator of Heathrow, in the Thatcher era (1979-1990). The identical regulatory framework was applied and ever since, the price of water and the profits enjoyed by the water companies – but not the quality of service – has kept on climbing. A similar structure exists and will, barring an unlikely change in the rules, be followed again at Heathrow.
Of course, Heathrow is not Dubai. The London airport was built originally in the wrong location, at a West London site, which in today’s world of vastly busier air travel is no longer fit for purpose. It abuts the M25, one of Britain and Europe’s most congested motorways, and is in a part of the South-east that is criss-crossed by rivers and streams and their valleys. Adding a new runway is a mammoth undertaking, requiring complex engineering and environmental considerations.
Heathrow management believes it has found the solution by erecting a tunnel, diverting from the frequently jammed road under the airstrip. Cue probable campaigns and protests as wholesale protracted vehicle disruption, despite Heathrow’s assurances to the contrary, is almost certain to occur. To do it without would be nothing short of a miracle and few share Heathrow’s optimism.
What is telling is how a key plank in the UK government’s economic growth strategy is allowed to progress in such a manner. According to Ms Reeves, as she announced the government’s support for the third runway this year: "These are decisions the national government makes, and this Labour government backs Heathrow expansion, backs the third runway at Heathrow."
That is not her fault, it’s the UK methodology – same with the water companies. Witness also HS2 where the planned, landmark superfast rail service to the North-west has been drastically curtailed and subjected to monumental delay, and the bill spirals ever upwards.
A cheaper alternative to the Heathrow plan has been proposed by the self-made billionaire and airport hotel developer, Surinder Arora. His vision encompasses building a shorter runway that does not threaten the M25 and plays to the airlines’ preference for smaller, long-haul planes. Mr Arora, who counts Bechtel in his line-up, is also advocating Heathrow’s new terminal to be run by a company with a proven high-grade record in high-grade airport management to inject competition into the West London set-up. His final sum, for a runway and terminal, is £25 billion, again close to that Dubai £26 billion figure.
Mr Starmer and Ms Reeves may stick with Heathrow or as some would regard it, gamble, and pick Mr Arora. Or they could follow previous governments and admit defeat and consign Heathrow’s expansion to the drawing board. The difference this time is that it has been made vital to their economic growth strategy. In that sense, presumably, it must happen. But how remains to be seen.
