Campaigners took their opposition to Stansted expansion to the courts today, but are there other reasons to think it might never happen?
Another day, another airport expansion. It's a bit like the opening to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - as Arthur Dent lies in front of the bulldozers to protect his house from being flattened to make way for a road, the man from the construction company berates him: "What do you mean, why's it got to be built?" he says. "It's a bypass. You've got to build bypasses." Substitute runway for bypass, and comedy morphs into reality.
Anyway, today it's the turn of Stansted, as campaigners take BAA to the High Court to challenge expansion plans. This is one to watch, not least because two interesting things have just happened in relation to Stansted which may well come up in court.
First, the Competition Commission are about to tell BAA that they have to sell Stansted, breaking their monopoly on the big three London airports - Stansted, Gatwick and Heathrow - for the first time. You might imagine that they'd be a bit unhappy about that, but as Rich notes over on the Plane Stupid blog, they haven't exactly been kicking up a fuss. I wonder why that is?
Secondly, BAA have pushed back the proposed date for opening a second runway at Stansted from 2015 to 2017, because of a fall in passenger numbers through the airport. That's huge news - not just because it's a really big project, but also because this is the first time in recent years that falling passenger numbers have had such a clear impact on the industry.
Up until now, when it came to aviation expansion, the Department for Transport's rather ‘optimistic' passenger growth predictions have been used to justify just about anything. The DfT predict that passenger numbers will double or even treble by 2030, and such is the degree to which this prediction underpins government transport policy - half-hearted on rail, gung-ho on aviation - that it's tempting to believe that Geoff Hoon has an imaginary friend who sits on his shoulder whispering "If we build it, they will fly..." into his ear, eighteen hours a day.
But now the credit crunch has come along, people are flying less, and those touting enthusiastic growth predictions are going to have to answer some difficult questions. It's difficult to predict how the credit crunch will affect the future of passenger numbers or demand for flying. But clearly, the DfT can no longer talk about never-ending demand for flying with a straight face. They've argued slavishly that demand will grow, in an effort to outweigh the overwhelming environmental case against aviation expansion. Suddenly that argument is looking even dodgier.
Maybe, despite the bluster about limitless demand BAA and the government are putting out in public they're no longer buying their own propaganda. Maybe that's why BAA isn't appealing about having to sell Stansted. We'll see, but the message to airport operators is clear: times have changed - your passenger numbers may go down as well as up.
