London remains world’s premium travel...

UK capital has twice as many premium air passengers as New York or Tokyo

London is the world’s leading premium travel market, the UK's Transport Select Committee was told earlier this month.

Brian Pearce, Executive Director of the Air Transportation Systems Laboratory at University College London and former Chief Economist at Iata, said: “The London air travel market is the largest in the world, ahead of New York and Tokyo, particularly for passengers paying premium fares, the majority of whom are likely to be business passengers.”

Pearce said: “Heathrow has been full for two decades – and London has twice as many premium paying passengers as New York or Tokyo [and] the only way to maintain these routes is by public subsidy or government action.”

Pearce told the committee: “Heathrow has been losing ground over the years, in particular to the Gulf [States]. But it’s still the second-busiest international airport [in the world] and still the top airport for international connections.”

The committee hearing sought to examine the links between airport expansion and “economic growth across the whole of the UK” following the announcement in January of government support for Heathrow expansion, which included research suggesting “60% of the economic boost from a third runway would be felt outside London and the Southeast”. Though some evidence presented to the committee challenged that forecast.

When asked why there weren’t more direct flights to destinations from regional airports, Pearce explained the benefit of a using a hub airport, such as Heathrow, saying: “On many routes, there aren’t enough passengers [for direct flights] so airlines need to consolidate passengers at a hub.”

But asked what benefit there would be to passengers from Edinburgh connecting via Heathrow rather than Amsterdam or Paris, Pearce acknowledged: “The majority of benefits would come in the region of London.”

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