Building a Better Heathrow, Not Simply a Bigger One
Heathrow expansion is back at the centre of the national conversation. For those of us whose job is to represent passengers, that raises a deceptively simple question: what would expansion actually mean for the people who use the airport?
The Heathrow Passenger Forum has now submitted its response to the Government’s consultation on the draft Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement.
We support the principle of expansion. But our support is neither unconditional nor simply about adding another runway.
Heathrow already operates under enormous pressure. When things go wrong, limited spare capacity makes disruption harder to contain and recovery more difficult. Expansion offers an opportunity not merely to accommodate more aircraft, but to build resilience, increase competition and consumer choice, improve connectivity and create an airport designed around passengers for decades to come.
Our proposition is simple: expansion must leave behind more than a larger airport. It must leave behind a better one.
That means a more resilient airport, with operational headroom and faster recovery from disruption. It means greater airline competition and choice. And it means using technology to make journeys calmer, clearer and more dependable — while ensuring the airport remains inclusive and accessible to everyone.
It also means protecting the passenger experience during construction. Expansion will take many years. Millions of passengers cannot simply be expected to endure worsening facilities and disruption in return for the promise of a better airport sometime in the future. Each phase should protect service quality and, wherever possible, deliver tangible benefits.
The same principle applies to Heathrow’s neighbours. Expansion will impose very real costs on some communities. Engagement must be early and meaningful, compensation fair and straightforward, and mitigation delivered before impacts wherever possible.
Communities should not be asked to accept certainty of impact in return for uncertainty of mitigation.
Finally, there must be fairness for the passengers helping to fund all this. Investment has a cost, but current passengers should not disproportionately finance infrastructure from which they receive little immediate benefit — particularly while experiencing construction disruption.
Put simply: passengers should not pay more during construction simply to receive less.
For HPF, the ultimate test is therefore not whether Heathrow becomes larger.
It is whether expansion creates an airport that is more resilient, more sustainable, more competitive and more passenger-centred than the one it replaces.
That is the Heathrow we should now set out to build.