Birmingham welcomes Tory plans for Heathrow

07/10/2009

Birmingham airport has praised the Conservatives for saying that they would scrap plans to build a new runway at Heathrow, it has been reported.

The Birmingham Post claims that the Midlands site believes it could instead provide further capacity, recovering passengers lost to London airports.

The airport's chief executive Paul Kehoe told the newspaper: "Birmingham is ready to respond to any current or future government initiatives.

"We have plenty of capacity and, linked to high-speed rail, we are uniquely positioned to not only claw back people from our own region who make the long journey to Heathrow, but to attract passengers from the overheated south-east."

He maintained that continuing to operate the majority of flights from a relatively small region of the country would have a negative impact on the environment and people's quality of life.

This year sees Birmingham airport celebrate its 70th anniversary, as 2009 marks 70 years since it first began offering services to Glasgow, Liverpool, Ryde, Shoreham, Manchester and Southampton.

Posted by Nick Jones