London Heathrow’s plan for a third runway to increase capacity and reduce delays, long delayed by political fights over whether to allow it or whether the runway should be allocated to another airport, has now been delayed a further three years.
Although the airport’s owners had gotten a green light for the project, the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority has not given the OK to actually start work before planning is complete. The company, Heathrow Airport Limited, wants to finish the project by 2026, and to do that, it wants to start work now while planning, and getting planning permissions, continues. It proposed spending £2.9 billion before getting its last permits.
The CAA has said no to that, because while it believes in the project, it also recognizes that if work goes ahead, and some permissions aren’t granted, the funds spent up to that time would be wasted, and would result in higher fares and costs. Sources estimate that the likely completion date is actually 2029.
