The Baltic Air Charter Association (BACA) has announced that it welcomes the outcome announced by Sir Howard Davies of the Airports Commission for the building of a new third runway at Heathrow Airport. BACA fully supports the outcome and gives its full backing to the speedy implementation of the findings of the report. After a considerable time in waiting for the result BACA urges that construction goes ahead at the earliest possible opportunity and that any objections should be dealt with quickly and resolved within a time limit of three months, maximum.

Now that the Commission’s report has been published BACA urges the UK Government to respond quickly and begin implementing the findings with immediate effect. BACA believes that building a new runway at Heathrow should be a key priority of the new UK government. Primarily because, even if the decision is fast tracked, it will still be 10 years or more before the new runway becomes operational.

The decision to increase capacity at Heathrow will mean that during times of traffic disruption London will have multiple airports with available capacity and adds options to cope with diverted traffic. Gatwick was, and still is, a very viable alternative. Long haul flights and transits to our trading partners in all parts of the globe are vital, and runway capacity is vital. If the UK government doesn’t implement this decision Britain will suffer in the long term.  Many major cities in Europe are already adding runway capacity, some already having 3, 4 and 5 runways.

BACA Chairman Tony Coe comments “I would like to thank Sir Howard Davies and his team for his carefully considered report and ask that the findings are implemented with immediate effect. With UK airport capacity at full stretch there should be no further delays in the building of the runway at Heathrow. The issue of UK airport capacity has to be urgently addressed, BACA is of the opinion that the new runway should be the number one infrastructure priority for the UK.”