HEATHROW—GATWICK HELICOPTER LINK (Hansard, 19 July 1979)

§ Mr. Keith Wickenden (Dorking)

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise, even at this late hour, a question of some importance to my constituency, the Heathrow—Gatwick helicopter link. A year or so ago, the British Airports Authority announced its intention of applying to the Civil Aviation Authority for a licence to operate the link between our two principal London airports.

That announcement caused a great deal of concern amongst my constituents, many of whom saw the new service as an unexpected extension of Gatwick airport's activities. Then, as now, there was much worry about the increasing effect of the airport's intrusion into the lives of my constituents. Since then very little has changed, except that the degree of that intrusion has been ever-increasing.

I am conscious that my concern is equally shared by my hon. Friends the Members for Reigate (Mr. Gardiner), Epsom and Ewell (Mr. Hamilton), Esher (Mr. Mather), and Chertsey and Walton (Mr. Pattie). Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Esher made a powerful speech in the House on 23 March 1978, in which he described the new helicopter link as being a cautionary tale of how not to inaugurate a new air route. Now, with the benefit of the first year's operations of the helicopter link, I can add to my hon. Friend's strictures. Not only was it a cautionary tale of how not to inaugurate a new service but published results of the first year's operations amply justify the critics.

Before turning to detailed criticism of the helicopter link, I should make it quite clear that in no sense can I be described as being anti-airport. I fully recognise that, whilst any major international airport inevitably affects the living standards of those in the area, much employment and prosperity are created by the very existence of the facility. The effects on living conditions are by no means all detrimental.

2174 Nor am I opposed in principle to the concept of an air link between Heathrow and Gatwick. But what I do say is that the decision to use a Sikorsky S61 helicopter was bad at the time it was taken and that it can now be demonstrated beyond contradiction that the British Airports Authority's decision to apply for a licence to continue the service, largely in its present form, is wrong to the point of absurdity.

I suspect that there is no one in the authority who is big enough to admit that a mistake has been made. In the business world in which some of us have to operate it is not of itself reprehensible to make a mistake. There was a great Member of this House who once commented that those who did not make a mistake seldom created anything. But it is unforgivable not to recognise an error within a reasonable period, and it is even worse to compound the damage by pretending that all is well when the reverse is patently the case.

The effects of the Heathrow-Gatwick helicopter link are threefold. First, it has a considerable environmental impact. The Sikorski S61 helicopter creates a great deal of noise, and the effect of its noise is materially more than that of a fixed-wing aircraft of similar payload. Apart from the greater engine noise, helicopters create a particularly unpleasant sound because of the slapping action of the main rotors. In addition a helicopter is slower than a similar-capacity fixed-wing aircraft, and consequently the noise created is above a particular area for a longer period. It also cruises at a lower altitude than does a similar fixed-wing craft.

The reason given by the authority for the choice of the machine is contained in a letter dated 30 June 1977, addressed to the chairman of the Gatwick airport consultative committee. Fixed-wing aircraft were ruled out because. it would mean using runway slots which are already limited at times at both airports. My hon. Friend the Minister is greatly experienced in aviation matters. I am sure that he would have shared my surprise when at the holding point at Gatwick runway on one occasion I observed the air-link helicopter making a conventional runway approach. I inquired of air traffic 2175 control why that should be and was told that it was a safety requirement that the helicopter should make such approaches.

Therefore, the 1977 reason for choosing that machine, which seemed difficult to gainsay at the time, is nullified. The ability of a helicopter not to use a runway is its main advantage over a fixed-wing aircraft. In all other respects that I can think of—noise, capital cost, speed, operating costs and fuel consumption—a similar capacity fixed-wing aircraft wins hands down.

Secondly, the operation of the link in its first year reportedly caused a drain on public funds amounting to £400,000, a loss said to be announced by the authority and quoted in the Financial Times on 8 June 1979. I should say that I have learnt only today that the authority has since denied that the loss was of that order, although it is apparently unable to say just what it was. I was surprised that it was £400,000, because a few years ago I was involved in a very detailed study of the operation of this craft, and, knowing what the gross revenue had to be, I could not see how the loss could possibly have been contained to £400,000 on any normal conventional accounting method. If we accept that it is that figure, it is a considerable sum.

Before I go on to that, I again want to say that I am happy to pay tribute to the BAA, which has a commendable record of not continually calling on the Government for subventions. In fact, the authority has for many years operated in surplus. Furthermore, it has funded its capital expenditure from its own cash flow, and I can only add that I wish that all nationalised industries could claim a similar record.

Every penny that the authority loses unnecessarily, even though it is in overall credit, comes from public funds, and there is the clearest possible duty on the officers of the authority to minimise losses on any operation as soon as the reason for that is identified and once it has been established that the losses can be stopped without unreasonable loss of service to the public.

If, as I fear, I am told that these financial considerations are not for my hon. Friend's Department, I hope that the appropriate committee, whether it be the 2176 Public Accounts Committee or the newly established Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, will inquire rigorously into this apparent waste of public money and, if necessary, take to task those who are responsible.

To put the sums into a more readily understood context, the authority, in its first year of operation, through its operating agents charged each passenger for each single journey the sum of £12, and then by some masterpiece of entrepreneurial flair succeeded in losing a further £6.50 for each such passenger carried. It would have been cheaper, assuming that the passengers could have been persuaded to travel three to a car, to have sent the passengers between the airports free in a private hire car. I take as my authority for that statement figures quoted to me this week by the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association.

Thirdly, the decision to operate the Sikorsky S61 helicopter has caused a considerable waste of aircraft fuel at a time of rapidly increasing fuel costs and a shortage of supply. This craft at its normal cruising speed uses 1,100 lb.—that is half a ton—of fuel per flying hour, and I make no allowance for extra fuel during take-off and landing.

Since we know that in its first year the service carried an average of about eight passengers per 15-minute flight, we can calculate that a ton of fuel has been used to carry about 65 passengers between Heathrow and Gatwick. A fixed-wing aircraft of similar payload is significantly more fuel efficient, and it can easily again be calculated that the decision to use this helicopter has, in its first year of operation, meant a waste of about 450 tons of aviation fuel, and I calculate that to be about 150,000 gallons. I think that one is entitled to ask: how can average people be expected to understand the need for fuel economy when respected Government agencies behave in this matter? To have made the original calculation was bad enough; to ask to be permitted to go on making it for a further period of two years, which is what is now being asked, is little short of irresponsible.

Again I suspect that in his reply my hon. Friend will tell me that, whatever the merits of my argument, these are all matters within the competence of the BAA. Technically that may well be so, 2177 but, if I may say so, my hon. Friend is in a unique position. He is greatly respected in aviation circles, partly because of this considerable personal knowledge of the industry, and partly because of the great care and interest that he takes in the exercise of his duties, and I am deeply grateful to him for the considerable attention that he has already given to representations from my constituency on the subject of Gatwick.

Somebody in the BAA needs to be persuaded to take the eminently reasonable and sensible decision either to close down the link—and it does, after all, cater for less than one-fifth of 1 per cent. of passengers using the two airports—or, if that is not to be, to replace the Sikorsky S61 helicopter with a fixed-wing craft. I am convinced that nobody could be better qualified than my hon. Friend to exercise that persuasion.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. Norman Tebbit)

Several hon. Members have written to me on various aspects of the helicopter service and the forthcoming Civil Aviation Authority hearing into the possible renewal or extension of the service in future.

However, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking (Mr. Wickenden) on having had the good fortune to obtain an Adjournment debate on the matter so soon after entering the House. As a former practitioner of the art of using written parliamentary questions to squeeze out information concerning subjects of interest, I notice that my hon. Friend has found how to do that with considerable effect.

My hon. Friend will understand that I am unable to go too far in some directions because I might be trapped into commenting upon an application that is awaiting hearing by the Civil Aviation Authority. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will ultimately find himself in the position of acting as the last appellate authority in that matter. I hesitate to nitpick, but I understand that it was not the British Airports Authority that applied for the service. The application was made by British Caledonian Airways and British Airways Helicopters Ltd. However, my hon. Friend is right, in saying that it is basically the 2178 desire of the BAA to run the service which has caused it to be run.

My hon. Friend said that he believed that it was a mistake to use helicopters. Again, I shall be careful about the matter because an application has been made for the use of fixed-wing aircraft on the route. I shall not prejudge that application in any way. He said that helicopters have an adverse effect on the environment. There is some merit in that claim, but it is not entirely proven. On this route fixed-wing aircraft are not necessarily able to fly higher. He commented upon the strange sight of a helicopter flying a conventional instrument approach, arriving at an airport that is short of slots or approaches to the runways. That is not the only part of the journey where the helicopter's unique abilities are of great use. It would be difficult to persuade air traffic control that the fixed-wing aircraft could necessarily follow the same route paths as the helicopter is allowed to do.

Losses have been incurred, but they are of the order that were expected when the service started. It was expected to lose money initially for the first two or three years before breaking even.

My hon. Friend commented on the use of fuel by the helicopter as opposed to a fixed-wing link or a link by surface means. I accept that the helicopter uses more fuel to achieve the advantage of a potential vertical take-off and landing. I shall not refer to pounds of fuel because those figures are not generally understood. I am told that the helicopter uses 1.6 gallons of fuel per seat journey and that a limousine carrying two passengers would probably use two gallons of motor spirit for the same journey. That brings the matter into perspective. Of course, the fuel per passenger carried is much more than 1.6 gallons because the helicopter has been operating at a load factor of about 30 per cent. It is not quite as extreme a case as my hon. Friend is prepared to believe.

I should recall the background to the inception of the service. Increasingly, Gatwick and Heathrow need to be regarded as a single London airport with runways and terminals, regrettably, rather widely separated. It is essential that passengers can get swiftly from one part of that combined airport to another. Indeed, 2179 I am told that about 15 per cent. of all passengers through Heathrow are believed to be inter-line passengers. They are seeking to change aircraft. As more traffic goes through Gatwick, the proportion of that 15 per cent. who will require to move from one airport to the other will grow. If we achieve in the near future the transfers of services between Heathrow and Gatwick which we hope to achieve, the need will become much greater.

Many of those 15 per cent. of passengers do not need to go to Heathrow to inter-line. They could go to Rotterdam, Paris or other airports and they may increasingly do so—with a considerable loss to British airlines and to London itself—if there is not a swift, reliable service to connect the two airports.

Those of us who have to make the journey between the two airports by road know that it can be a frustratingly slow one. The helicopter is reliably swift. In its first year, it carried 58,000 passengers, of whom 82 per cent. were transferring between flights.

I hope that I have reassured my hon. Friend that there is a demand for the service and that the demand will remain until the M25 link is completed, which I am told will probably be in 1984. I hope that I shall also be able to assure him that the CAA will take, and has taken, proper account of the environmental objections and of the possibility of a fixed-wing service with a view to reducing those objections.

The CAA has made plain that it will pay particular attention in its hearing of the new application for the extension of the service to the objections of those who are concerned with the environment gen- 2180 erally and with noise particularly. I am sure that it will do so. It has already been in discussion over improved guidelines on the manner in which it will hear objectors on those grounds. At present, it does not have an obligation necessarily to hear objectors, or any particular objector, on environmental grounds.

Although I see the need for the link, in some form—as does my hon. Friend—I do not prejudge the matter in the sense of saying that it is essential that it should be operated by a helicopter rather than a fixed-wing aircraft or in the opposite sense of saying that it is clear that a fixed-wing aircraft could carry out the service properly.

I join my hon. Friend in expressing admiration for the way in which the British Airports Authority conducts its financial affairs—without constant recourse to new borrowing or grants from the public purse. My hon. Friend should regard that as a token of the basically businesslike way in which the authority operates and a token that it would not persist in a stupidly loss-making exercise if it thought that there was a better way of approaching it or that the whole operation was not worth the candle.

I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend will be grateful for what comfort I can give him and I hope also that he will make full use of the opportunities of further expressing his point of view to the Civil Aviation Authority and, indeed, to the British Airports Authority, as one business man to another group of business men, about the continuance of this service.