ASA Adjudication on Future Heathrow

Ad

A press ad, making the case for the construction of a third runway at Heathrow, showed an arrivals board which listed four cities: “Paris. Economic Growth. Landed”; “Amsterdam. Capital Investment. On Time”; Frankfurt. Jobs and Opportunities. Expected”; “Heathrow. A Third Runway. ???”. The main text stated “The UK can’t afford to duck the decision on Heathrow’s third runway. Heathrow has only got two runways and already operates at 99% capacity whilst other key European airports have four runways or more … But Heathrow is full. With no third runway, business will bypass this country. How will our economy recover?”.

Issue

The complainant objected that the claim that Heathrow was "full" and "at 99% capacity" and the implication that a third runway was an absolute necessity was misleading, because it appeared to contradict a BAA report which suggested that the airport could handle up to 95 million passengers within its existing limits, compared to the 67 million it currently handled.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

BAA Ltd (BAA), responding on behalf of Future Heathrow, stated that Heathrow Airport was the busiest international airport in the world and its principal European competitors had four runways or more.  They stated Heathrow had handled 473,139 flights in 2008, which was 99 per cent of its current allowable limit of 480,000 per year, and provided documentation to support that.  They believed it was reasonable to interpret that figure to mean that Heathrow had reached its limit.  They stated Heathrow was unable to operate any additional flights, and airlines could not operate new services or destinations.  They provided documentation which showed that, at almost every time throughout the day, demand (namely, the demand for slots prior to scheduling limits being put in place) significantly exceeded runway capacity. They also provided press articles and a Department for Transport quote which suggested Heathrow was "full". They stated that, notwithstanding the legally enforceable limit on the number of flights permitted, it would be almost impossible to increase the number of flights operating at Heathrow without changing the times at which the airport operated (e.g. night flights) or the way the runways were used (e.g. mixed mode); both options had been ruled out by the Government. They therefore believed the only way that Heathrow could accommodate more flights was by increasing the airport's capacity, and building a third runway.

They argued, with regard to future passenger growth, that runway capacity and passenger growth were two unrelated points.  They stated that passenger numbers could increase at Heathrow only by increasing passenger loads and operating larger aircraft.  They felt this did not alter the fact that Heathrow's runways were already full and the airport was unable to accommodate more aircraft.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted the documentation provided by BAA showed that the allowable limit of flights at Heathrow was 480,000, and it had handled 473,139 flights in 2008.  We noted this was 98.57% of the allowable flight limit.  We acknowledged that the BAA report suggested that Heathrow could handle up to 95 million passengers within its existing limits, but understood that such passenger growth was dependent on increasing passenger loads and operating larger aircraft within the current allowable flight limits, and was not related to runway capacity.  We noted however, that with regard to runway capacity, Heathrow was operating at effectively 99%, and understood from the documentation provided by BAA that it would be unable to operate any additional flights within the allowable limit.  In addition, we noted that Heathrow had provided documentation showing that the total allocation of air transport movements (ATM) for airlines at Heathrow in summer 2009 was 9515 and the ATM limit was 9524, with the nine remaining slots for contingency.

Because we understood that the passenger growth figure of 95 million passengers depended on increasing passenger loads and operating larger aircraft within the current allowable flight limits, and because we noted we had seen documentation showing that the current runway capacity was operating at "99%", we considered that the claim that Heathrow was "full" and "at 99% capacity" did not contradict the content of the BAA report and concluded the ad was not misleading.

We investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness), but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)