Connecting the North East
to the global economy
Graeme Mason
Newcastle International Airport
Runways UK
Tuesday 2 December, 2014
A partnership
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• Newcastle is the international gateway airport for the North East
• A public private partnership between 51% shareholder, LA7, and 49%
shareholder, AMP Capital of Australia
Connectivity drives the North East economy
2012 economic impact:•3,200 employed at the Airport
•Total of 7,800 in airport supported jobs across the region
•Regional GVA and journey time savings of £646M
2030 forecast economic impacts:•4,100 employed at the Airport
•Total of 10,000 in airport supported jobs across the region
•Regional GVA and journey time savings of £1.3B
New services can have a game-changing
impact
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Here
Trade between the North East and Australasia has grown from £150M in 2007 to
over £360M
• Bullet
The value of flown exports out of Newcastle has grown from £20M in 2006 to
£250M in 2013
A direct United Airlines service to New York
from 2015
Regional connectivity
• The Emirates and United services, although long haul, are hub
connections. They complement our services via other closer
hubs, including Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin, Brussels,
Copenhagen, and Heathrow.
• Heathrow is by a significant margin the largest hub serving the
North East and a number of other regions.
• Regional airports such as Manchester, Birmingham,
Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newcastle can play an increasing
role, but they are not an alternative to South East hub
capacity.
South East Capacity
• We support the provision of additional runway capacity in the South East
and welcome the work undertaken by the Airports Commission.
• We strongly support the retention of a world class hub in the UK and
believe Heathrow is the best and most viable option.
• The Airports Commission has estimated that the economic benefit to the
UK of a new runway at Heathrow is significantly higher than for one at
Gatwick.
• The UK outside of London and the South East would receive more than
twice the economic benefit by expanding Heathrow as by expanding
Gatwick.
• We encourage all political parties to quickly act on the Airports
Commission recommendations.
Delivery of regional benefit
• We welcome the work being undertaken by Lord Shipley on
regional connectivity, which will conclude in January 2015.
• The issue of future airport charges is a concern and we will
continue to press for measures to limit the costs for key
regional operations into Heathrow.
• We have raised the possibility of planning conditions to
safeguard part of additional runway capacity for key regional
services.
Thank you for
your time!