January 23rd - Is Heathrow nearer to a third runway?
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I'm still hearing views on Heathrow, today from John Strickland of JLS Consulting – who wonders if he will still be around when a third runway is built? As the Labour government inches nearer a decision, this political football that has been round and round may be reaching a conclusion. But we've said that before, haven't we?
This podcast is free, as is Independent Travel's weekly podcast. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast. It's Thursday the 23rd of January, |
| 0:08.8 | day three of the Great Heathrow Expansion saga, and I'm delighted to be joined by the aviation |
| 0:16.2 | consultant, John Strickland from JLS Consulting. |
| 0:21.4 | John, you've been, dare I say, kicking around for quite a lot of years. |
| 0:26.0 | How many Heathrow plans for expansion have you seen made and indeed gathering dust on the shelves of the Civil Aviation Authority? |
| 0:35.5 | Well, of course, like you, Sam, I've lost track. |
| 0:54.7 | There's been so many. It's blown hot and cold. It's a political hot potato. So many sensitivities attached. You know me. I'm an airline industry man. I've worked at Heathrow. I've spent time planning networks for airlines like British Airways, for whom Heathrow is absolutely the core of their business, the core of their profitability. |
| 0:59.6 | We need economically to see growth at that airport, but it goes about saying, you know, |
| 1:04.1 | West London surrounds Heathrow, of course it's grown in the time the airport is there. |
| 1:07.0 | On the one hand, that means it's massive in terms of employment. |
| 1:11.6 | On the other, massive in terms of sensitivities in terms of noise and emissions. |
| 1:17.2 | A lot of people kind of get the idea perhaps mistakenly that if Rachel Reeves, |
| 1:21.3 | the Chancellor and indeed Kirstama and the rest of the government say, right, okay, we're going to go ahead with Heathrow, that doesn't mean that come Monday morning the first bulldozers |
| 1:26.8 | will be going in. No way. |
| 1:28.5 | Even if we did get that kind of smoke from the metaphorical government Vatican chimney in a few |
| 1:33.7 | days time, it doesn't mean that at all, because we've already heard rumblings, more than rumblings |
| 1:38.5 | in the last couple of days since this apparent leak was there that this may be about to happen. |
| 1:42.9 | We've seen the previous government change its spots on its view about whether they were going |
| 1:47.0 | to support it. |
| 1:48.0 | We've got all the understandable lobby groups, local residents, wider alliances when it comes to climate |
| 1:55.0 | and emissions. |
| 1:56.0 | But what I would say, what I try to stand back and say is we have to look at both. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Independent, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Independent and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.