Boss: plans will take off regardless of Brexit
TWO of the major elements of the £500 million transformation of Birmingham Airport will carry on regardless of the state of the aviation industry postBrexit, according to its chief.
Acting managing director Simon Richards said preliminary work had already started on the new departure lounge and check-in area and he was confident passengers would see the benefits in two years’ time.
He added that carrying out major capital investment during downturns could often be beneficial, as had been the case when work on the runway extension first started following the financial crash of 2008.
Mr Richards said: “The Brexit situation is tremendously uncertain but we can take some confidence from what hap- pened in the financial crisis in 2008. Birmingham was actually extremely resilient and there was a core of traffic and airlines which stuck with us through three or four years before the upturn started.
“Our approach to how we are going to do these developments is very much to design them so they are in the starting blocks and then the board can control when they release that capital expenditure.
“The first phase, which has the most visible changes for passengers, comprising the check-in desk and departure lounge expansion, has already start- ed. We’re in the advance stages of design and some of the preliminary works to get things out of the way in readiness for development is happening this winter. “We are very confident we will see those projects complete in summer 2020. “The last phase of real significant capital investment in the airport – the runway extension, control tower and international pier – was done during a period of downturn. “That can be a great time to get capital expenditure done while it’s less competitive in the construction market. “We are very much planning for a Brexit deal that will give us a smooth transition and continuation process but we’re very robust pen.”
Plans include increasing the number of aircraft stands by 11 to 69 and better public transport and road access for passengers. All the work is geared towards expanding annual passenger numbers to around 18 million by 2033, up from the 12.9 million it posted in 2017, but Mr Richards said there was provision in the plans to increase to 24 million.
The estimated maximum for the single-runway airport is 30 million per year.
Mr Richards said the airport’s prediction of at least a 2.4 per cent increase per year was “very ambitious” compared to the Government’s own projections for UK passengers of less than 1.5 per cent over the same period. if that doesn’t hap-