Heathrow will fall out of top five airports, says BA boss Willie Walsh

The owner of British Airways today warned that Heathrow could fall outside the world’s top five busiest hub airports within 10 years and slip out of the top 30 within 20 years because of political inability to solve London’s aviation capacity crisis.

Willie Walsh, the chief executive of International Airlines Group, said it was “tragic” that Heathrow would never get a third runway to ease congestion. “The truth of it is the world moves on and the UK will get left behind,” he told the World Travel & Tourism Council summit in Abu Dhabi. “Fifty years from now, I fully expect BA to be flying from a two-runway airport at Heathrow. It is political and you don’t have politicians who are brave enough to grasp this.”

He also warned that British travellers could face tougher travel restrictions from countries in retaliation to our long-winded visa regime which is under fire for keeping away high-spending tourists and business visitors.

Hotel bosses also hit out at Britain’s rising air passenger duty. Arne Sorenson, chief executive of Marriott International whose hotels include Grosvenor House on Park Lane, fears the duty, which rose again last week, is dissuading travellers. “I think it is classic old world, short-term politics,” he said. “We can tax our visitors because they don’t vote — and basically you can do that but you’ll have fewer visitors and therefore less income to tax.”