As Virgin Atlantic doesn't rule out a return to Gatwick Airport, will Heathrow run out of runway?

The debate over how, or even whether, to expand runway capacity in the UK has rumbled on for close to a decade. A decision was finally rubberstamped by parliament, but actual implementation of a third runway at London Heathrow Airport is as far away as ever.

That was partly due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which the Airport Commission's chairman said - incredibly - that he could no longer see the point of a third runway there at Heathrow, having approved it only five years earlier.

But passenger traffic and airline capacity is back up again, and knocking on the door of the maximum movements limit.

The CEO of Virgin Atlantic has just gone on record to say that he has no faith that the runway will ever be built, and that if it was, completion would be decades in the future.

Hence, he will probably look again at Gatwick Airport, which his airline abandoned during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Heathrow had capacity to spare.

His remarks have refocused attention on the stalemate which is the Heathrow third runway, with lawsuits set to resume if it resurfaces, together with an environmental bombardment to rival that on the Normandy Coast on D-Day (which, coincidentally, took place just two years before three runways at the nascent Heathrow Airport were first considered).

In the meantime, there will be a general election in the UK at the beginning of Jul-2024.

Although transport hasn't even entered the agenda yet, whatever government or coalition emerges out of it will come under pressure to get this matter sorted out once and for all.