Dubai airport chief backs Heathrow runway expansion

The head of Heathrow's biggest rival has criticised the political deadlock over building another runway in ­Britain's southeast, condemning the failure to expand the west London ­airport as "scandalous".

Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai International airport, which overtook Heathrow in January to become the world's busiest airport handling international passengers, said politicians should not stand in the way of big decisions on infrastructure.

"Heathrow's problem is, it is politically poisonous. All the main parties can agree on one thing, which is that expanding the runways makes them politically unelectable," he said.

"There is a cost to not being proactive and allowing that to be held hostage to political whim. It is just scandalous."

Britain needed to set up an independent body to push through key infrastructure projects by achieving cross-party support, removing such decisions from the short-term political cycle, Mr Griffiths said.

"Nothing will change until they sort it out and make infrastructure investment independent of the political cycle."

Aviation was a key driver of economic prosperity, he said, which was recognised in the United Arab Emirates but "is lost in the political mire in other countries - and the UK leads the way in that".

However, he conceded that expansion at Dubai airport was easier than in the UK, where many people live around Heathrow, and that concerns about noise and the environment had to be addressed.

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"It's naive and unrealistic to take something like aviation policy out of the political arena," he said. "A project as big as a third runway at Heathrow is always, inevitably in a democracy, going to be a political decision."

The comments by Mr Griffiths, a Briton who has held senior management roles at Gatwick airport and Virgin Atlantic, indicate the level of frustration at Britain's failure to increase its airport capacity, a debate that has run for some 50 years.

Many in the aviation industry are sceptical, as Mr Griffiths is, that action will come soon, despite the government's independent airports commission being due to report after the general election on where a runway could be built.

Despite the scepticism, Gavin Hayes, director of Let Britain Fly, a business group that has lobbied for airport expansion, said manifesto commitments from the political parties showed the mood was shifting towards making a decision on expansion.

"I'm confident that politicians will get on and make a quick decision once the airports commission has published its final report," he said.

There could be a case for setting up an infrastructure body, he added.

"If the airports commission is successful in breaking over a half a century of political procrastination on airports expansion there might well be a case for perhaps setting up a permanent infrastructure commission."

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