The top man at British Airways has confirmed that the airline has given up on the idea of a third runway at Heathrow Airport.
Chief executive of BA’s parent company International Airlines Group, Willie Walsh, said that the runway plan was now dead.
Mr Walsh told a chief executives’ summit arranged by The Times newspaper, “I agree that a third runway will never be built at Heathrow.”
He went on to say that the coalition Government had quashed the plans to expand the west London hub. BA was one of the key drivers behind the possible expansion, but the carrier has said that it will now focus on growing in foreign cities instead.
The airline is said to be focusing its attentions on Madrid, following its merger with Spanish airline Iberia earlier this year.
Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said, “If BA is telling us that in order to expand it has to go to Madrid, that’s pretty serious.”
Johnson is behind current plans to create a new airport in the Thames Estuary to take some of the pressure off Heathrow.
