New EU border checks have doubled queues at major airports, and the people who move through them are paying the price in delays across Europe. Heathrow airport’s chief executive says that means expansion is needed, after the London hub lost the title of Europe’s busiest airport to Istanbul. The border regime slows ordinary travel and logistics, then the airport bosses and ministers answer with the same old cure: more concrete, more capacity, more profit.
The Financial Times said the new border checks have lengthened queues at major airports. The Guardian reported that Heathrow’s chief executive said the case for expansion has never been clearer after Istanbul overtook Heathrow as Europe’s busiest airport by passenger numbers. That’s the logic of the system in one neat loop. First the state tightens control at the border. Then the same system points to the resulting congestion as proof that still more infrastructure is needed.
Figures published on Tuesday showed 7.9 million passengers passed through Heathrow’s terminals in July, compared with Istanbul’s 8.15 million. Heathrow’s passenger numbers for July fell 1.5% from the same month last year, partly due to the war on Iran, while the Turkish hub recorded a 2.3% increase. Numbers like these get treated as a scoreboard for prestige, but they also show how quickly state violence and border controls ripple through the movement of people and goods.
The Border Machine at Work
Heathrow’s two runways operate at near full capacity, and the airport is seeking government permission to build a third. A £33bn expansion plan would enable it to accommodate 150 million passengers a year. Heathrow said: “The case for expansion has never been clearer, as Heathrow was overtaken in July by Istanbul airport as the busiest hub in Europe. Our plans will ensure the country gets the infrastructure it needs to stay competitive and will deliver all-important economic growth.” That’s the language of capitalist architecture: competitiveness, growth, infrastructure, all wrapped around a demand for more state-backed expansion.
The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, launched a consultation on the renamed Heathrow expansion national policy statement in June, setting out the conditions for the third runway to go ahead. The then chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said at the time that she was determined to get “spades in the ground” in the current parliament, and for it to be built by 2035. The consultation is the familiar ritual of managed consent. The decision-making stays in ministerial hands, while the costs and disruption land on everyone else.
Who Gets the Runway, Who Gets the Bill
Andy Burnham has previously expressed concerns over Heathrow expansion, saying the plans divert infrastructure investment “away from the north and traps it in London”. That complaint cuts to the geography of power. The capital gets the megaprojects, the rest gets told to wait its turn. The airport’s own pitch makes the hierarchy plain: build more for the hub, and call it national necessity.
Istanbul airport’s chief executive, Selahattin Bilgen, called the news “a significant milestone for our airport”. He said: “Thanks to our three independent runways, which can be operated simultaneously 24 hours a day, our advanced operational capabilities and high capacity, we have successfully overcome the capacity constraints faced by many major global hub airports.” He added: “With the addition of our fourth runway, which is set to become operational by the end of this year, we aim to take this growth even further by increasing the capacity we provide to airlines and passengers while elevating the quality of our services to the next level.” The language is polished, but the message is blunt: more throughput, more control, more passengers processed through the machine.
The current main Istanbul airport opened in late 2018 on a brand new site away from the city and residential neighbourhoods, gradually replacing the existing Ataturk airport as the main international hub. It has a vastly bigger footprint and is able to operate 24 hours a day. The Turkish boom also owes much to its location near the Gulf, which has become the crossroads of international air travel.
For more than two decades before the pandemic, Heathrow served more passengers than any other European airport, according to annual figures from the trade body Airports Council International. The UK’s biggest airport, located in west London, lost its pre-eminent position in 2020 amid coronavirus travel restrictions before regaining it in 2023. London Stansted said it had recorded the busiest month ever in July, welcoming 3.1 million passengers, a 6.3% increase year-on-year. Manchester also had a record July, serving 3.4 million passengers. The airports keep growing, the queues keep lengthening, and the border regime keeps doing what it was built to do: sort, slow, and control movement while calling it progress.