Thomas Woldbye, Heathrow's chief executive, warned that £33 billion of private investment could leave Britain if the government keeps stalling on a third runway. On BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said the money "will be invested somewhere else in the world" if the airport's owners can't commit it. A decision is likely in the new year.
The warning lands awkwardly for Downing Street. Prime Minister Andy Burnham hasn't said whether he backs expansion.
The Fiscal Picture
Woldbye was blunt about who pays. "It's not about allocating this money elsewhere. It's private money. It's not public money. So hence, it will not go into the UK. I think that would be really a sad, huge missed opportunity for this country," he said. The scheme is estimated to cost £33bn. None of it, he said, would come from the taxpayer.
That matters in a country short of fiscal headroom. A project arriving fully financed by investors is rare, and the Department for Transport says expansion has the "potential to deliver around £40 billion in economic benefits across the country." Heathrow's owners include French private equity firm Ardian, the Qatar Investment Authority, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and the China Investment Corporation.
Woldbye said the benefits wouldn't stay in the capital. "Benefits will be felt all over the country because our supply chain reaches all the way from the north all the way to the south of the UK," he said, adding that a third runway was "not just for Londoners." He noted the unions back the project. He also said he hadn't yet met current Chancellor John Healey, but would tell him the airport "contributes dramatically to the economy" but "we are now full."
Decision Delayed, Again
The policy vacuum is the immediate problem. The Department for Transport said it was reviewing consultation responses and was "considering the appropriate next steps." It is still finalising its Airports National Policy Statement, the basis for deciding whether to grant a new runway. The department last updated that document in 2018, eight years ago.
A spokesperson said the government supported airport expansion "across the country where this can contribute to growth and opportunity, while meeting the tests on the environment." Last year, then-chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the government-backed expansion, saying "a third runway is badly needed" and that the government could not "duck the decision any longer."
Burnham opposed the scheme as Mayor of Greater Manchester and said he believed the matter was "for London and Londoners." Speaking to the BBC last month, he said: "I think we ought to hear the voice of people there first. It's not right for me to just jump straight in on the back of the consultation." Downing Street declined to comment on Woldbye's remarks.
The Delivery Risk
The runway was scheduled to open by 2035, nine years from now, subject to plans being submitted and approved. Heathrow has suggested it would slip four years, to 2039, because of planning and regulatory issues. Woldbye said Heathrow was preparing a planning application to submit in the next couple of years, but the government's national policy statement would guide any decision.
"My biggest concern is actually the years of uncertainty," he said.
The physical scale is considerable. A third runway would mean demolishing hundreds of homes, diverting rivers and rerouting the M25 between junctions 14 and 15 through a tunnel under the new runway. Heathrow serves more than 80 million travellers a year with four passenger terminals and two runways. Flights, currently capped at 480,000 a year, could rise to 720,000, or nearly 2,000 a day on average. On noise, Woldbye claimed Heathrow had seen a "stark" reduction over the past 40 years and said the "trend will continue." Local residents, politicians and climate campaigners have long opposed the scheme.
Why This Matters:
Britain is asking investors to commit tens of billions of pounds while its own government won't say where it stands. Woldbye's complaint is about certainty, not subsidy: privately financed infrastructure on this scale is rare, and capital moves to wherever the rules are clearest. For a government that says it wants growth without leaning on the public purse, leaving unmade a decision that spends no taxpayer money is hard to defend. The same dynamic applies across Europe, where slow permitting and political hesitation routinely push investment elsewhere. Competitiveness isn't only about tax rates and regulation. It's also about whether a government can make a decision and stick to it. Whatever the environmental and local tests conclude, drift carries its own cost.