Claims that Britain's economy requires new runways in the south-east are a "con" that an industry dominated by BAA will not question, the boss of Birmingham airport has said.
Paul Kehoe said that at the same time as Heathrow's owner BAA was claiming that the lucrative Chinese market only wanted to fly to the west London airport, he was in Chengdu talking to Chinese airlines that were considering any entry point into the UK.
BAA said last week that foreign airlines were "ready to vote with their feet and base new flights outside of the UK because of a lack of government policy supporting aviation", highlighting a survey showing that 86% would put on more flights to the UK if additional take-off and landing slots were available at Heathrow.
The BAA chief executive, Colin Matthews, has been dismissive of rival airports' claims to offer alternatives, saying that if airlines wanted to fly into Birmingham and Stansted, where spare capacity exists, they would have done so.
He told a Transport Times aviation conference on Wednesday: "It is a mistake to believe that flights displaced from Heathrow will automatically fly to Stansted, Gatwick or Birmingham instead. The message I hear from airlines is clear: if there's no room at Heathrow then flights will move out of the UK altogether.
"Instead of Britain taking the lead in forging new links with growing economies like China, we are handing economic growth to our competitors by turning away airlines who want to bring jobs, growth and trade to the UK."
Kehoe said his experience at a conference in China last week was that "taxes and visas are a problem for them. But the Chinese said they would be happy to come to Birmingham: they see the UK as an important market and don't care how they get there." Next month, Air China is starting a four-day-a-week direct service to Gatwick.
He said a recent advertising campaign, costing a reported £3m (a figure BAA disputes), was trying to conflate the wider British economic interest with the interests of Heathrow, whose major shareholder is the Spanish infrastructure group Ferrovial.
Kehoe also took issue with Heathrow's claim to be a unique "hub" airport, one that can provide routes due to the volume of connecting traffic. "Only 30% of its traffic connects. It is just a very big, successful airport. Is it positioned to be a world hub? For US traffic yes, for Europe going east and everyone else, no.
"A con is being perpetrated and it's time we held BAA to account. Even if there was a third runway, where is runway four? Where is the extra capacity you say Britain needs?"
He said few airport executives would speak out because they were either owned by or linked to BAA, or rely on British Airways, whose interests at Heathrow are closely connected.
The immediate success of BAA's advertising campaign, which included posters covering most of Westminster tube station, may have been limited. The transport minister Theresa Villiers, referring to the "doom and gloom pumped out by the aviation industry", pointed out that Britain was only "lagging behind" when figures were massaged to exclude Hong Kong flights: with them, she said: "It's clear that in this market too, we lead with Heathrow delivering more services to China than any of its continental rivals."
Kehoe ascribed Birmingham's own poor performance and empty slots to a lack of aggressive marketing in the years before BA pulled out in 2007. A runway extension will allow the airport to provide further long-haul flights, while the proposed HS2 high-speed rail network will bring much of London within a one-hour transport connection by 2026. About 9 million passengers a year pass through an airport that has room for double that number now and potentially far more.
