BRITAIN: Britain announced a big expansion of airport capacity yesterday to the fury of environmentalists. However, England's main gateway airport, congested Heathrow, will have to wait more than a decade before it gets a new runway.
The government, outlining its plan for dealing with an almost-tripling of demand expected over the next 30 years, said Heathrow was already straining at the seams. It would only be allowed a new runway after one was built at Stansted.
Stansted is the centre of Ryanair's operations in north-west Europe, and is the link airport for many Irish travellers to both the UK and other European destinations.
Aviation expert Ms Mary Stevens, of environment protection group NSCA, said she felt local air pollution concerns had prompted the government to delay expansion at Heathrow, but she called the projected rise in air travel "simply unsustainable".
Britain's Transport Secretary, Mr Alistair Darling, said an extra runway would be built at Stansted by 2011-12. A third runway at Heathrow would come only after that, in 2015-2020, and would have to meet strict environmental controls.