Work has started on the £33 million runway extension at Birmingham Airport with the aim of opening up the West Midlands to more long-haul flights.
Extending the existing runway by 405 metres to 3,003 metres by early 2014, means aircraft will be able to take off from Birmingham with more fuel and fly direct to destinations currently out of reach, such as China, South America, South Africa and the West Coast of the USA.
Alongside the runway extension plans the airport is talking to airlines about new routes from Birmingham.
It has hired a team of route development experts and a trade sales team to ensure that the airport is represented at international trade events and meetings and it will work with Midland brands such as MG Motors and JLR to help develop relationships with key overseas markets.
Birmingham Airport chief executive Paul Kehoe said: “The strong economic profile of the Midlands means that businesses are crying out for direct connectivity from their local airport.
“So it makes no sense that 3.3 million passengers from the West Midlands last year flew from airports in the South East, adding congestion on the roads and at Heathrow, which is already 99.2 per cent full.
“Redirecting this traffic back to the Midlands would release high value, long-haul capacity at London airports and boost the UK’s trading potential.
“We have plenty of spare capacity at Birmingham now. Our passenger numbers could double from the current nine million a year to 18 million today, and the runway extension will allow us to increase beyond 36 million in future years.
“Our passenger growth could create in excess of 243,000 jobs in the region according to a new report by the West Midlands Economic Forum.”
The airport company has been lobbying the Government to assign National Airport status to ‘key gateways’ to UK markets, with Birmingham as the gateway to UK manufacturing.
The runway extension at Birmingham Airport has met with fierce criticism from environmental campaigners, who have called it a “green light for more noise and pollution”.
The planning application for the extension was granted by Solihull Council in 2009 and Section 106 Planning Conditions were agreed in 2010.
