I first experienced Bristol International Airport (BIA) when I was trying to travel to Egypt last year. Forced to sleep on its grey, ludicrously hard floor for nine hours on a snowy February night, I tried to create some form of dark shield with the contents of my backpack from the unfeasibly bright lighting and the passengers arriving and departing around me. This, together with the seats boasting unmoveable armrests, became the soul focus of my pre-holiday excitement diminishing hatred. My stinging eyes witnessed many more people leaving before me than was kind and it was certainly more than I had expected at a city airport. With 76,000 flights in 2008, BIA is of course, an extremely popular airport…but it has plans.

In a year permeated by the big ‘Green Debate’ for Bristol as regards, housing, supermarket chains and stadiums, the city has posed a large number of environmental, economical and political questions for its decision makers and October 23rd 2008 was no exception. On this date, the Evening Post revealed BIA’s controversial plans; “If the scheme goes ahead the terminal building will almost double in size,” it said.

Although the proposal is yet to be accepted, BIA plans to increase their passenger numbers from 6.2million to 10million and a total of 100,000 flights annually by 2016. “We are committed to developing and enhancing the airport’s role as a regional gateway for international travel,” said Alan Davies, BIA’s Director of Environment and Planning. Conflictingly however, the G8 target is to collectively cut our CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050 to try and slow climate change, but how can this be achievable when BIA alone is planning to increase its carbon emissions to 948,680 tonnes per year; an increase of 125%?

To try and answer this, Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, said; “If you did 80% cuts across the board, as some people have called for in aviation, you would go back to 1974 levels of flying. I don’t want a situation where only rich people can afford to fly.” He believes that the cuts needed to reach the 80% target should come from other areas.

BIA is only trying to cater for the demands that business and we as holiday makers are putting on the airport; we all have to admit that we love the ability to fly all over Europe in a couple of hours and across oceans and continents to holiday. But alas, what of our drummed in eco-conscience? Incarnate eco-fighter, Dale Vince, founder of renewable energy supplier Ecotricity said; “We need to be flying less not more. Bigger airports are just plain wrong.” Recently also, Tim Nicholson won his landmark case over his unfair dismissal because of his environmental ethics; Dinah Rose QC for Nicholson said; “The philosophical belief in this case is that mankind is headed towards catastrophic climate change, and that, as a result we are under a duty to do all that we can to live our lives so as to mitigate or to avoid that catastrophe for future generations. It addresses the question, what are the duties that we own to the environment and why?”

So, this is a tricky situation, and one that has the public divided - as demonstrated when Bristolian Alexa Blackmore, 28, was asked the simple question, should BIA enlarge? “Ethically I don’t think it should expand, for environmental reasons, but for financial growth at in an increasingly competitive market it should. A split answer! I’m an eco-warrior at heart though!” It’s a mixed response echoed by many.

There’s no easy answer to the expansion of Bristol Airport and other airports around the country, but whichever way the argument falls, we need to be prepared for the consequences – financial, social or environmental.

www.bia.co.uk

Helen Martin
Illustration by Simon Mills