'Build third runway or UK will suffer for a generation'

FAILURE to approve the third runway at Heathrow would result in the British economy suffering 30 years of gloom, British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh said today.

"The probability is that if the current opportunity to expand our national hub is lost, the UK will suffer the consequences for at least 30 years," Mr Walsh told the Airport Operators Association conference in London.

"In the meantime, we would have condemned Heathrow and the global connectivity of the UK economy to further relative decline."

Mr Walsh described plans put forward by London Mayor Boris Johnson for a new airport in the Thames Estuary as an "unfundable fantasy".

The Government will next month defy opposition from environmentalists, protest groups and many MPs and announce the runway go-ahead.

Mr Walsh said that "rejection of the project would leave Britain without a hub airport to match the capacity of rivals in Europe and the Middle East for at least a generation."

Ed Anderson, executive chairman of the operators' association, said: "Aviation is a crucial part of the economyAbandoning runway three is a step on the road to economic suicide."