Transportinfo.org.uk - today's transport news in the uk, hand picked for you each morning

Thursday, 29 October 2020

BBC News

• Boeing to cut 20% of workforce by end of 2021The planemaker is extending previously announced cuts as it faces slumping demand in the pandemic.

Financial Times

• Heathrow’s Parisian eclipse isn’t a question of Covid testingAirport faces short-term blip but long-term challenge; Kaz Min saga gets its final airing

Times Online

• ‘Get Britain moving’ call after Heathrow loses crown to Paris [subscription]Business leaders have urged the government to end the stagnation in British air travel after Heathrow lost its crown to its Parisian rival as the airport that handles the greatest number of passengers in Europe.
• Fast filling station leads the charge for electric car drivers [subscription]As they silently glide on to the forecourt at Great Notley, it is hoped that drivers arriving at the UK’s first dedicated filling station for electric cars will breath a deep sigh of relief.
• Coronavirus is not the only reason Transport for London is in trouble - Shaun Bailey [Subscription]Sadiq Khan has managed Transport for London (TfL) for nearly five years now — and it shows. These days the only news you hear about TfL is bad news. For the second time in the space of a few months, TfL is about to go bankrupt. This has led to a flurry of activity in City Hall, though not of the work-with-government-and-get-this-fixed kind that we all might have expected.

Mail Online

• Coronavirus UK: Heathrow Airport records £1.5BILLION loss for the first nine months of 2020Heathrow Airport has recorded a loss of £1.5 billion in the first nine months of the year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Network Rail

• Scrap dealers targeted as railway metal thefts cost taxpayers £1.7m and disrupts passengersScrap yards across the West Midlands and Warwickshire are being visited by Network Rail and the British Transport Police to ensure dealers are not trading stolen metal.

Birmingham Mail

• Warning of fare rises and fewer flights as airlines battle Covid-19 crisisBudget carriers such as Eurowings, Ryanair, easyJet, Vueling Airlines and Wizz Air have all cut programmes compared to 2019

Cambridge News

• Massive plans for new car-free neighbourhood near Cambridge station The new development will include leisure and community spaces set around a new public garden

Other Regional Press

• Arguments over social distancing break out on Brighton busA WOMAN says arguments broke out over social distancing after travellers were “packed like sardines” on a bus.
• Concerns over end of tax free sales at Southampton AirportPLANS to end tax free sales would be “a damaging blowâ€� for Southampton airport and could result in job losses, it has been claimed.
• Changes to bus services in Coventry because of Tier 2The changes will come into effect from November 2, 2020.

Forbes

• U.K.’s £27 Billion Road Building Plan Faces Renewed Legal Challenge Over Environmental ImpactEvaluating the environmental impacts of roads only locally but not also nationally is wrong, lawyers plan to tell a High Court judge on October 29 in the latest stage of a legal challenge to the U.K. government’s £27 billion road building progam.

Business Live

• South West Metro transport network plans are being taken forwardAmong the ideas being looked at is a Swansea, Llanelli and Neath urban area rail network that could be achieved by using the freight-carrying Swansea District Line Proposals for new rail stations as part of a joined-up South West Metro transport network are being taken forward by a new board.

Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport

• Heathrow overtaken as Europe's busiest airport amid pandemicHeathrow says it has been overtaken as Europe's busiest airport for the first time by Paris Charles de Gaulle because of a slump in demand for air travel. Some 19 million passengers used Heathrow in the first nine months of the year, versus 19.3 million who used the airport in the French capital. Heathrow said Amsterdam Schiphol and Frankfurt were

Construction Enquirer

• Construction splits into two-speed industryConstruction is set to temporarily become a two-speed industry split by high growth rates in infrastructure set against ‘slow-growers’ in the industrial and commercial sector.

New Civil Engineer

• Pandemic and technology combination drives uptake in remote inspectionSocial distancing, drones and virtual reality capabilities is helping to fast track acceptance of remote inspection but drone autonomy and artificial intelligence could bring further changes in the near future.
• Less than half of government’s 30,000 transport apprenticeships target has been metThe number of transport apprenticeships started in last five years is less than half the original 30,000 target set by government in 2015.
• Court battle begins over £27bn road building planThe High Court case contesting the legality of the government’s £27bn RIS2 road building plan begins today.
• Aviation struggles will hit construction sector with 200 European airports facing insolvencyAlmost 200 UK and European airports could go under due to the pandemic-driven drop in air travel, which could have a knock-on effect on contractors working in the sector.

Railnews

• Transport for London crisis grows as funding deadline looms Time is running out for a new funding settlement for Transport for London, amid increasing crossfire between the government and TfL over what the ˜price™ of a settlement should be. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants driverless trains to be a condition of any payment, but a newly-leaked report prepared by accountants KPMG for TfL is said to conclude that converting the network would cost £7 billion and be ™poor value for money™. Funding of up to £1.9 billion was agreed for TfL in May, but a two-week extension to that settlement runs out on Saturday.
• Upgrade scheme unveiled for Cornish network Network Rail has been awarded a tender by Cornwall Council for a Metro scheme to improve the infrastructure on the Newquay branch and introduce through services between Newquay, St Austell, Truro and Falmouth.

Other News Sources

• Three year £120m transformation of Glasgow’s Queen Street Station enters final phaseTHE redevelopment of Glasgow’s Queen Street station has entered its final phase, Network Rail has announced.