Manchester’s Airport places the city “in the Premier League” but better rail links are needed to spread the benefits across the north, MPs heard.
A special debate took place in Parliament on the subject of regional airports in the wake of the government delaying a decision on whether to build a new runway at Heathrow or Gatwick.
MPs from both main parties discussed how a strong Manchester Airport was key to realising the Northern Powerhouse vision.
They heard how a high speed east-west rail link is key to unleashing the full might of Manchester Airport.
And Transport Minister Robert Goodwill heaped praise on the airport’s network of long haul flights to key markets, set to be bolstered by a direct service to Beijing with Hainan Airlines in June.
Sir Alan Haselhurst, former MP for Middleton and Preswtich, who now represents Saffron Waldon, pointed to the fact Manchester Airport handled a record 23 million passengers last year but actually has the potential to deal with 55 million.
He added: “We are beset by the division between the capital city and the rest of the United Kingdom, and I find that the term regional airports somehow implies second division.
“It is like talking about the Premiership and the Championship in football and that regional airports are somehow different or less good.
“I am a northerner and at one stage I represented a Greater Manchester seat. I was very pro the development of Manchester Airport but we have never yet exploited the regional airports to their full.
“At the moment, there is an urgent need to do so, because they have usable capacity.”
Wythenshawe and Sale East MP Mike Kane replied: “I will just refer quickly to the Rt Hon Member for Saffron Walden, who made a Premier League analogy.
“Well, if someone already has Manchester Airport, they already feel like they are in the Premier League, and it is great that we will invest £1bn in new infrastructure, including new terminals, to welcome Pep Guardiola to the city as the new Manchester City manager.
“With 23 million passengers a year, which will rise to 45 million a year by 2025, Manchester Airport is a serious world international airport.
“It has the capacity, with the two runways, to go to 55 million passengers a year. A total of 100,000 tonnes of goods are exported out of Manchester Airport and it generates 21,000 jobs.”
He added: “There was a Mancunian entrepreneur and industrialist called Daniel Adamson. In 1860, he saw the north developing a continuous economic regional powerhouse, as he described it from the banks of the Mersey estuary to the banks of the Humber, to create a single economic market.
“In 1886, he then decided to build the Manchester Ship canal. He got halfway there, but there is now an opportunity in the years ahead of us to create that single market.
Current rail access to Manchester airport means that the population within a two-hour catchment of it using public transport stands at around 8 million.”
He added: “We estimate that if we put in the right transport links from east to west we would create a catchment area for the airport of 18 million people, bringing in Liverpool city region, Sheffield, Liverpool itself and Leeds, with all of them being within around 30 minutes of Manchester and Manchester Airport.
“It would widen the airports catchment area massively.”
Mr Kane concluded: “We can connect our airports and our cities more effectively if we have the right vision, guts and gravitas.”
The Westminster Hall debate had been secured by Newcastle North MP Catherine McKinnell, who said government indecision over aviation capacity had the potential to harm regional airports, adding: “Those decisions are not new and include where to build the new runway to provide the capacity we need for the future and how properly to support regional airports during a time of considerable upheaval with devolution.”
