Heathrow Passenger Forum - Expansion, Resilience & Priorities - Meeting Report 9th September 2025

Every quarter the Heathrow Passenger Forum meets to discuss topical issues which have an impact on the passengers who fly from, into and through the airport, and to raise topics with senior managers and decision makers at the airport which can make a difference to that experience. It is important work, last month Heathrow made history becoming the first major European hub to welcome over 8 million passengers in a single month.

As a group of independent and trade body experts, we seek clarity and also hold the Airport to account on key matters. It is an important part of our contribution to the “airport consultative committee (ACC)” work of CISHA.

Sometimes we meet without Heathrow staff for some or all of the meeting and our recent meeting on Tuesday was one of those occasions. It gave us an opportunity to dive deep into airport expansion, resilience, and investment priorities.

Heathrow Expansion

Earlier this year the UK Government announced its desire to see Heathrow Airport expand its capacity by adding a third runway. Reawakening an issue which had been parked during the pandemic. They invited ‘scheme promoters’ to submit their proposals and although we cannot be exactly sure because some have opted for confidentiality at this stage – 7 were received.

Two of those – from Heathrow Airport Ltd and the Arora Group – are judged as being ‘credible’ applicants. On Tuesday we had the opportunity to meet with Surinder Arora the founder and Chair of the Arora Group and his CEO, Carlton Brown to listen to their plans and their customer centric vision. The Arora group have built, owned, and operated many of the hotels in and around the airport so they are experts when it comes to customer experience.

Surinder and Carlton provided a passionate, candid, and in-depth perspective on their plans, the future of the airport and responded fully to every question especially around how a shorter third runway still delivered the capacity and flexibility which the future requires.

So, what happens next ? The government will make a determination on a favoured scheme, which will be incorporated into a revised Airports National Policy Statement. This will be consulted on prior to being approved by parliament, and one of CISHA’s key roles in the coming months will be to support all stakeholders in understanding and having a say in this process.

Resilience & Reaction

Nigel Wicking the CEO of the Airline Operators Committee at Heathrow joined his colleague, Ross Winn (who sits on our Forum) for a robust discussion on recent incidents at Heathrow (electrical outage, access tunnel system’s failure and this week’s evacuation of Terminal 4) and how these were anticipated, mitigated and recovered from. It is inevitable that large entities have more risk, and we decided to theme our first meeting of 2026 around risk, resilence and the Airport’s contingency plans. These ‘deep dives,’ which often are paired with a site visit, are important opportunities to learn and probe.

Priorities

Over the last 6 months a special sub-committee of the HPF have been involved in a ‘constructive consultation’ exercise with the airport, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), and the airlines at Heathrow around the development of the Airport’s business plan for H8, which is the next regulatory period. The current regulatory model dictates that CAA decides the level of the passenger charge set by the Airport. The airlines include this in the ticket fare, which is passed to Heathrow. This pays for items such as security, policing, the baggage system etc.

As you can imagine demands on that money are limitless and prioritising spend is essential to ensure the passenger experience is optimal.

For this work, two members of the HPF – the chair and deputy chair – joined a specially selected group of frequent flyers who are experts in governance & oversight; extra care travel; strategy & finance; and the environment. Our objective was to create a group which could take a strategic approach for the medium term.

A clear set of passenger focused priorities emerged from the sub-committee and, although we have had validation of these from some members of the HPF in a joint meeting with the CAA, Tuesday’s meeting offered the wider group the opportunity to give their feedback in what was the start of the final stage before we submit our conclusions to the CAA.

Finally, we are always looking to grow and diversify our committee, and if you would like to find out more about the HPF with a view to joining us as an independent representative please message us on info@cisha.org

Mark A Izatt

Chair - Heathrow Passenger Forum