British Airways owner International Airlines Group (IAG) has expressed serious questions about the cost of London‑Heathrow Airport’s planned third runway in written evidence to the UK Transport Committee. The submission highlights IAG’s concerns that the project’s financial scale may jeopardise its viability.
IAG, which also owns Iberia and Aer Lingus, suggested that the $66 billion (£49 billion) proposed for the project is “not just large, it is exceptional”. The airline group added that the costs “far exceed” comparable airport projects such as Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS), Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG), Frankfurt (FRA) and Istanbul (IST).
According to IAG, affordability is critical to the success of expansion. Without it, expansion will fail and the benefits it could unlock – improved connectivity, jobs, trade and investment across the UK – will not be realized. Indeed, the benefits we all share today will be lost too.
IAG is calling for affordability guarantees, a binding budget ceiling, protections against rising passenger charges and stronger mechanisms to control costs. The group stresses that affordability cannot simply be an aspiration: it must be a binding requirement, tested and enforced throughout the life of the project, not just asserted at the outset.
The Transport Committee published more than 70 pieces of written evidence on 14 August 2026 as part of its inquiry into the government’s plans for a third runway at Heathrow. The committee is currently scrutinising the draft Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement (HENPS), released by the Department for Transport in June 2026, and will begin hearing oral evidence from September 2026.
IAG stresses that it is vital for the committees to assess whether HENPS will result in expansion that is affordable and deliverable. The group concludes that the HENPS as drafted does not yet succeed in meeting these criteria, warning that without credible affordability guarantees consumers, airlines and the wider economy will face an impossible financial burden.
