By the end of 2015, the government is due to announce the construction of a new runway at a UK airport. The Davies Commission has recommended that this expansion take place at Heathrow. However, this week, Lord Alan Sugar has questioned this recommendation and suggested that Stansted Airport would make a viable location for airport expansion due to its easy transport links to the the centre of London and the fact that it has the capacity to expand.
Stansted Airport is in Essex, almost on the border with Hertfordshire and just 30 miles north-east of the centre of London. It has been operating as a commercial airport since the mid 1960s. Since 1997 passenger numbers increased dramatically with the rise in popularity of low cost budget airlines. In 2007, passenger numbers reached a peak of 24 million. Although numbers have waned since then, there was an 11% annual increase last year (2014) when nearly 20 million passengers used the airport.