Generate text that refutes this claim: The economic case for expansion does not add up  A study conducted by the NEF revealed that the cost of expansion will outweigh the benefits by at least £5billion. [1] London has six airports and seven runways meaning that London already has the best connections globally. Together, London airports have a greater number of flights to the world’s main business destinations than other European cities, despite serving less ‘leisure’ destinations than Paris’s airports. [2] The solution to making air travel efficient lies in increasing the size of planes and filling them up rather than running half empty flights on small planes, something which is particularly prevalent on short haul flights. Short haul flights could also be re-directed to alternative airports such as Gatwick, City airport, Luton and Stansted so as to free up more space at Heathrow.  The expansion case also assumes ever increasing numbers flying, yet passenger numbers dropped for the first time in the wake of the recession, [3] and eventually technology may reduce demand for business travel. There are also other restrictions aside from runway capacity that prevents more flights, for example the UK has an agreement with China that restricts the UK to 62 flights to China per week. [4]  [1] New Economics Foundation, ‘A new approach to re-evaluating Runway 3’, 19 April 2010,   [2] Stewart, John, ‘No economic case for expansion’, November 2011,   [3] Rutherford, Tom, “Air transport statistics’, House of Commons Library, 4 July 2011, SN/SG/3760, p.4 www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN03760.pdf  [4] HACAN, ‘BAA challenged on claim that it is lack of runway capacity at Heathrow that is limiting flights to China’, airportwatch, 14 November 2012,
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London has a lot of runways in total because it has a lot of airports however Heathrow is the only one that has the benefit of being a hub airport as each of these existing airports only have one or two runways. Suggestions that short haul flights should go to other London airports misses the point of a hub airport which is that there should be quick transfers – something that would not be possible if the passengers from the feeder services have to cross London from one airport to another and there is not the demand to use larger planes on these routes. [1]  Of course we cannot be certain that passenger numbers will keep going up in line with predictions and long term trends. However we can be certain that the numbers using UK airports won’t go up if we don’t provide the capacity to enable them to come.  [1] Thomas, Nathalie, ‘Heathrow rejects Gatwick rail link plan’, The Telegrapoh, 29 October 2012,