HS2 will mean trains from London to Birmingham Airport in 32 minutes
Exclusive: Link from Old Oak Common in west London will be faster than the Stansted Express
FrankLin
Millions of Londoners will be able to reach Birmingham Airport in under an hour once the controversial High Speed 2 line is opened.
The line north from Old Oak Common in west London will have a dedicated station at Birmingham Airport, taking just 32 minutes from the capital.
Nick Barton, chief executive of the West Midlands airport, told The Independent daily travel podcast: “Having that connectivity into London is going to be extraordinary. So we're preparing for it now.
“The link will be attached to our terminal building, and it will allow passengers to get to London in extraordinarily fast times. That will be a massive cherry on the cake that we're already making to grow our airport.
At present the fastest trains from London Euston to Birmingham Airport take 65 minutes. The journey time from the capital will be halved – though initially only from Old Oak Common in west London because of the chaotic changes to plans made by the last government.
But the new station – described as a “new transport superhub” by HS2 Ltd – will include a stop on the Elizabeth line, giving swift access to and from London’s West End, City and Canary Wharf.
With a 10-minute Elizabeth Line trip from Bond Street to Old Oak Common, reaching Birmingham from the West End is likely to be quicker than to Stansted.
The Birmingham airport CEO said: “It gives choice, doesn't it? Ultimately, that's what we want: for passengers to be able to choose which airport they go from and when.”
Birmingham remains in seventh place among the UK’s airports – behind four London airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton), Manchester and Edinburgh. It was hard-hit by the collapses of airlines Monarch in 2017 and Flybe in 2020, which both had large bases at Birmingham.
In the immediate future, Mr Barton said the coming Easter will be Birmingham airport’s busiest ever. EasyJet has launched a new base at the airport, and is expanding.
With a direct distance of only 87 miles to London Heathrow and 66 to Manchester airport, the Midlands hub has struggled to attract long-haul services – particularly to the leading transatlantic destination, New York.
“It's a gap in our network that we've had for a few years now,” said the Birmingham airport chief. “We used to service New York on a daily basis. For a variety of reasons that stopped in 2017. We have a very, very strong case for that to restart.
“The constraint at the moment is aircraft availability. There are a number of carriers who are interested in restarting that route – but subject to aircraft delivery, which has been tied up in the supply chain woes of aviation for some time.
"But the case is incredibly strong. There's an awful lot of frustrated demand that we need to get sorted out.
“We do have 38 million people that sit in our core two-hour catchment, which is 20 per cent greater than the population of Canada.
“So there's an awful lot of people that we – with the right products, the right flights, the right prices – can get to come to our airport.”
Ownership of Birmingham airport is split between seven local authorities in the Midlands and a combination of Canadian and Australian pension funds.
