The hotel magnate Surinder Arora is a long-familiar figure in the Asian community. A self-made entrepreneur, his group owns 16 hotels, most of which are around Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted airport, making him worth over £220million with a big property portfolio. The jewel in his crown is the Intercontinental at the O2 centre in South East London and his business has reportedly made £11.7mn pre-tax profits on sales of £175.3mn last year. At 58, Arora is connected enough to count Tony Blair and Sir Cliff Richard as close friends, but he manages to keep a low profile. Arora who is often known to be soft spoken and sometimes even shy, is in the spotlight now, after he submitted plans for a third runway in Heathrow, which he says would be £5bn cheaper than the airport's current scheme. He has been supported by the British Airways as well as Virgin Atlantic, who have welcomed the initiative as a “fresh thinking”. Arora Group's proposals include changing the design of terminal buildings and taxiways, and reducing the amount of land it is built on. He is up against a corporation whose owners include Ferrovial- a Spanish infrastructure giant, The Qatar investment authority and CDPQ- a Canadian pension fund. Heathrow's boss is John Holland-Kaye, a former divisional director of Taylor Wimpey.
Arora arrived from India in 1972 when he was 13, spent his teenage years living in a terraced house in Southall, five miles from Heathrow. He left school at 18, with no A-levels, and worked as a junior clerk for BA. During this time he even took private flying lessons, which he paid for by moonlighting as a waiter in a hotel he was later to own. He then became a financial adviser at Abbey Life and invested his spare earnings into property. He still owns his first buildings that he had bought, the Heathrow Lodge in Longford. He is married to Sunita, has three children- Sapna (33), Sonia (31) and Sanjay (28) and five grandchildren and loves plays golf and tennis.
Speaking to BBC Arora said, "We want passengers to be at the heart of our plans and the current monopoly at Heathrow, which over-charges airlines and in turn raises fares for passengers, is not the right model for the future.
"Heathrow needs competition and innovation which puts passengers and airlines at the heart of the expansion project."
He added: "One of the options we have proposed to government includes a possible shift of the runway so that it does not impact on the M25 and M4, as we know the M25 junction being affected threatens the deliverability of the whole project.
"We appreciate this is a politically sensitive issue but it is merely an option with additional savings of £1.5bn, whereas the rest of our proposals save up to £5.2bn without the need to amend the runway location."
The airport's current runway plan is estimated to cost £16bn, with allegedly increasing airline and passenger charges.
British Airways is Heathrow's biggest customer. Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways' owner IAG, has welcomed the proposals. He urged the government to study the proposals closely, adding that, in post-Brexit UK, Heathrow would need to compete effectively with European hubs and not “price itself out of the market.”
He further said, "The government should look closely at Arora's proposal as it would significantly reduce costs.”
An airport spokeswoman reportedly said, "Heathrow's expansion proposals are supported by the government and have widespread cross-party political, business and union support.
"We continue to develop our plans to improve passenger experience, reduce the impact on local communities and lower the cost so we deliver expansion at close to current charges.
"Some of the options we are looking at sound similar to those suggested in this submission, and we will welcome views on these in the public consultation later this year."
However, Heathrow has apparently indicated that Arora's plan may increase the noise pollution risk as one of his proposals is to allegedly 'shorten the runway from 3.5kms to 3.2kms and move it to the east', the Daily Telegraph reported. John Stewart, the Chairman of the Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise added, “One of the reasons Heathrow moved it westwards was to try and reduce the noise over London. If he moves it back east and it's a shorter runway, then actually it does increase the noise levels.”
Arora, speaking to the Asian Voice exclusively, defended his plan as not at all a 'noisy' option. He elaborated saying, “We are proposing £5.2bn savings which do not involve moving the runway and would have absolutely not change to Heathrow’s own current plans around noise. This is the main proposal we are working on and should not alarm or concern residents at all – it is the same as the existing plans in regard to noise. Those are the plans we are pursuing with the Government.
“Secondly, we have indeed provided one further option to the Government which is not central to our plans and which is not necessary in order for our plans to proceed – it is simply an option for the Government to consider should they wish to. This additional option does slightly move the runway East. We commissioned noise specialists to look at the impacts of doing this and have put their report up online -http://heathrow.thearoragroup- which ought to be nothing but reassuring. We have put them up online to be totally transparent with residents and are also happy to engage with local councils on the plans too.
“Heathrow’s concerns regarding the runway moving East seems to be based on the conclusions they reached for their own more Easterly model many years ago, rather than a response to our plans specifically.
“To be very clear, our core plans save £5.2bn and do not look to move the runway or change noise contour assessments at all.”
Construction will not begin for at least three years, and it may be delayed by legal challenges over the runway's environmental impact. The Department for Transport has said a new runway at Heathrow would bring economic benefits to passengers and the wider economy worth up to £61bn, and create as many as 77,000 additional local jobs over the next 14 years.
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“First time ever a British Asian entrepreneur has come out with such a pioneering proposal”
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