British Airways’ (BA) robust response this week to the UK Conservative party leader’s comments on London Heathrow throw an interesting spanner into the works.

The UK gateway has been the whipping boy this year of politicians, businesspeople, passengers and every Tom, Dick and Harry with an ounce of an opinion, who has boldly stepped forward in front of the cameras to denounce it in the strongest possible terms.

Clearly, much of this vitriol is justified and the T5 nightmare that provided such juicy copy the world over simply exacerbated an already complex problem.

But assertions that building a third runway at Heathrow would only add to the airport’s burgeoning transfer business  has provoked BA CEO Willie Walsh’s ire.

“This suggestion is extremely insulting to the millions of UK residents in the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, who regularly fly to Heathrow to catch connections to distant parts of the globe to win or maintain business and jobs for Britain,” said Walsh.

The BA chief has a point doesn’t he? It’s not simply about whether or not the countless millions of Heathrow transfer passengers spend any money at the airport itself – that’s almost meaningless set in the context of what they actually earn having arrived at their business destination.

It would require some accounting procedure that would tax NASA to come up with the exact amount that UK business made because they travelled, but it’s nonetheless there lurking in the background.

And to back up his point, the BA boss also cites those competitor airports to whom passengers have been increasingly attracted as Heathrow’s woes have mounted. How Walsh must sometimes wish he managed Air France, KLM, or Lufthansa.

“The major economies of Europe invest in their hubs,” he said. “Frankfurt has three runways and a fourth on the way, Paris Charles de Gaulle has four and Amsterdam has five.”

Poor old Heathrow is slot-jammed and despite the huge amount of building work and alliance rationalisation that will see far greater efficiency in the old place – hopefully in time for the 2012 Olympics – it still only has the two runways.

I was on a flight from Heathrow to Brussels – I wouldn’t do it now with Belgium reachable from St Pancras in a blur of 1h51min – and the Captain apologised that the taxi and wait for take-off would take longer than the flight time. Lunacy.

The green lobby might want to consider how much pollution is pumped into the atmosphere by up to a dozen jets with their engines idling, waiting in an interminable queue to take off. And aircraft engine technology is proceeding at a dramatic pace – look at what Airbus and Boeing are claiming for their A380 and 787 aircraft.

Walsh also makes another salient point in his response. “Heathrow operates 110 scheduled long-haul routes – more than three times the total of any other UK airport – sixty of those routes are not operated from any other UK airport.” His point being that if those 60 routes were viable on the basis of demand from the London area alone, then why didn’t another carrier fly them from cheaper and less congested airports such as Gatwick, Stansted or Luton. He argues they don’t because “they are not viable as stand-alone point-to-point routes.”

Like it or not Heathrow is the preferred arrival point for business travellers. It desperately needs a third, short runway that, with improved engine efficiency will not result in a net increase in emissions. It’s good for jobs, good for business and good for UK plc. And as we ride economic turbulence, who can argue against that?