Head of Logistics

Heathrow signs MoU with 7 Steel UK. Joey Stoate Published: 16 Oct 2026 Heathrow has announced the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with 7 Steel UK at their facility in Cardiff. The MoU seeks to reinforce Heathrow's ongoing commitment to using UK-made steel as the airport expands, with an aim to deliver a 'significant boost' for UK manufacturing in the process. Heathrow signed the MoU in 7 Steel UK's facility in Cardiff (C) Heathrow Heathrow signed the UK Steel Charter last year, and this MoU builds on the airport's wider support for the domestic steel industry. It is set to enable a Framework Agreement and, ultimately, a long-term contract between both Heathrow and 7 Steel UK, strengthening a relationship that spans more than twenty years. During this time, 7 Steel UK has supplied more than 150,000 tonnes of steel to Heathrow, including for the construction of Terminal 5, and will continue to support the airport's future growth plans. Stay in the loop Get Aviation Industry-News straight in your inbox. Heathrow's proposed expansion is anticipated to drive demand for UK steel, in turn protecting jobs, supporting a new generation of steelworkers and injecting millions of GBP into domestic supply chains. Current projections estimate that 60% of the economic growth benefits from building a third runway at Heathrow are expected to be delivered to regions outside of London and the South East, with Wales set to benefit directly as a result of the MoU. Heathrow's expansion is estimated to require up to 400,000 tonnes of steel - roughly a sixth of the UK's annual production. The agreement between Heathrow and 7 Steel UK is intended to send a signal of support, and is anticipated to provide confidence for future investment in Welsh steelmaking. Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye said: Expanding Heathrow would deliver real opportunities for people across the whole of the UK. This MoU is one such example. If expansion is approved, the MoU Airport Industry-News signed today can help revitalise UK steelmaking and drive economic growth in South Wales. Its ambition to put Welsh-made steel at the heart of its expansion plans will create a pipeline of future orders for UK steel, and Airport Industry-News hope that the scale of its project will lead the way for other large infrastructure projects to follow suit. Airport Industry-News is proud to be strengthening its relationship with 7 Steel UK, with businesses across South Wales and to be helping to drive a new era of industrial growth.

'Ghost town' threat to Heathrow Airport if third runway proves too costly, MPs warned. Heathrow's expansion plans are unaffordable, says a rival consortium News Briefings Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice. Heathrow Airport risks becoming a "ghost town" if the Government presses ahead with a third runway scheme which is unaffordable, MPs have been warned. The Commons Transport Committee was hearing evidence on Wednesday on the expansion plans for the west London airport. There are two rival blueprints for a third runway, one proposed by Heathrow and a second by a consortium called Heathrow West, a subsidiary of the Arora Group. Heathrow Airport's proposed third runway Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport's proposal is for a £33 billion scheme for a 3,500-metre new runway, rising to £49 billion once terminal and other improvements are included. Heathrow West is pushing a shorter runway, initially 2,400 metres at a cost of less than £25 billion, with its concept crucially not involving moving the M25 at a cost of £1.5 billion. Giving evidence to the committee, Surinder Arora, Heathrow West's chairman, said: "At the end of the day, any scheme has to be affordable. "If it's not affordable, then people won't use the airport. The airlines won't come in and be able to afford to come into Heathrow. 'What we can't do is build something, and we are three, four times the price of Schipol or Charles de Gaulle or other airports. "Then it would become a ghost town." Airlines say Heathrow Airport's plan would be the most expensive new runway project ever, with passengers having to pick up a large chunk of the bill through higher ticket prices. How the Heathrow West scheme avoids having to move the M25 Heathrow West Heathrow West does not believe the economic case currently stacks up for expanding its proposed 2,400-metre runway to 2,800 which could happen under its plans, but it might be affordable in future years. However, Heathrow Airport's chief executive Thomas Woldbye has dismissed the rival scheme as "not providing the capacity that we and the airlines need". Sir Keir Starmer's Government had fully backed expanding the west London airport. But new Prime Minister Andy Burnham cast huge doubt over whether his administration would support it, refusing five times in a recent interview to say that it would do so. As part of his devolution agenda, he has stressed the importance of London's view of a bigger Heathrow. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan opposes a third runway London Mayor Lord Sadiq Khan has for years firmly opposed the new runway, which would increase the west London airport's capacity to 756,000 flights and 150 million passengers a year. Before appearing in front of the committee, Mr Woldbye said he hoped the Prime Minister would throw his weight behind the scheme, adding "it would be good to know where Government is on this". He warned that the planned investment in the scheme could go overseas unless there is certainty. "Our private investors, if they cannot invest in Heathrow which they own, they don't own any other airports in the UK, and there is no project like a Heathrow expansion, then that money will be invested somewhere else in the world, maybe in a motorway in Spain or a hospital in Italy," he explained. Heathrow expects to submit a formal planning application "in the next couple of years", he added. MORE ABOUT

Heathrow's head of data and analytics gives an expert view on how AI is changing analytics. Alan Petrie Head of Corporate Data and Analytics at Heathrow gives his thoughts on the role of AI in analytics and Oracle's new AI Data Platform Alan Petrie is a veteran analytics leader with 30 years' experience of the industry. He was recently promoted to Head of Corporate Data and Analytics at Heathrow, where he leads the team that recently won the EMEA Oracle Excellence Award for Data Analytics and AI. Oracle caught up with Alan on the day the award was announced to ask his opinion of the emerging role of AI in data analytics, his plans to exploit AI at Heathrow, and his expectations for the newly launched Oracle AI Data Platform. "The adoption in Fusion Applications is going well at Heathrow, with AI agents being embedded in many business processes to easily answer questions like 'How many days' leave have I got left?', 'what's the maternity policy at Heathrow?'. I expect to see the applications team spin up many more of these agents, moving forward. It transforms the experience of using the applications. Material benefits from automating Accounts Payable "Oracle is also working on cutting edge use of AI in the Corporate Data & Analytics team. In the Accounts Payable team previously, Oracle manually matched invoices to POs to ensure Oracle is paying out the correct amount, including VAT where appropriate. At best Oracle were able to check around 3% of all invoices. Now, by using AI and displaying the results in a Fusion Data Intelligence (FDI) dashboard, Oracle can check 100% - around 4,000 each month. The time and money saved is very significant. "First, Oracle use AI - Oracle OCI Document Understanding - to make the invoices completely machine readable, even multi-page documents. Then Oracle can check, line item by line item, to make sure the invoice matches its corresponding PO. Any anomalies are instantly and automatically identified and flagged. Then Oracle check that the VAT number is accurate on the invoice and automatically check back to Companies House, the UK corporate regulator, to ensure that the supplier is registered correctly. Oracle can ensure that what Oracle is paying, including VAT, is the correct amount versus the PO. All the details are displayed on its FDI dashboard, so Oracle can instantly see any errors on any of the 4,000 invoices and investigate. Oracle has already identified several other similar applications in other departments for this type of application of AI at Heathrow. Understanding the human impact of absenteeism "Oracle is using AI to track trends on its Absence FDI dashboard, blending data from multiple systems. The absence system is on Databricks, the rostering system which is legacy, and other HR data coming from Fusion. The dashboard itself gives Oracle a complete picture of who's been absent, for how long, how many shifts have been lost. Basic stuff. Oracle can also enable individual departments to see how their absence levels are fluctuating and why, and help them make comparisons between their department and others. For example, Oracle employ over 4,000 security staff at Heathrow, and having a clear picture of absenteeism in that department is important because it affects the operations of every area of the airport. How AI makes Finance faster "In Finance, Oracle is looking at how Oracle can use AI to manage procedures based on a wide variety of policy documents and emails to answer questions like, 'In this particular situation, what should I do?' So far, results have been very good - not always 100% accurate, but close. It saves an incredible amount of time, giving answers in 20 seconds that used to take hours, manually searching all the documents. Oracle has tried it in Finance, and all departments have procedures that must be followed. HR policy documents are an obvious example. Transforming work with conversational analytics "Oracle is very focused on how AI can help Oracle make the experience of using FDI more conversational. When someone has a business problem to solve, it can be time consuming to have to go and search through dashboards to find the specific visualization to provide answers. They must know where to look. With AI and conversational interfaces, users should be able to say or type 'show me the average salaries of my department over the past three years', and the correct visualization is created for them on the fly. "It's going to be a huge transformation to the way people work. And it will tie into the Fusion Applications' AI agents I mentioned earlier. Business users want to have just one interface where they can answer all their questions, from operational ones - 'How do I approve Alan's requested time off next Tuesday?' to understanding trends, 'Who has the highest absence rate in my department over the past six months, and why?' They'll speak to this concierge AI that takes the request and passes it off to whichever agents are needed, potentially multiple agents that can talk to each other. Essentially, it's like creating a new role in the company. Managing AI initiatives requires a platform "Such a broad approach will require a platform. The data will come from all sorts of disparate sources, in addition to Oracle Fusion. And there will be a need to manage all the different agents, to ensure they are working properly and that the right one is presented for each use case. The Oracle AI Data Platform plays an important role in this. Initially, Oracle will use it to manage all the agents used with FDI and its data, and to make its agents available for use elsewhere in the company. "With AI, there's been 10 different ways to do something, and that's resulted in a phase of fragmentation, with stuff everywhere and lots of different tools. I think it's starting to come back together a little bit. And I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do with the tooling we have. And AI Data Platform is one of the big parts of that." You can read more about Heathrow's journey in their previous post, Europe's largest airport makes use of its data to make better business decisions, and visit Oracle.com for more information about Oracle Analytics, AI, and AIDP. Nick whitehead. Emily cikovsky. Director, Oracle Analytics.