New runway 'will require taxpayer support Gatwick has said it could deliver a second runway for £5bn to £9bn with no government aid. Heathrow has raised the prospect of £4bn to £6bn of taxpayer support to improve rail and road links, but has argued that a third runway, at a cost of £17bn, would be largely funded by the private sector. The KPMG analysis also highlights the potential burden on passengers of runway expansion. Landing charges - fees that are passed on to passengers through higher ticket prices - would have to rise by 136pc at Gatwick to repay debt raised to fund a second runway, the report claims. Charges at Gatwick would then need to increase by 2.5pc above inflation every year from 2019. In order to fund a third runway at Heathrow, to the north west of the airport's current site, landing charges would go up by 13pc initially, followed by annual increases of 2.5pc above inflation, the research shows. KPMG experts did not assess the Heathrow Hub scheme, which involves lengthening one of the airport's existing air strips and effectively splitting it in two. "The scale of the proposed schemes and of the financing challenge associated with each points to the criticality of government support," the report states. Government support could take various forms. For example ... this could comprise government subsidy of scheme costs. The scale of this subsidy requirement varies by scheme but is in all cases substantial. A spokesman for Gatwick said the airport "doesn't recognise the KPMG figures" and believes it is not a "like-for-like comparison between Gatwick and Heathrow." Stewart Wingate, chief executive of Gatwick, stressed at a conference last week that the airport was planning to produce a design that would keep the price tag as close to £5bn as possible in order to ensure it remains competitive and supports low-cost carriers. He said Gatwick would challenge the commission on its figures, as it believed road and rail improvements that are either already under way or are already planned by Government had been added unnecessarily to the overall costs of a second runway. A Heathrow spokesman said: "We've always known that expanding Heathrow would be cheaper than building a new hub airport, but this evidence shows that both taxpayers and individual passengers would pay less for a new runway at Heathrow than at Gatwick. Passenger charges would rise by less with Heathrow expansion, and the taxpayer support required is less than that needed for Gatwick.