Exclusive: Treasury analysis shows ticket prices expected to go up across board with no plans for frequent flyers to shoulder more of the cost

Rachel Reeves’s bid to expand Heathrow airport could add £40 to the cost of an airline ticket, according to the Treasury’s own analysis.

The chancellor’s proposal to minimise the carbon emissions of a bigger Heathrow include the use of sustainable aviation fuels, which experts say are expensive and unlikely to reach the scale needed for aviation expansion.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary wants European airports to clamp down on pre-flight drinking. But is it really such a problem? There’s only one way to find out …

It is 10.30am on Thursday at Gatwick, and Jenny and her friend Alison, both 63, are drinking champagne. It’s an elegant scene. They are on a stopover between Barbados and Guernsey, and neither are planning to get drunk and kicked off their connecting flight. Alison describes the unique drinking culture at an airport. “We don’t know what day it is, never mind what time,” she says. “There aren’t any windows, so you can’t tell if it is day or night. Everyone is in a different time zone anyway, so nobody is looking at anyone else thinking, ‘They’re starting a bit early.’”

The perfect environment, in other words, to enjoy a morning drink. But now I’m casting around my mind for every other place on Earth where one might have a breakfast beer or glass of wine: cricket matches; bottomless brunches; weddings. In every one of those scenarios, a good number of drinkers would be carousing after half an hour. But the airport is so serene.