Heathrow Airport's third runway may be delayed to 2039

Image source, Getty Images Image caption, The UK's busiest airport, Heathrow serves 80 million travellers a year with its two runways and four passenger terminals in west London

Heathrow Airport has warned that its planned third runway might be delayed by four years due to planning and regulatory issues.

The government had hoped the new runway at the UK's busiest airport, estimated to cost £49bn, would open by 2035.

But Heathrow sees this deadline as increasingly difficult to deliver without further steps to simplify the planning process. It said on Saturday that it hoped to secure planning permission by 2029 and then open the runway "within a decade".

The Department for Transport (DfT) said the project's timeline had "always been ambitious" and that it would continue to work with stakeholders "at pace" on the matter.