Before Surinder Arora made his fortune in UK hotels, his first inspiration in the country was Heathrow Airport on landing from his native India.
The ideal of the hub as the biggest and the best-value airport in the world was sealed at that moment in 1972, and now he has a chance to bring the troubled Heathrow back to that starting point.
The Arora Group, which he founded and runs, has assembled an all-star cast from the construction and aviation industries to bid for the rights to a third runaway at the West London airport.
In doing so he is going up against the monopoly operator Heathrow Airports but, as he has throughout his business career, Arora plans to bring in partners, just as his hotels are operated by Hilton or Sofitel. With the best in class – Singapore's Changi or Dubai Airports, perhaps – Arora claims it can create a better passenger experience.
As he tells it, Heathrow's own plans to build a new runway that involved plans to tunnel under the busiest motorway junction in Europe caused him to think he could do better.
Now, his own project to build a shorter runway and avoid unnecessary disruption is one of two bids for the airport's expansion on the desk of UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander.
"When I landed at Heathrow in 1972, it was the busiest international airport in the world and it was the cheapest airport in the world," he says. "Sadly, we're now not the busiest international airport in the world and now the most expensive airport in the world," he says from his office overlooking the perimeter. "Worse still, we're not even in the top 20 when it comes to customer satisfaction."
Turning to his advisers, Arora says there is consensus against Heathrow's much longer runway plan. It is 3.5km v his scheme's 2.8km.
According to Heathrow Airport's own submission, theirs is the only plan that will allow all three runways to alternate between arrivals and departures at full capacity. Arora's team includes US contractor Bechtel, former BA boss Rod Eddington and Mike Casper, an ex-chairman of legacy operator BAA before its sale to an overseas consortium.
"We all think it's a complete disaster if you try to build a runway over the M25," he says. "It is one of the busiest motorways in Europe and the M4 junction is the busiest junction in Europe. It will go on for years and years. Its not just the cost but the environmental consequences."
Rachel Reeves, the UK Chancellor, ignited hopes for airport development, long stalled by opposition based on the climate change impact of the project, when she announced three expansion plans would go ahead at British hubs.
Fast forward from January to September, and last week the government announced the nearby Gatwick application would be approved. Reviews of the rival Heathrow bids have been open since June and are expect to conclude soon.
Arora warns that overrunning costs and gold-plated maximalist projects, such as the HS2 railway and modernisation of London's water supply, are flaws that cannot be repeated with the airport plans.
"What we've seen in the past other projects in the great country, like HS2 and Thames Water, is that this could be is worse," he tells The National.
Overcoming the perception that the airport is best run by a single operator will be his biggest challenge. Arora says the record already speaks for the introduction of competition.
"I think the public, the airlines, have already woken up, and I hope the government now sees there is an issue here," he says. "They need to do something about it."
Arora concedes the criticisms aimed at Heathrow management are not down to only the present owners but stretch beyond to the entire regulatory framework. This creates an incentive to select ambitious top-costing plans that can been funded through charges on airline and other users, such as retailers. To Arora, this amounts to an "abuse of monopoly" and he is part of an alliance called Heathrow Reimagined, calling for the break up of single operator control across the site.
The slow down in air travel during the Covid pandemic created a schism within the airline industry that has yet to heal. Three years ago, Tim Clarke, president of Emirates Airline, criticised Heathrow's attempt to restrict passenger recovery numbers. Last year, he spoke out against its failure to modernise at the same pace as Middle East and Asian rivals. "Where we are based, new airports are being built employing the latest technologies to streamline the process of all the customer-facing elements," he said. "That is not the case at Heathrow."
An Arora-built Terminal 6, part of his Heathrow West scheme, would avoid these pitfalls if it gets the go-ahead. "What we're looking at doing is things Arora are good at," said Mr Arora.
Alongside Bechtel, Arora has come up with a scheme that would cost about half the near £50 billion budget Heathrow Airport Ltd has put down for its project. Mr Arora asks how many of his group's projects have come in under budget in 20 years.
Pointing out the window of his hotel company's HQ, he plays what might be his trump card. The second tallest building on-site, the Hilton hotel near Terminal 2, was an Arora project. "We built it," he said, "but we didn't spend a penny more than it would have cost on the outside."
Arora is used to taking on the odds, having arrived from India with only ambition to power his rise. "I always say life is a risk, or life is a calculated risk," he says. "When I built my first 350-bed hotel, I used to run a 20-bedroom guest house. My own dear wife used to laugh at me and say, 'what the hell are you up to?'"
