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By: - 1st May 2013 at 11:50 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
That Heathrow is too small is undisputable fact.
Why, in this country, can't we just get on and build things that need building? We need a new airport, so why not Boris Island? Of course it is needed, and I can't understand how Heathrow could be used more efficiently when it is already full.
And, don't even get me started on the environmentalists.
By: - 1st May 2013 at 12:22 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
The report makes clear how it could. And you make no mention of the observations relating to Gatwick and Stansted. "Of course it is needed" is clearly not a view shared by everyone.
By: - 1st May 2013 at 20:14 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
The committee says it is not convinced by that argument and suggests growing demand could be met if better use was made of existing airports and passengers were able to fly in larger "hub buster" planes such as the new Airbus 380.
Might be worthy of note.
Its where I have long thought the A380's eventual market will be.
By: - 1st May 2013 at 21:04 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Considering the amount of investigations and reports published thus far on airport expansion in the Southest, is it fair to say more trees have been cut for the paper the reports are printed on then would have been cut for a third runway at Heathrow? Or do we need another report to hit "break even"?
By: - 2nd May 2013 at 19:02 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
The report claims that more passengers could fly into LHR if larger planes were used. But here's your first problem. Heathrow is a hub airport, meaning (as I'm sure we all here are aware) there are a fair few transit passengers. If we bung them all in larger aircraft you're ultimately going to use fewer slots in the process. Whilst on the face of it this may seem like a positive, what you must realise is that you're reducing flight frequency. So any transit passengers are more likely to go for those large hubs around Europe with the smaller transfer times and the wide-range of frequencies using smaller aircraft.
In an ideal world I'd like to see at least 2 new runways at LHR and 1 more at LGW... I mean, put it this way, if your a foreign airline executive and want to enter the European market.
Do you invest in the airport that's building the new capacity now like FRA, CDG or AMS? Or do you invest in the old airport from the 1970's with no growth plans on the table? The uncertainty over UK airport capacity is undoubtedly costing us valuable trade links. You only have to look at the breadth of airlines that fly into some of these European hubs and it does make you wonder why they choose them over us? On paper we have a lot more in common with some of these countries than say France or The Netherlands do.
By: - 2nd May 2013 at 19:19 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
To be really honest about it - the economy needs to be diluted - its far too concentrated in the South-East. There are loads of airports around the country well able to cope with increased traffic.
But the UK government are NEVER going to grasp that particular nettle very hard.
By: - 2nd May 2013 at 19:56 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
There are so many other issues with Boris Island, some to do with getting to the airport, New motorways, parking, trains, tunnels etc. Then you have to ask where the extra 200,000 workers will live.
By: - 3rd May 2013 at 07:58 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
To be really honest about it - the economy needs to be diluted - its far too concentrated in the South-East. There are loads of airports around the country well able to cope with increased traffic.But the UK government are NEVER going to grasp that particular nettle very hard.
Not sure what you mean by "diluted". If you mean less concentrated in the south east, which parts of the economy? If you mean the service/financial sector that predominates in and around the capital and whether you like it or not the capital cities of ALL countries tend to be the focal points. Trying to escape that fact is sticking your head in the sand. What is true, as pointed out in the report, is that there is much more potential capacity in the south east without building a £50 billion new airport and infrastructure, the cost of which would no doubt double or treble before it was completed in about 40 years time.
By: - 3rd May 2013 at 16:49 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Not sure what you mean by "diluted". If you mean less concentrated in the south east, which parts of the economy? If you mean the service/financial sector that predominates in and around the capital and whether you like it or not the capital cities of ALL countries tend to be the focal points.
Now seriously. Did you post that out of an assumption or after stopping and considering things. The UK has the most unbalanced internal economy of any developed country.
The UK has one stock exchange location - London. They closed the Glasgow stock exchange during the 70s. D'oh. Talks of re-opening it - but I would expect with the devolution/independence thing in Scotland that'll be knocked on the head for as long as possible.
Germany has 7 locations.
The US has 8.
Japan has 3-4.
Now, stock exchanges aside... why are insurance companies tending to centralised there? Or legal entities...? Or private finance? They aren't sensitive to the 'net latency difference that stock trade houses would be. Its 'cos the infrastructure around the rest of the country is poor..
The Olympics should never have been in London - it was a great chance to develop another area of the country and spread the economy out a bit. But instead (as usual for politicians), they screwed the decision.
In terms of GDP for the G8.
London/UK = 752/2430 (31%)
Washington/USA = 415/14990 (3%) [NewYork/USA = 1210/14990 (8%)]
Berlin/Germany = 144/3600 (4%)
Paris/France = 670/2775 (24%)
Tokyo/Japan = 1520/5870 (26%)
Moscow/Russia = 520/1860 (28%)
Rome/Italy = 168/2200 (8%)
Montreal/Canada = 143/1740 (8%) [I know Ottawa is the capital, but Montreal is the economic capital]
So the UK has its economy more centralised than even Russia... whose communications and infrastructure outside Moscow is notoriously poor... or Japan, who for geographic reasons have little choice but their East Coast, particularly around Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo and Sendai... with Sendai not being favourable due to direct exposure to the Pacific.
By: - 3rd May 2013 at 18:52 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
It always amazes me how we come up with these barking schemes, building an airport in an estuary when the place is surrounded by ww2 airfields is daft, develop Manston, develop Lynham or any of the redundant ww2 sites, they will of been surveyed before.
By: - 3rd May 2013 at 20:58 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Because anyone who puts their name to a massive civil engineering project will be remembered for posterity - unless it turns out to be a massive white elephant of course....
By: - 4th May 2013 at 20:52 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
All this delay is just crazy, just build the bl$%^dy runway at LHR. What nobody ever brings up is to move the UK main hub from LHR to Essex will involve closing west London. What are you going to do with the c100,000 jobs that depend on LHR? You are looking at large parts of the population of Slough, Hounslow, Feltham etc and further out into berks,Surrey,hants etc. I know many people in my area that have good jobs at LHR, what happerns to all those people?? There is also a nice clear area to the south of LHR next to the A30, put the 4th runway and terminal 6 there.
The people who did the report have clearly not visited Luton. Yes there are 50% of runway slots available but no stands as it is built on top of a hill and there is not enough room. Only Stansted has and real runway and terminal capacity but people my side of London will not use the airport due traffic on the M25. I will use Bournemouth and Southampton over STN.
By: - 6th May 2013 at 10:04 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Farnboroughh rob. Sadly which ever political party dare build a third runway at Heathrow will take a panning at the next general election. Sadly the self interest of power is taking presidence over common sense yet again in British politics.
It seems to me that the positioning of the third runway at Heathrow seems a little silly. The village of Simpson does not need to be demolished. But again sadly the wrong decision has been made. The perfect place for the third runway is where the hotels and car parks north of the current runway. But its much cheaper to put a cpo on a householder than it is to compensate busnises.
A fourth runway can go to the south of the surrent southern runway. But BA maintenance will have to go, as well as a new terminal to replace T4 as it will have to be knocked down, as well as cargo.
Maybe a better strategy for Heathrow at the moment would be to place minimum load factor and aircraft size limits. Currently we have very small aircraft such as BMI Embraers and DLH CRJs using Heathrow. Maybe a minimum size of 120 seats with an average load factor of 70% should be required to maintain a slot at Heathrow. That will stop airlines from using ghost flights to keep slots. Also why do pure cargo flights still operate into Heathrow. Surely gatwick and stan stead would be better destinations for the.
By: - 6th May 2013 at 16:00 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Well, there is another solution to the heathrow issue.
Full on dedicated high speed subway links between Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton & Stanstead.
But, as per usual, the cost of doing something right will be deemed too high...
By: - 6th May 2013 at 17:41 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
The perfect place for the third runway is where the hotels and car parks north of the current runway.No, that location will not work. For flight safety you need a certain amount of distance between the runways. I don't know the legal limit, but take AMS as an example. The new Polderbaan lies a bit short of 2 KM from the older Zwanenburgbaan. Even at that distance there have been a few cases where planes got closer then safe limits. In particular during bad crosswinds when a strong gust can blow a (smaller) plane into the direction of the path of a larger plane, and also when landing when two planes approach head on before turning left / right onto their respective runways.
There are examples where runways are close by. For instance LGW or FRA. But for those airports it only works during staggered operations. One plane lands on runway left, the other on runway right, the next on left and so on. That will give a little added capacity, but considering the amount of money spend for a new runway the gains would be negligable.
One option that does not often get mentioned is moving one or more of the water reservoirs southwest of Heathrow and placing the runway there. I know the tabloids are going to have a field day, but having the runway start at the current location of the British disabled water ski association would disrupt few people as the airways could lead over Old Windsor Wood and South Forest.
By: - 7th May 2013 at 15:11 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
But, as per usual, the cost of doing something right will be deemed too high...
....but perhaps less than the megabillions for a "Boris" and its infrastructure....
By: - 7th May 2013 at 15:57 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Two of the biggest factors against this estuary airport are:
1) It tends to suffer from fog during certain times of the year.
2) There are a lot of rather large sea birds in the area.
By: - 8th May 2013 at 09:11 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
And a few more besides...
3) It would require huge investment in local infrastructure and housing in order to service the tens of thousands of employees at a major airport.
4) There would be significant job losses at Heathrow, and knock-on impacts to the economy of west London.
5) The construction costs of the airport alone would be enormous and probably double or treble before completion.
6) There would be large costs for constructing road and rail access to the airport.
7) Building an artificial offshore island might take 5 years or more.
8) The level of demand for an airport in the Thames estuary is uncertain, and may require government intervention to force airlines to use it.
9) No safe way has yet been found to remove the SS Richard Montgomery, which has around 1,400 tons of explosives on board.
10) Building the airport would destroy the habitat of thousands of wetland birds.
By: - 10th May 2013 at 08:25 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
And another......
By: - 10th May 2013 at 08:26 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
And another......
Posts: 11,141
By: charliehunt - 1st May 2013 at 10:54
This will set the tails wagging....
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway_messenger/news/2013/may/1/multi-billion_pounds_airport.aspx