Skipness, your comprehensive list of domestic destinations from GLA makes me quite envious, wish LHR was similar!
Paxboy, not sure what happens if an airport exceeds its movements limit, but imagine there would be fines to pay. LHR has not yet exceeded its limit but is perilously close at 478,000. Guess we’ll find out soon?
Jabird, there would be no money for a compulsory purchase of LHR. Any government wanting to support a Shivering/SILVER-ing sands airport (and that is a highly contentious proposition), will need to do so by paying for transport links, not by buying off Ferrovial.
As for slots, there would be no financial value in slots at SILVER-ing sands if it is as big as Silver would like it to be. He envisages that there would be room enough for the much needed commuter/feeder flights from several UK airports that are missing from LHR, so it would have to be as big or bigger than LHR.
Runway expansion at LHR would be similar to that at FRA, or MAN. Slot value is scarcity value. Say that airline A sells/leases a LHR slot to airline B. B pays A, no money goes to the airport owners or to the government. With a third/fourth runway, this market would be eliminated and would open up all sorts of possibilities. Not convinced that slot availability would adversely affect the BA share price. After all, they are one of the biggest supporters of LHR expansion.
Three points need to be made.
First, it would be very difficult to force airlines to move airports because UK airports are privately owned having been sold off in the 1980s. Only a handful of municipally owned airports remain, MAN for example, and even that is set up as a company (with several councils being the shareholders). Most countries have publicly owned airports, even where they are privately operated, making it easier to order the airlines to move if required.
Second, the construction of Silver Airport would have to be paid for so that shareholders can recoup their investment. Therefore it is likely that airport charges will be much higher than at LHR and this will not encourage carriers to move there.
Third, consider these examples from all over the world going back to the 1940s:
La Guardia/Idlewild - New York 1948
Santos Dumont/Galeao - Rio de Janeiro 1952
Wilson/Embakasi - Nairobi 1958
Ciampino/Fuimicino - Rome 1961
Orly/Roissy - Paris 1974
Dorval/Mirabel - Montreal 1975
Haneda/Narita - Tokyo 1978
Songshan/Taoyuan - Taipei 1979
Congonhas/Guaralhos - Sao Paulo 1985
Kemayoran (closed)/Cangkerang - Jakarta 1985
Reim(closed)/Frazheim - Munich 1992
Kai Tak (closed)/Chep Lap Kok - Hong Kong 1998
Fornebu (closed)/Gardermoen - Oslo 1998
Subang/Sepang - Kuala Lumpur 1998
Hongqaio/Pudong - Shanghai 1999
Gimpo/Incheon - Seoul 2001
Don Muang/Suvarnabhumi - Bangkok 2006
Notice any trends? In the majority of cases where new airports have opened, supposedly as a replacement, the original has remained open, in either a diminished or domestic-only role.
The one exception is Mirabel. Airlines directed there from Dorval stopped Montreal flights rather than move there. Of course the “Bloc Quebecois” was riding high and this would have had a bearing on this. Potential secession issues in Quebec at that time created much uncertainty, resulting in the “flight” (pardon the pun) of business, commerce, etc., to Toronto. This eventually cost Montreal its position as Canada’s number one city.
These airports were publicly owned at the time as were most of the “flag carrier” airlines based at each, enabling governments to dictate policy. these conditions that no longer apply in the UK.
So, based on these precedents, the balance of probability overwhelmingly suggests that LHR will not close if Silver Island is built.