LHR vs AMS & CDG

[Marcel_MPH]

It's 2008 and pretty much every large international mainport is assessing its future strategy. Although it is common practice, it could be interesting to see the developments of these three airports in particular.

Development of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is subject to many variables of which the dual-hub strategy, or the abandoning of this, could mean major changes in its route network and consequently its international status. In case AF-KLM (better yet Air France) decides to relocate its operations for the greater part to CDG, it could have a major impact on the hub function AMS currently serves.

At the same time London Heathrow is, at least in my opinion, running into trouble with its available capacity (same goes for FRA btw) and additional runway capacity is a requirement to further increase its operations, although I'm amazed about the number of aircraft handled by means of "only" two runways, compared to six @ AMS (yes its six!). Wind conditions are of course limiting operations though this video makes me think the British are just better trained in handling cross-winds :}

http://www.dutchops.com/Interesting/BA_CROSSWIND.htm

So, its 2020, do we have an even bigger airport just outside London, a world-class dual hub system between AMS and CDG, a regional airfield in the vicinity of Amsterdam, or a combination of the three?

[MUFC_fan]

IF LHR were to get a 3rd runway - how would they distribue the slots?

They are gold dust at the moment and flooding the market with thousands more slots willobviously bring the prices of them down but surely they would be snapped up instantly.

I would hope that BAA would look at who would offer regional services and award airlines these slots. I also hope that they put restrictions on some of these slots saying that they must be used for commercial flights within the United Kingdom.

Obviously we expect BAA to be bias to UK carriers which will probably mean BA, BMI (if it still exists) and VS will benefit the most.

With a third runway and new terminals, would this mean LHR would be able to take on ORD and ATL as the world's busiest airports?

[Facelookbovvered]

I seem to recall that any third runway would be shorter and used by short haul traffic up 321/757 in size, of course this would free up a huge amount of capacity on the 27L/09R & 27R/09L pairs for long haul flights, if and its still a big if? then it is unlikely to be available before 2016-2020. The world will be very diffrent by then and Labour position in the poll could be on the up? Who knows what Green Cameron and Boris will do?