re the comments on LHR R3 while major users might take the view that more capacity means more competition, they should take the view that they cannot expand at all without it and as has always been the case you cannot stand still in business
While that is conventional economic theory, it does not take into account the monopolistic aspects of the current Heathrow. It assumes that competitors will come to take your market. That is not possible where Heathrow is the only mainstream game in town, there cannot be another one built, the competitors cannot get in there because it is full, etc. Sure the market from provincial destinations connecting via Heathrow may be lost, but connecting traffic is always lower revenue per flight than O&D, you just use it to fill up otherwise spare capacity through your hub.
It's extraordinary how nobody of any prominence in aviation policy ever questioned BA replacing the 757s which were the majority of European route equipment in the 1980s-2000s with A319s of little more than half the capacity, at an airport that was full all along, and deployed them on their "grandfathered" slots. Having built up a substantial operation they then squeezed out all the low revenue end of it. The same is currently happening again with the European B767s being replaced by A321s.
As both BA and, separately, Heathrow are now effectively managed and run from Spain, you have to wonder how UK government policy on asset ownership views this. Likewise how other airports, also assets of the national infrastructure, are now run principally for the benefit of Canadian teachers' pension plans.
spent 50 minutes waiting for our bags....meanwhile on the next carousel so many bags appeared from a TAM flight where all the pax were still in in immigration, that the carousel became overloaded and had to be stopped
A notable commentary on the difference in handling agents.