The actual reason given is that all aspects of the airport ie runway capacity/ stand capacity / terminal capacity/ CTA capacity is optimised for 18 million passengers. If the taxiways went to the ends of the runway the money spent would be wasted as the rest of the airport infrastructure could not cope with a higher runway rate. Worth noting that some biz jets still backtrack on 08.
Now with the airport planning to bring in up to an extra 18 million passengers it might well have been a false economy. All will be revealed in June!!!
Last edited by LTNman; 31st Mar 2018 at 03:20.