Originally Posted by
Magplug
Go and check out the stats.... London remains the busiest airspace in the world - ahead of New York by a significant margin. In fact the LHR, LGW, LTN, STN, CDG, ORY, RTM, AMS triangle is controlled by 3 different countries depite being a similar area size to New York ARTCC. Nobody gets shouted at, nobody gets angry and no controllers speak patronisingly to foreign aircraft as if they are idiots. Most importantly they remain professional with no macho BS.
I hope you get to read this before another of my posts gets taken down. I appear to have a knack of hitting the nail on the head.
You are correct that London Area airspace is busiest, However, Heathrow and Gatwick are a fair distance apart and both East / West, London City is a reasonable distance away to the East of Heathrow. and the other airports are too far away to be an issue, Now compare that to the runways and instrument procedures for JFK, LGA, EWR, TEB, These are complex interfering procedures. Numbers are important but so is complexity. [ BTW I worked at London Centre for several years and a few years later helped with a procedure design exercise for NY TRACON so I have some experience of both airspaces]