It's nice to actually have something new to talk about on this thread rather than the usual same points getting bought up over and over again!
Having been over the Masterplan in reasonable detail I have to say it seems on the whole quite realistic and achievable to me. The key operational factors that forever get mentioned are all being addressed, at least to enough of an extent to make the airport more attractive to carriers who operate the 737 and A32X families, which just happen to be the majority of Europe's airlines! It seems clear from the plan that the airport want one of the major locos to set up a base there, and any prior thoughts that they may want to 'protect' the dominant position of Flybe can now be brushed aside, which is good to see. There is also very much the suggestion that the significant increase in passengers will primarily be down to a new loco base, which adds to my previous point, I guess they may see Flybe being pretty stagnant for the next few years.
In terms of airfield changes, the northern taxiway should more than halve backtracking, reducing delays and also wasted fuel/emissions. As others have mentioned, this would leave the airport with a similar layout to Luton, and I would think even the hypothetical 5m pa SOU won't have nearly as many movements as Luton manages to handle today, so I don't see any real issue here. Stand alterations look good, being able to handle 4 A32x/737/Cseries/E2's at once is a big improvement. 13 stands vs the current 14 seems like a non-issue to me, currently they are pretty underutilised with only 6-8 overnighting aircraft, and there is even the suggestion that additional stands could be built without too much concern. Only thing I see is the potential for some pushback delays across the stands caused the 'lone' stand that faces the train line. The second phase of stand expansion also looks promising, with the majority of the airports stands (10/17) then being able to handle 737/A32X aircraft. Finally the runway strip should bring the airport to being fairly comparable to Southend, where EZY fly to the canaries on A320's, so the small change has the potential to make a big difference to load restrictions on mid sized aircraft. Moving the ancillary hangers etc across the airfield as per the longer term goal also gives them more opportunity to expand or be added to if there is demand, without having to fight for space with the commercial operation.
The terminal expansion will most definitely be required, the current one is pretty much at its comfortable limit, certainly during busy periods. A crude interpretation of the diagram would suggest that the floor area will be increased by at least 2/3. I do find it interesting that this expansion is deemed sufficient for the 2027 and 2037 requirements, I would think it would be getting a little cosy with 5m pax pa, unless they plan to make most of it two floors. Either way, I expect we will see the end of the neat design the current 'original' terminal has, but at least it is for a good reason. The walkway for stands 7-11 is very useful, and saves the rather wasteful bus journeys that happen to those, which should benefit punctuality and ground emissions a little, although this will mostly be reversed with the second phase of stand expansion. Hopefully immigration will be suitably expanded so people don't have to queue outside every time a >100 seater arrives!
One thing of interest in the Surface Access Strategy document is the predicted year on year growth. It says elsewhere they want an average of 4.6%, however the individual year on year shows a big jump from 2.1-3.7 million passengers between 2017 and 2021, perhaps suggesting that a major step change is capacity is expected/being negotiated? See the graphic here:
https://gyazo.com/c9ed38ba500511ec54c1e2c3d8a48ef3
Not sure if I have added anything new to the debate/discussion, but just wanted to get my thoughts on the Masterplan across. I hope to see some of it come to fruition soon.