Everyone's banging on about the fact that 24L at Toronto isn't grooved. Dunno about this surface in detail, but there's a perfectly acceptable asphalt non-grooved surface known as Porous Friction Course (PFC) Heathrow used to have this and very effective it was, too. It has a couple of downsides; the pores get filled up with rubber and if you allow moisture in it to freeze, it blows the surface off. It'd be interesting to actually hear from someone who knows what the surface really is, what it's current friction value is and what their maintenance philosophy is. Grooves in harsh winter conditions might not be the best policy.
We have a fantastic grooved surface at Gatwick, but it's hard work cleaning the rubber out of the grooves all the time.
Now, Coventry. There's no way that runway isn't long enough. If it wasn't, then there'd be over-runs there every day - I haven't heard of any. If locals are saying that they want it longer, then I can only conclude that they want bigger, heavier types operating from a lengthened strip. Great!! Good to see they're getting behind the operation at last!
If someone touches down in the stop end of a runway, (not implying AF did) then it doesn't matter if it's 15Km long, they'll still run off the end.
Cheers,
The Odd One