The traffic scheduled into Heathrow now exactly matches the declared capacity, so it is difficult to see how we can accept more traffic without a change in the noise policy to permit mixed mode ops. during the day.
At 06:00 Heathrow is flat out for arrivals, using both runways. Very often we get to 25 minutes holding and we run this at least one ATCO short of the 'daytime' numbers. Even now we need to look at ways of reducing this bulge through en-route traffic management so adding more traffic to it will not be acceptable.
With demand so closely matching capacity throughout the day, any drop off in landing rates, through strong wind or runway blockage (even short term), puts us under a great deal of pressure.
How was it ever accepted that we could provide another 8% of movements to satisfy T5 as the enquirey was told by th BAA boss? How can we ever have freely competitive, open skies until we address the choke points?
Heathrow needs redundant runway capacity if it is to satisfy our industry's needs and our government has been negligent in this regard, effectively preventing truely free competition.
I suggest that is where we need to look, and the sooner the better.. . <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0">
Point 4