Regardless of the superb professionalism of ATC and 99.9% of pilots the airspace around London is too busy , it is an accident waiting to happen !
There is simply too much traffic ! It should be capped and now !
Whilst TCAS "may" have helped, as Heathrow Director points out it is not failsafe, and he can quote an example where it could actually contribute to an accident !
Adding aircraft like the A380 is great but all the airlines do is maintain frequency !
By way of example BA, AA etc now operate a service almost every 30 minutes to New York , by any reasonable measure surely some of this passenger traffic must originate North Of Birmingham so why not use Manchester ? Three terminals, two runways , it is crazy !
Adding runways in the South east is also no answer, if the airspace above cannot take the extra traffic!
I am NOT part of the green lobby, far from it, but there are vested interests at work here, you cannot base all increases in traffic purely on commercial factors
based purely on critical mass it now makes more sense to ram more and more traffic into the South east, the politicians think jobs etc and follow the lead.....
....but if there is a major mid air over London they will all be scarpering for the exits.