Now so much of this thread has been about LHR v Boris / George / Norm / Silver Island (Silver, I hope you feel honoured in such company, but you did start the thread
).
There has been little mention of the much more obvious option of a massive expansion of LGW.
Now, please don't get me wrong - I am not talking about the pointless Heathwick suggestion, which would burn £5bn of cash, without adding any extra capacity.
Currently, around 30-40% of LHR traffic is transfer, but out of that, a very large percentage must surely be BA-BA, or at least within Oneworld? Taking bmi out of the equation removes the case for Star having a signficant hub operation at LHR, just a number of disparate connections between their European, Asian and North American members.
The whole model of killing one airport and moving to a megahub has been tested elsewhere, and we know it is fraught with risk, especially in a city with so many airports. Therefore, we have to ask where the dual hub model works.
Surely, if there is one city London wants to compete with in the world stage, forget about lesser European rivals, forget about chaotic Asian upstarts with none of the history, surely it is still New York?
Now New York might be a long way off from being the perfect city in terms of transport, but it does have TWO intercontintal hub airports, sprawling JFK with its separate terminals initially planned for each airline and the much better organised EWR, a major hub for Continental (/United).
Now is JFK
really the New York airport in terms of snob value? Maybe we should think of the appropriate British character, and rename Gatwick after him or her? Suggestions please?
What else would it take to bribe the non-Oneworld airlines from LHR to LGW? A truly iconic terminal (Foster has had his turn, how about Calatrava, or even Gehry for anything non-functional - maybe a hotel / office complex adjacent to the terminal). Instead of a link between LHR-LGW, taking what would be relatively small numbers of transfer pax if traffic between the two was split between the airline alliances, why not concentrate on improving surface links between LGW and London? Crossrail improves E-W links, whereas Crossrail2 seems more like a regional service - considering all the tunneling done for HS1, why not continue HS2 through London and terminate at LGW? (I could elaborate on my critique of HS2, and go into other options on this, but appreciate this is an aviation forum, so I'll simply say that £5bn on surface access from LGW into London, NOT to LHR would go a very long way).
Consider LGW v LHR or B / G / N / S Island:
1) Substantially cheaper to build
2) Much lower noise footprint than LHR
3) Already plugs in to extensive road and rail network
4) Reasonably close to high income populations