Your smarter than that praise indeed Skippy !
The Ex Manchester pax you mentioned that interline via Dubai, Doha, Singapore and Abu Dhabi have all paid APD directly to the UK Governement !
......the 24M who transit LHR have not !
Infact you will be lucky if they grab much more ran a burger running from T1 to T5, that does not add value to the public purse !
OK yes it does add frequency but do we actually need flights every 30mins to JFK ! Would 90 mins not do ?
Just one other "minor" point !
LHR handled 70M pax in 2011, if it grows at say 5% per annum, by the time the runway is completed it will be running at 100M pax per year.......!
Whichever way you cut it a 3rd r/w will make bugger all difference !
And whilst we are talking about all the extra runway capacity where is all the extra airspace coming from ? Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Stansted Luton....not to mention Notholt, Farnborough, Bigging Hill all support significant traffic movements. Each has its own owners , operators and indeed vested interests. The airspace in the South East is already rammed, even if you can get runways the conflicts are in the air.....not on the ground !
Finally wasnt Stansted supposed to be the answer....nobody moved, nobody was interested, it got lucky as it concided with a boom in Loco... so even a new airport is not the answer.
To be honest its a fragmented mess !!!!