HEATHROW

[Bagso]

We still seem to be no further on with the issue of "airspace restrictions", chaps.

As mentioned in an earlier post LHR, LGW, STN , LTN, LCY, are all competing for a slice of the traffic, business or Leisure, as they all have their own unique vested interests.

I was actually forgetting we also now have Southend in the mix.

Farnborough and Biggin also have a substantial level of business movements ! I have excluded Northolt as this may yet become part of the plan !

All the forecasts I have seen deal with capacity restrictions based purely on runways, the natural arguement therefore is build another runway and hey presto you can put more aircraft in !

What about ATC capacity in the air , is this infinite, it appears to be !

So why not put 2 runways in LHR , add another at LGW, and why not throw in a second at Luton and Stansted .....on that basis everybody is happy, each has bags of capacity and all the delays, restrictions dissolve .... !

BUT hang on capacity cannot be infinite, as a case in point we have the Olympics coming up, all the reports on ATMs relating to the increased traffic levels regarding that event suggest a different story, they suggest a very delicate managed flow to prevent massive slot restrictions, delays etc, so they are in effect saying that the marginal extra movements relating to the Olympics cannot be handled without a trade off somewhere else ....!

..... if you build another runway at LHR will this not simply constrain movements in another location i.e. are we not simply shuffling round the problems that ATC have to then manage ?

A case in point is the Stansted/ Southend equation, EZY have in effect moved 30 daily flights that previously served STN to Southend, instead of all these movements originating at 1 airport, we clearly now have airspace issues around movements in/out of STN plus Southend and even LCY as slots in/out must conflict with each other !

That problem in itself will now grow as the owners of Southend have aspirations to grow their own business by 2m pax a year !

I just cannot see how this the piecemeal approach of an extra runway is actually going to maintain the status of LHR unless the ATMS are reduced elsewhere..

" so hands up everbody who wants to give up their slots ! "