Do you know which one?
I do, but it was a general rant, most commonly heard around other English cities that are outside London.
Maybe they want 4 rwys at the country's main hub, allowing proper domestic connectivity, that would certainly be "more like Germany".
Well that won't happen at LHR, and if you want Boris Island, you'd have to kill two runways to make four, so still net gain two runways.
SSK - that is exactly what I am saying!
I don't know why you would compare Germany to the USA, since Germany is slightly smaller than the US state of Montana! The point being is that it's all about population density when it comes to geography.
Now without putting my geographer's hat on, population density is only part of the picture. Naturally, any airport wants as many people around it as possible, as long as there is a nice empty patch at each end of the runway(s) to reduce the nimby effect.
My point wasn't about density, it was about
distribution.
Therefore, the US is highly relevant, as it has no single city that can claim to be more important overall than all the others. Best candidate would be NYC, but it is not the capital, it is not central, and it has no film industry like LA - even films "set" in NYC are usually made in Toronto!
MAN & BHX fight between them for 2nd city and you could draw comparisons with LYS & MRS - but you could add up the metro populations of all of these cities (approx 8m) and you still wouldn't make the population of either London (13.7m metro) or Paris (12.1m).
Of course, the US has cities where the aviation hub drives the population rather than the other way round (ATL, DEN perhaps), but they are the exception, not the rule.
Quote: "Scotland will be a bit like Germany ..."
How so?
Scotland has two major cities, not one, and they both serve quite different roles. However, in terms of providing a hub airport facility, could either ever be classified as such? GLA certainly has plenty of interlining to the PSO routes, but beyond that? Would need the Edinburgh parliament to offer some very generous incentives far beyond what they did with the route dev funds.