Following on from Skipness’s and Bartek’s comments, it's interesting to note that a few days after the GIP purchase of EDI was confirmed, many of the PCNs (pavement strengths; see
Pavement classification number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) were substantially increased without any new works having being undertaken. Presumably, all that GIP did was to carry out a new technical assessment of the some of the pavements as part of their survey / due diligence activities, probably using a Falling Weight Deflectometer (see;
Falling weight deflectometer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). It's strange that BAA didn't carry out these technical re-assessments many years or decades earlier because the pavements didn't suddenly consolidate from a C grade (low strength subgrade) to A grade (high strength). This consolidation must have happened steadily over an extended period of time (possibly since the pavements were laid in the mid 70s and early 60s).
I anticipate that GIP will carry out a technical re-assessment of the remaining pavements at EDI in the coming months and I expect that they will find that they are also substantially stronger than BAA had previously declared.
GIP is in the process of resurfacing the older centre section of taxiway Alpha which should allow its usable width to be restored to 23 metres. BAA had allowed the usable width of this part of the taxiway to reduce from 23 metres to 21 metres in recent years. Following this work, (NOTAM end date is currently 28/9 but that might not be the acual end-date for the works; see
https://pilotweb.nas.faa.gov/PilotWe...trievalByICAOs ) I believe that (the relatively short) taxiways Lima and/or Mike will be strengthened. For details about PCNs and the layout of aprons / stands / taxiways at EDI, see
NATS | AIS - Home .
Once these works are completed, there should be no significant PCN impediment to B773ER or A346 operations from EDI (generally these are the highest ACN commercial aircraft types; see
Aircraft classification number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). The limiting factor would then become the runway length rather than ACNs/ PCNs. The existing runway length at EDI should be adequate for all long-range wide-bodied aircraft types to operate flights to the Middle East and east coast USA and for many such aircraft to operate as far afield as China, Japan and west coast USA. An extension would be needed for operations where very high take-off weights are needed (e.g. long range cargo or very long-range passenger flights by some aircraft e.g. SIN with a B744 carrying a decent payload) but it should be adequate for most aircraft types on the sort of long-range routes that EDI might reasonably expect to attract for the time being.
My previous observation was that Emirates were unlikely to operate from EDI due to their fleet standardising on the B773ER and A380 and the former aircraft in particular being unsuited to EDI’s PCNs. If a new technical assessment of the remaining pavements provides the results that I expect and if a main apron stand for a B773ER is created (re-instate stand 6A or the stand between 11 and 14 or ???) then there should be no ACN/PCN impediment to such operations. Once Taxiways Lima and/or Mike are strengthened then stand 17 on the SE apron could also be used for this aircraft type (it’s slightly too long for stand 17 but I expect that it should be possible to find a way to overcome this issue).
Under GIP ownership, I expect that PCN/ACN limitations at EDI will become a thing of the past very soon and this will allow EDI to compete more effectively for long-range routes.