Quote: “It will happen FDF..Question is when?..Most of the cabinet IMO (bar Liberals) are in favour. Problem is in the LHR area where the 3rf/4th runway(s) would be constructed, MPs of all persuasions would object.
Just a matter of time before David Cameron has to act, or London will suffer..”
Think you’re right Ernest, Labour and Conservative MPs are beginning to develop a sense of reality. The Libdems are against any and all airport expansion just for the sake of it.
The third rwy already has a location mapped out, a fourth could go between the third and the existing 10L/27R, extending on to open land west of the M25.
Quote: “If built, THA would be built in the mid-2020s, by then (the office of the Mayor is not going to scraped, otherwise it would be 1986 all over again) there would have been at most 2 mayors since then”
Never say never, the office of mayor, the toothless assembly, and all the hangers-on is a very expensive form of local government. When people get fed up with the endless rate rises and nothing to show for it, who knows?
Why would the airport be named after a mayor anyway? It’s nothing to do with the mayor, not in their remit, not in their jurisdiction.
Quote: “As for how long it is going to take, if they fast track it and have enough resources (like in the case of HKIA), then I could see it being built in 10 years, hence it would open in the mid-2020s, until then we should allow mixed-mode and raise the threshold in how many slots BA can own to manage until THA opens”
No chance, it's not like HKG. If anything is fast tracked it will be LHR (eventually).
Mixed mode is not the answer. While it could provide, at most, 10% more slots, it will not address the congestion and delays.
If flight path residents lose their daily half-day of quiet because of mixed mode, do you not think that there would be some objections from residents and anti airports groups and massive political fallout?
Do you really think that politicians that run scared of approving LHR expansion would agree to this?
Think it through, please.