Mr Jenkins is getting old and an old fashioned 'rant' is no substitute for the reasoned journalism he used to write. Setting that aside, he does himself no favours by saying,
Endless pledges from the airlines of new, clean and silent planes are never delivered.
As I have lived under the paths of LHR (West and now North) for some 30 years, I can tell him that the A380 is a lot quieter than a 707 and even some of the smaller Airbus machines. Also, he knows that no one ever said 'silent' but 'quieter' - which has happened.
At least he is correct:
New York, Paris, Moscow and Hong Kong don’t do it. Heathrow was only allowed to grow because gutless ministers dared not stand up to the airlines lobby.
But fails to point out that physical space allowed those four places to have more options. But, having then railed about pollution, he fails to talk about the current problem of pollution caused by the long taxi waits and the long holding patterns for landing.
Lastly, I think a lot of Londoners just don't care. There are far more pressing problems and since we have four airports (and even SEN taking some Essex traffic) to choose from, they don't see the problem one way or the other.