bagso
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PS where does this contribution of "billions of pounds to the economy come from"?
A) No corporation tax was paid last year !
B) Heathrow has foriegn owners, It is not a UK company!
I was of course talking about the boost to the whole of the UK with better access to the rest of the world not that billions of pound would be paid in tax by BAA.
Just because you may not be able to/want to see how this will be generated that doesn't mean it is not true.
I am well aware that BAA is owned by a variety of foreign investment companies.
"Once my friends in The North realised they could fly practically anywhere from MANCHESTER they became totally disinterested in Heathrow " see above
As a resident of said North, I truly struggle to take this comment seriously! Firstly, those located in the North have an impressive and growing list of non-stop long-haul flights to choose from already, straight from their own region.
Well I thought that would ruffle the feathers of the Manchester airport enthusiasts.
The north is a large place, Manchester may be convenient to you but if you lived in Humberside, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Lincolnshire etc. then Manchester isn't that convenient at all. I could pay less than a tenner for a taxi to LBA from my house up there and be in LHR 45 minutes later. For a large part of the north that will always be a preferred option to 2 train journeys often in the early hours of the morning, maybe on a sunday when trains are not running frequently.
Shuttle flights from Humberside, Durham, LBA , Doncaster etc. down to LHR will open up more routes for less hassle. Thats just the way it is I am afraid.
If you think Manchester was the best option then how do you explain the numbers travelling from these airports to Amsterdam for better long haul options?
That is because traffic growth originating in the SE itself is the business which London's airports system must continue to accommodate, and there are multiple options for dealing with this. Hub transfer business is just icing on the cake, and many argue that London shouldn't even be pursuing this, especially at the prices quoted for making it possible. Even LHR's principal hub airline, British Airways, opposes R3 on the grounds of cost.
The hub is not the icing on the cake it was the reason LHR wanted a new runway in the first place. My point was because this decision seems so hard to make it needs to be broken down and the hub vs no hub argument decided first. If the hub idea is a non starter then the LHR case is not as strong. If it is decided that a hub an spoke operation would bebeneficial to the UK then LHR expansion is the only real answer. This idea that you can just build a new runway at any airport in the south east and fix the problem shows a lack of understanding by the government or more likely the need to create an easy political fix.
Deary me. Rather than repeat my full reasoning in depth yet again, may I invite you to re-read earlier detailed answers posted by myself on this topic. Because it is in the South? Sour grapes? It is easy - but very lazy - to dismiss opposing arguments with a sly dig like that. I remind you that the works which you refer to require between £5Bn and £20Bn in public funding (dependent on source). I run with Sir Peter Hendy's estimate of £10Bn which is less than half the difference between the two extremes (very generous of me) but this is still an OUTRAGEOUS SUM. The problem is that such funds cannot be allocated twice. Public investment on that scale concentrated in the SE yet again results in an investment nuclear winter for the rest of the UK. We know ... we've had thirty years of it already. For comparison purposes, the North has just been granted its first £1Bn (one billion) public infrastructure investment ever. And that goes on creating 'smart motorways' ... not the new roads we really need. The SE has enjoyed a veritable conveyor-belt of multi-billion pound projects with more bids on the way. World-class infrastructure for London; great, good luck with it. But it is now time to pause for some rebalancing of investment priorities across the rest of the country.
You really don't get what people have been trying to tell you for pages and pages now. The road system around that area needs upgrading and will be upgraded anyway so you will be paying for that whether LHR expansion goes ahead or not. You do not seem to want to acknowledge this.
As with Bagso you seem either unable or unwilling to see how this will benefit the whole of the UK. A hub at LHR would be a national asset bring growth and income to the whole country and should not be seen as a south east only project.
And as for the "easy connection at LHR" ... that would be the one with the aggressive second full security search complete with lengthy queues, followed by a nightmare terminal transfer to reach around 50% of the connecting flights. We'll pass on that, thanks!
You keep doing this, please tell me how you know what the connection will be like at a terminal that has not even been designed yet never mind the fact that it wont be operational until maybe 2030?
One suspects that your reasoning here is not altogether impartial!!
Well thats rich, why don't you come clean and tell us all the real reason for being against the hub idea. You see it as a threat to any new direct routes from Manchester which happens to be your local airport.