Originally Posted by
Malaga
Reading Airbanda's comments has given me a great idea! If you tunnel from the Leeds to Harrogate railway line to the airport somewhere from the existing Bramhope tunnel then you could use the spoil to extend the runway at the Scotland Lane end. People are always suggesting better rail links to the airport so....why not kill two birds with one stone...all you need is a bit of EU funding!!!
Malaga
Yes you could do that. It would cost 100s and 100s of millions of ££s more than building a runway extension on perfectly flat, spacious open land [very close to 2 and possibly 3 of the busiest rail routes in Europe and close to the North's main arterial motorway junctions]. What would you have? You would have maybe a 7500ft LDA on the top of a secluded no space hill top with the worst weather record in Britain (compared to similar airport) that is in completely the wrong geographic location to tap the population catchment of Yorkshire. Absolutely nowhere near the motorway or main rail. You'd have the runway (just) but not the passengers! Exactly why no one has done it, wants to do it or will do it. I tiny amount of relatively cheap and unproblematic runway extension creates an airport elsewhere that is almost ideally located to best tap the catchment.
It's not just the runway. It's the runway, the elevation, the orientation, the lack of space but even more importantly the geographic location allied to accessibility. If you moved LBA with its short, wrongly aligned runway and poor space and poor elevation directly 19 miles ESE you would have a Bristol airport and its passenger throughput.