Laughable, Runway 3 will just mean more British Airways and American Carriers with a few Emirates thrown into the mix.
You think so ?
!40,000 to 160,000 annual slots can be created with a third fully functional and segregated operating runway - Thats the size of Manchester or Stansted today.
All global forecasts suggest aviation growth will be centred in Asia and will be largely regional in nature i.e. Inter China and similarly Inter India and Indonesia .
Long haul is actually expected to be a rather smaller percentage than many think and yes both Alliance Hub and Spoke models along with destruption from the ME3 driving traffic away from the EU golden triangle will continue a pace.
What European growth there is will be in the hands of the flexible fares carriers (LCC or ULCC some call them)
So given that - how do you think HAL fills those slots out- Yes targeting the likes of Easyjet and as i said they have expressed more than a passing interest in that access.
Its therefore hardy a jump of logic to suppose such move would have a sizeable effect on their current operations at Bristol Luton and Gatwick at some point in the future is it?
R3 can not be justified on expected Long haul and a hand full of ring fenced and perhaps heavily subsidised domestics alone.