Shed did you just rejoin PPRuNe to go over old ground for the umpteenth time? There's nothing new being added here. LHR expansion is now government policy and Labour is nowhere and even the SNP are on board as they recognise it will have some tangible benefits in linking Scotland to the wider world. If the SNP can agree with Theresa May on the regional benefits of having a proper functioning hub airport then we can finally see some progress.
Are we back to 2003 when the Labour government produced a "white paper"? or back to 2006 when the Labour government gave its backing? Don't think we're back to 2009 yet, when the Labour government gave its permission.
Who knows why we need another 4 months of consultations, one would have thought that almost 50 years of dithering should be long enough for all options and all the pros and cons to have been explored!
Many short haul feeders bleed red, however many of those long haul money makers would be smaller and less competitive if that short haul feed went away. Many of us will be familiar about how money can be made to look wasted if we drop it into a different budget.
Bean counters can fiddle the accounts to make any case they like, it's called creative accounting.
The core reasons airlines continue to choose LHR over LGW is the ability to connect. Whilst LHR may not be the dominant hub it once was in some markets, it was enough for Delta, American and every other major legacy long haul with the exception of Emirates to drop LGW for LHR. The only long haul BA/VS have at LGW is beach fleet leisure and assorted strategic Norwegian spoilers like LGW-JFK (for the 3rd time).
LGW is, and always will be, the LHR "waiting room" for new longhaul until/unless expansion takes place. Expect that with a third rwy, all LGW VS and all LGW BA longhaul (except the above-mentioned Norwegian spoilers perhaps) would transfer accross to LHR.
Even easyJet are investigating the possibility of using T4 at LHR once R3 is built. What an economic asset and driver this can be if we get it right.
U2 will do well at LHR-4. There'a huge wealthy catchment area with its name on!
With a third rwy the main obstacles and disincentives to it being at LHR now (eye-watering slot prices plus chronic congestion and delays) will disappear. The same could apply to BE and others who operate the thinner domestic/shorthaul feeder routes.
Ha ha, it's good fun over there.
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The so-called smart motorway on the M3 is an irrelevance and causing chaos and gridlock
The construction of it (which seems to be taking years) is, but it's not finished yet, so impossible to judge the "in-service" impact yet.
The M42 smart M-way seems to work quite well to me.
They're quite different motorways: the M3 is the main route to the west country, the M42 is part of an orbital route for Birmingham.
The M3 is not proned to major bottlenecks apart from the area around the M3/M25 junction where the slip roads aren't long enough. A couple of miles of 5 lanes is needed on the M3 to allow joining traffic to merge and leaving traffic to move into the correct lanes, 20-odd miles of hard shoulder driving is not. As for one lane only westbound under the M25 bridge, that's asking for trouble!
Too late now.
Yes I scratched my head regarding the EasyJet reference as well.
What price triple daily connectivity to Liverpool, Teeside, IOM etc or 3 a day to Palma, Malaga and ibiza?
U2 are planning 19 routes including ABZ, BFS, EDI, GLA, INV, IOM, JER, etc..
U2 are unlikely to do the likes of LPL, MME, IOM, etc., it will be on the thicker routes giving BA a run for its money. IAG might retalliate with more VY routes to/from LHR in order to give U2 a run for its money, who can say.
Like BA, U2 does not have small enough aircraft for these thinner routes. Expect to see the likes of BE and BD regional on the thinner routes, as they have suitable aicraft for these.