Originally Posted by
DaveReidUK
Yawn.
You might want to do some simple research on how a hub works.
Clue: If an airport has lots of flights on lots of routes (which is what you tell us, rightly, that London needs), then inevitably you are going to get lots of passengers who use the airport to connect from one flight to another because you can't fly direct between the points in question. Complaining that, on average, a third of the passengers arriving at a hub like LHR continue their journey by air ignores the fact that it's those pax that make many services viable that otherwise wouldn't be.
How are you proposing to change that ?
Yawn.
Ignoring your embarrassing attempt to sound patronising...Low cost airlines have been responsible for opening point-to-point routes that wouldn't have even been dreamt about 15 years ago. And almost every passenger that steps onboard an easyJet or Ryanair flight bound for London, will be finishing their journey in London or the South East.
So you're proposing we increase London's 'hub' capacity, whereby 33% (using your figures) of the increased passenger numbers will not spend a single penny in London or the UK? That's an excellent, efficient use of additional capacity for the economy.
London doesn't need extra 'hub capacity'. It's one of the most important cities in the world for business, tourism and VFR traffic. There are
zero long haul routes that BA operate that rely on connections from Europe in order to operate.