Heathrow Plans (Merged)

[befree]

The birds are fighting back. Two 737s written off in the last few months. The green groups may be a pain but the birds will take out a 737 quite easily. It seems they want the sky back.

[Skipness One Echo]

We'll take you seriously on here when you learn the difference between an Airbus A320 and a Boeing 737.

[Re-Heat]

Manston is miles away from London
Gatwick is too far South to be of use to anyone North (Birmingham would benefit though)
Luton is too small
Stansted too far east (and problems of its own in expansion)
Thames Estuary is not fanciful at all.

Birdstrikes / crashes - almost an irrelevance really. Canada geese flock around Heathrow and will flock around the Thames as well. Birdstrikes will happen - management of the problem will minimise it. London City sits beside massive marsh areas of Belvedere, Erith and Dartford areas, yet operates safely.

The train network is connected to the Maplin Sands area through the new HS1 link; while Heathrow undoubtedly needs high speed rail to remove domestic flights that are inefficient and clog up the airport, a rail line going only to Heathrow will be uneconomic as compared to a used line going to France and Kent already.

I for one disagree though with the issue of crashes over the City - that too is I believe an utter irrelevance derived from the days when people did not understand engineering of aeroplanes. They will always fly over populated areas, and though occassionally disasters will happen - most flights are just fine. Disasters such as Lockerbie might still occur today over cities even if all airports were in the sea.

[Re-Heat]

Just think of the possibilities of the Thames airport: integrated logistics, cargo flights 24 hrs that connect to a rail network, close proximity to new London sea container port permitting massive industrial impetus to economy.

Sorry, was being fanciful that someone in government might know how to kickstart this economy.

Of course it will be done piecemeal. Silly me.

[FoxtrotAlpha18]

Has anyone got a map or a link to a map of where the 3rd runway will be in relation to the existing runways?

Cheers

[Serenity]

So if you were to build a large modern airport the size of , or larger, than LHR in the Thames estuary, what exactley would be the effects of displace waters, tides and flows of the Thames river, all the way up as far as say Oxford???

Let me guess, no one has worked it through???

[pug]

Realisticaly, what are the chances of re-instating the domestic feedwer services from say LPL, NQY, EXT, HUY etc? An article in crains manchester suggests Peel are playing the news by saying it could open up oppertunities for LPL and DSA with feeder flights and help save those still at MME?

Is this likely or will it just result in more short-haul routes from Europe?

[13 please]

for a map, you could try
www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/airplot/airplot-map

or also

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2009/jan/15/heathrow-third-runway

[haughtney1]

My opinion is that LGW would be the best spot for a second runway....
Its an easy place to get too if you can get to victoria station, the road links are very good, and best of all, there are less duty free shops in the terminal!

[Brewster Buffalo]

Does anyone know why mix-mode isn't used at Heathrow?

The Government ruled out mixed mode as part of its policy statement in January 2009, even though it would increase capacity. The statement doesn't go into detail why this was rejected.

Looks like a better solution than another runway...

[13 please]

Obviously BA and BAA would like the extra runway and mixed-mode.

If they get the runway, it would be easier to introduce mixed-mode at a later date, rather than the other way round. The conditions set out by Hoon regarding a cap on extra aircraft movements and no to mixed-mode, can be easily changed.

[LHR27C]

Obviously BA and BAA would like the extra runway and mixed-mode.

If they get the runway, it would be easier to introduce mixed-mode at a later date, rather than the other way round. The conditions set out by Hoon regarding a cap on extra aircraft movements and no to mixed-mode, can be easily changed.

In fact, according to the studies NATS have done, the optimum configuration of the three runways for maximising movements and avoiding ground congestion is to retain the two existing runways on segregated and operate the 3rd on mixed.

I don't think Hoon specified anything about the configuration of the 3rd runway. Obviously operating it on segregated along with the other two would be ineffective as either take-offs or landings would still be confined to one runway.

[AUTOGLIDE]

while Heathrow undoubtedly needs high speed rail to remove domestic flights that are inefficient and clog up the airport

I shouldn't worry about it. The European carriers are doing an excellent job of connecting to far more UK destinations than are served from LHR, and generally more cheaply, from their own hubs if you cannot fly to your own destination directly from your local airport. We don't need a train route to LHR thanks.

[Trinity 09L]

09L

Is Mr Hoon's reference to 09L departures only dependent on the 3rd runway, or a new intiative irrespective of 3rd runway ie no substance from a politico with no thought on method?

[Donkey497]

Apart from the Government still being under the illusion that they still own Heathrow & British Airways (probably fits on with many of their other current delusions). Why the hell should there be an overwhelming desire on their part to try to force every traveller and every ounce of freight through Heathrow?

I may just be a simple taxpayer (i.e one of the poor S.O.B.'s that has to pay for their largesse), but surely if the country had a more distributed availability of flights to the rest of the world, the south east corner of the country wouldn't be so overcrowded with overloaded & failing infrastructure. We probably wouldn't need to consider the same level of investment in road & rail just to try to bring more of the country into a reasonable travel time from Heathrow purely to justify the investment in Heathrow.

Being of a practical frame of mind, if the Government were truly serious about providing a world class facility with high safety standards, then they should give notice that Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted would close within five years and their land given up for housing. These three airports should be replaced by a brand new airport out by Kelvedon / Tiptree or out in Norfolk/Suffolk where things are nice & flat and a proper multi-runway airport like Atlanta could be built with high speed dedicated rail links to various parts of the south of the country. Flight paths would be clear of major population centres at the higher risk landing / take off phases of flight and it could be built to suit today's & tomorrow's aircraft with extra -long runways to give longer take off and landing rolls which ould cut down noise by reducing thrust & reverse thrust needed. Five years notice might seem too short when you look at the saga of T5, but if Hong Kong could get a new airport on an island that didn't exist together with about 20 miles of multilane motorway and dual deck suspension bridges in the virtually the same period there's no reason why it can't happen on dry land here, other than lack of political will.

[13 please]

Donkey497, personally I think you make a lot of sense, however that's not what BA and BAA want.

This 3rd runway decision isn't for the good of the country's economy, otherwise they'd distribute aircraft traffic and jobs to other parts of the country who need those more.

[Skipness One Echo]

No one is stopping anyone supplying flights outside of London. The hub and spoke system for long haul traffic is a global one. The short haul model is loco and the regions are well served by this.

My life is micromanaged enough as it is without the government telling airlines to move their operations to the regions. They fly to where they can make the most money. END OF. Success attracts success, and if the UKs world hub is truncated, then the traffic will move to CDG, FRA or AMS long before they tinker with LBA or LPL. Please get real.

It's a business, not a social service. This is why LGW just lost Oman Air, the latest of many to make the move to LHR. It's a reasonably free market. I suggest you write to flyglobepan, they tried some long haul from the regions recently. It wasn't a great success.....

[PAXboy]

The govt only approved this piece of paper so that they could appear business friendly and try to garner a few more votes in the next election. They (and us) know that 3R ain't gonna get built. It is a paper runway.

[AUTOGLIDE]

What irritates me is the constant proclamations of how this runway is good for the 'UK', how it should be built for the 'UK', and much words on how best people from the rest of the UK should travel to connect via LHR. The UK outside of the South East does need LHR (or BA). We have our own airports, direct flights, our LOCO's, U.S, European and Middle Eastern carriers who will connect us via their generally rather nice hubs. The rest of the UK needs LHR not one little bit. If this runway is built then fine, if somebody is crazy enough to go around causing carnage building a runway on a heavily populated brown field site then go ahead. Just don't say it's for the 'UK' because it's not, it (arguably) benefits the London/South East economy so leave the rest of the country out of it. And please don't give me the 'City is the engine of the UK economy' garbage so 'what benefits the SE benefits the whole country' the 'city' just killed the UK economy.

[Skipness One Echo]

building a runway on a heavily populated brown field

Never been there have you? It's NOT heavily populated believe me. Are we saying no one connects through Heathrow from the regions then? Perhaps we should just axe all domestic access to Heathrow?