New Thames Airport for London

[silverstrata]

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New proposal for thames airport - an Alien metropolis:

'Boris Island' airport: An alien metropolis or the solution to London's transport problems? | Mail Online







This sounds a bit ambitious, as it is supposed to be all floating. Yup, four 4,000 m runways and all the terminals, hotels and car parks all floating. Not sure if they have costed all this.

But at least if it is floating they can rectify the stupid orientation they have here, and turn it around to face N.E. - S.W., so London does not have the same noise problem in reverse.


One other problem is devising a QNH that takes the tides into account. That would be a new one for ATC to consider. "Will sir prefer a Neap QNH or a Spring QNH??"






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[silverstrata]

Chippy:

can you force an airport to close or airlines to move?

Of course you can. You send in the JCBs and dig up the runways at LHR. That might be a subtle hint that even Willie Walsh could understand.

Indie:

What if we could connect the Technology Park to the Global market (China, far east, USA etc) by building an easily accessible hub airport. With long-haul flights served by World class airlines.

Sure. If you can guarantee that none of the flights overfly London, and the airport can double its capacity by 2020. Ok, now you explain how its done.

Bread:

Silver - v entertaining views and always good to see a healthy debate ... BUT what's an "escallop" ? Is it seafood ? Viennese ? Is it pounded and breaded ? How does it relate to the Labour Party ?

Its called an infuriating predictive spell checker. How does one turn this ruddy thing off, it cannot understand anything I type.

The escallop was actually an echelon. How Apple / Pprune thought that might be an escallop, I do not know. (Where is this spell checker based - in Pprune?)





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[Skipness One Echo]

Silver can you address my question of massive blue collar unemployment on closing LHR and also cost of compensation to BAA on the enforced closure of 90% of their UK business?

You know, annoying little details, but tens of thousands of lives, might be worth a thought? Also what legislation would be used? Existing or a new bill?

Also are BA expected to replace the entirity of the Maintenance Base on Fantasy Island and if so who compensates the company and by how much?

Detail, detail.....

[felixflyer]

No he can't. Even Boris is keeping very quiet about this. He will try to win round the people of West London and East Berks with talk of less noise and pollution and property price increases.

The reality of devastating the local economy by removing LHR is not being mentioned.

Oh, wait a minute, all the baggage handlers and check in staff are suddenly going to become computer scientists in the new silvercon valley.

[silverstrata]

Skip:

Silver can you address my question of massive blue collar unemployment on closing LHR and also cost of compensation to BAA on the enforced closure of 90% of their UK business?

Read post No 773 and 777.

They can always move, like I have had to do.

[Skipness One Echo]

No they can't get real.
How many famiies are you talking about uprooting if every single baggage handler and driver gets sacked? Where are the jobs for them to go to? Is housing for manual workers included in your costs? Schools for tens of thousands of families? Slapdash and arrogant answer silver. These people lack the income of a CPL for God's sake, you cannot compare their mobility to yours.

You need to put a number on job losses at LHR. Come on.

[PAXboy]

silverstrata

How does one turn this ruddy thing off, it cannot understand anything I type.

SNAP! Nor can we ...

[jabird]

Heathrow Garden City

We need to drop the garden bit - "eco" is the latest buzzword, that may be jargon-ridden too, especially as it would be hard to imagine a city not built to the latest environmental standards!

Garden implies this place will be built to a low density model, with acres of parks and allotments. Given that the removal of the airport only erases the surface infrastructure, the tunnels will remain, and the new Crossrail link at least will need to be kept at a high frequency of service to maintain viability.

However, given that LHR maintains its status as the world's busiest international airport on such a small land area, it is inconceivable to imagine any subsequent use of land would generate more GVA. So whatever goes in its place is a bi-product, never the reason for moving.

where does that leave our blue collar guys who lost their jobs at Heathrow and cannot afford to relocate to Fantasy Island

They find work on the new site, or they move to Fantasy Island. I don't think that is a big deal, the challenge is that you have the whole M4 corridor which is geared towards dependency on LHR, and now they might have to shift right over to the other side of the city, where there won't be acres of office parks to welcome them to, as this airport is on a (floating) island, where you can't build up if that causes instability, and you can't just build standard issues 2 storey office parks as there's no way they will cover the cost of the infrastructure they are built on.

And try comparing that with the square mile in London, or with Canary Wharf

That is an utterly ridiculous statement! So Yohan Blake isn't a particularly efficient sprinter - after all, he only came second to Bolt. The fact he's faster than the other 6.99bn people on the planet doesn't count for anything!

Remember too - even if some airports (I can think of a few in the USA) are inefficient users of land a lot of the time, they are still worth having as they enable other economic activity to take place elsewhere.

I have moved in excess of 17 times, to maintain my profession, so I have little sympathy for someone who cannot be bothered to make an effort.

Good for you? With family or on your own? It isn't always a question of being bothered. Sometimes you have roots in a particular place, kids in school or a partner who would also need to move.

For some jobs - pilot for one - there is a natural expectancy to move, but the point is that all this displacement comes at a huge cost. Now if this really was the grand scheme above all others that London had to embark on as there were no other runways anywhere in the southeast (like the situation Hong Kong was in pre CLK) - then fair enough, but this clearly isn't the case. Remember, all that is confirmed as on the cards is a 4 runway hub in the place of a 2-3 runway one, perhaps with a slightly better terminal layout. Total capacity gain c. 50%, total capacity add to the whole southest - c. 20%.

Now is it worth bothering for that?

Boris airport only 30 minutes away

How are you going to insert the passing loops for Crossrail to run from Heathrow City to FBI in 30 minutes, which it would need to do without stopping?

[silverstrata]

Skippy:

How many famiies are you talking about uprooting if every single baggage handler and driver gets sacked? Where are the jobs for them to go to? Is housing for manual workers included in your costs? Schools for tens of thousands of families? Slapdash and arrogant answer silver. These people lack the income of a CPL for God's sake, you cannot compare their mobility to yours.

You are not a pilot, I can tell.

I started as a co-pilot on the minimum wage, with a £60,000 overdraft, and was living in a squat with five others - two to a room. This wonderful abode had no carpets, no plaster on the walls, no cooker, no fridge, and no central heating. (At least it was free.)

And yes, I managed to move more than 17 times, as successive companies ordered a base-change or went bankrupt. And am still in a one-room rented piss-hole. Think piloting is fun, do you?

So I spit on any dumb-ass loader who cannot get off their fat arse to move house, when a lucrative job-transfer is offered. And I spit on your bleeding-heart liberalism that always offers excuses for the dumb, the lazy, and the downright criminal.

Jabird:

Good for you? With family or on your own? It isn't always a question of being bothered. Sometimes you have roots in a particular place, kids in school or a partner who would also need to move.

Good for them.

Sorry, but this is not a Marie Antoinette situation. Jobs would be available, relocation packages offered (which I have never had), new and pleasant housing constructed. All the dumb-ass loader has to do is move house. If they cannot be bothered to do so, then they have a god-given right to stay there and starve. But they do not have a god-given right to stay and fleece social security (your taxes) because they are too dumb-ass lazy to move.

Jabird

How are you going to insert the passing loops for Crossrail to run from Heathrow City to FBI in 30 minutes, which it would need to do without stopping?

If nobody built passing loops, then there is plenty of room on the lamppost.



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[jabird]

If nobody built passing loops

You know damn well you can't easily build passing loops in a tunnel built with TBMs, and this is not on the menu.

You have still ignored my main point, namely that it is not worth shifting the entire M4 corridor through 180deg just for a 20% gain in capacity in the SE.

[Skipness One Echo]

So I spit on any dumb-ass loader who cannot get off their fat arse to move house, when a lucrative job-transfer is offered. And I spit on your bleeding-heart liberalism that always offers excuses for the dumb, the lazy, and the downright criminal.

Calm down dear and stop spitting. I earn way more than a loader and what you suggest is beyond my means. Ever tried buying or renting in London?

There is a number, a quantifable number of good men and women holding down blue collar jobs at LHR. Now pilots are, exceptional, they are not the norm. It is a particular skill set, most people don't have it. This is a real world decision.
Of these blue collar people, the ones you see as

the dumb, the lazy, and the downright criminal.

I am pretty right wing but am a pragmatist at heart. Your analysis is just nonsensical, not everyone is cut to be white collar and educated. Some people have different skills the market just pays poor wages for and that most certainly does not make them criminals or lazy. It beggars belief that you honestly wrote such arrogant misplaced tosh. I am anything but a bleeding heart liberal but people like you make me wince.
Now, in London, most blue collar people don't have the money to relocate. (nor do I and I am pretty well paid thanks! ) Many are of non European origin, many Sikhs from Hayes, Indians from Hounslow. Many have extended families and communities. Your Fantasy Island means closing LHR, I think that we agree on. Hence these guys, and they count in the tens of thousands, need jobs. Your grandiose nonsense will decimate that economy for years if and it's a big if, until it is redeveloped,
You say "lucrative" employment on Fantasy Island? I live in London, I know the issues invoved in commuting. Getting to LHR is tricky and often expensive, Heathrow Connect is not cheap and the Piccadilly Line is busy. I don't imagine baggage handlers will be on great money in your brave new world. The capital investment costs are massive and will need to be recouped. Hence they will be offered market rate or less. How does one get to your airport? On a train that will need to be paid for?
We are swapping TFL for a Heathrow Express equivalent unless the taxpayer susidises it. Most of us took the DLR rather than the Javelin to the Olympic Park.
Hence the commute to Fantasy Island is going to be pricey and beyond the means of the current workforce as it's too far across London and would be beyond them in both money and time. Or somehow, you need to relocate tens of thousands of people from West to East London and house them all.

You avoided my question.
Where are you planning on housing them and who will pay for it?
How many to lose their jobs?
Quantify that cost to the taxpayer.
Add the cost of subisidised commuting to the new airport for staff.
Add housing costs and identify where new houses need to be built.

Jobs would be available, relocation packages offered

Relocation packages from whom? Servisair? Menzies? They pay chckenfeed as it is? Will BAA be paying a relocation package? Of course not.
BA would have to, coupled with having to rebuild the whole engineering base across town, are you still surprised Willie Walsh is not a fan.
Quantify the cost to British Airways please?
Oh really? And exactly where would people be living?
Quantify sound proofing to anyone under the flight path to the West. (oh yes, that will need to happen as it happened as LHR)

It's not the same as catching a bus from Reading or Slough now is it? Delusional grandiose fantasies lack detail and you are being found out with your bluster and spit as you can't supply numbers.

And yes, I managed to move more than 17 times, as successive companies ordered a base-change or went bankrupt. And am still in a one-room rented piss-hole. Think piloting is fun, do you?

Perhaps your attitude caught you out? You come across quite badly on here and I know a few guys who have done better than you, and enjoy piloting. Perhaps flying isn't for you?

[jabird]

And yes, I managed to move more than 17 times, as successive companies ordered a base-change or went bankrupt. And am still in a one-room rented piss-hole. Think piloting is fun, do you?
Perhaps your attitiude caught you out? You come across quite badly on here and I know a few guys who have done better than you, and enjoy piloting. Perhaps flying isn't for you?

Didn't want to say it before, but moving is clearly easier for one than for a family. So as you've confirmed our suspicions, might I echo SOE's suggestion that you spread a little more love?

Let's face it - you hate anyone who's left wing, foreign, who does work that is beneath you, or who supports the current government.You still hate Boris too but give him a brief nod for backing an estuary airport, and you think Foster, who has built some of the world's greatest buildings, is a moron too.

So who exactly is there left that you actually like?

[Ernest Lanc's]

So who exactly is there left that you actually like?

After reading this part of the thread..I would have thought the answer would have been obvious. Himself.

I have never seen anything as ridiculous as this Boris Island, I watch films with scenes like that on the Horror or Sci Fi Channels.

The cost would be huge, the cost to peoples lives would be huge..A total disregard for people as the desert at Heathrow would be created.

If this plan ever came near to being accepted..It would harm London, BA and the UK as transition would be almost impossible...How would millions of people a year be shunted over the water to the new airofloat?.

Before I go back to the sanity of the threads on the sticks airports.My penneth says.."Only solution to congestion that is possible, is a third runway at Heathrow".

[Dannyboy39]

Ernest, I couldn't have put it better myself, if slightly melodramatic.

[silverstrata]

Jabird:

Didn't want to say it before, but moving is clearly easier for one than for a family.

Let's face it - you hate anyone who's left wing, foreign, who does work that is beneath you.

Your analysis is so far wide of the mark it is hardly in the same ball park.

Firstly, I was moving the whole family. Secondly, we are talking about people who refuse to move, not people who are above or below. So wind your neck back in, and understand that there is a huge gulf between those who help themseves and the dumb-ass types who just sit and moan about what is happening around them.

Your responses show you have never lived in the US, where the moaning minnies get little sympathy, while those who do their bit have the greatest of respect. Why, I wonder, has this obvious logic been turned on its head in Europe? It would seem that the only people who get any respect in the UK are those who burst into tears and blame their ills on society, their class, an 'ism', or even their long suffering parents.

The new heroes of Europe are the wingers and cry-babies. Boo-hoo, I have to move house, so the sky is falling on our heads. Its no wonder that large swathes of that continent are pretty much bankrupt.



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[PAXboy]

silverstrata

So I spit on any dumb-ass loader who cannot get off their fat arse to move house, when a lucrative job-transfer is offered. And I spit on your bleeding-heart liberalism that always offers excuses for the dumb, the lazy, and the downright criminal.

Gosh, I do hope the correct loading of your a/c is dependent on all the smart-ass loaders ...

Just how are the loaders going to be offerred a relocation package?
Just how will they finance a move to a new address without a relocation package?
The moment any deal was signed, the property in the area will go through the roof on value and ther existing will drop. Go forward ten years (minimum) when the port is built and how are they going to be able to afford a new shiny house (floating on the estury or in Essex/Kent - when it costs more than theirs AND they are on a loader's wage?

By the way, could you comment on how the BBC is still so left wing and winging when it's been run by Tories for all but three of the last 26 years? Sorry to harp on about these things but you do like to raise points without answering them.

You are, therefore, a Troll.

[Ernest Lanc's]

By the way, could you comment on how the BBC is still so left wing and
winging when it's been run by Tories for all but three of the last 26 years?
Sorry to harp on about these things but you do like to raise points without
answering them.

PAXboy

I am not criticizing your post. But how do you arrive at the above?.

No matter that this Boris Island idea was to space age even for Jules Verne, but the BBC has never been a right wing media.

[Skipness One Echo]

Come on silver, less spitting more numbers.

Upwards of tens of thousand manual workers and theair families.
How to we get them to Fantasy Island?
Account for lack of affordale housing.
Quantify numbers of lost jobs as LHR is closed.
Quantify tax payer subsidy to make commuting affordable.
Quantify cost to taxpayer of JSA.
Quantify cost to taxpayer of new housing, schools and hospitals in Fantasy Town. (easy place to build, the South East)
Quantify cost of soundproofing existing properties under new flightpath over Canary Wharf and East London when the landers are to the East. BAA had to do this at LHR. Who pays?
Damage to BA and staff who now have to move everything out of LHR.
Who pays to rebuild the Engineering Base?
Does Waterside stay?
Who on Mixed Fleet can afford to move to Fantasy Town, with all these houses?
In short, do BA take the enormous hit, or does the taxpayer jump in?

Try putting numbers on real world issues above. If you love the US so much, at least allow us to live our lives our way. Be tolerant, google it, it's a real word.

Come on Silver, answer the above with numbers.

[PAXboy]

Thread drift
Ernest Lanc's

I am not criticizing your post. But how do you arrive at the above?

No matter that this Boris Island idea was to space age even for Jules Verne, but the BBC has never been a right wing media.

A reasonable question. I was following up a complaint earlier in the thread by silvers about the BBC being so left wing. So I listed the Chairs of Governors over the past 26 years. I posited that the BBC was considered Left Wing, yet was consistently managed by Right Wing politicians, ergo the Conservative party has some considerable responsibility for the approach of the BBC! But that is all just a side issue and need not detain us.

Back to the topic!

[DaveReidUK]

"Only solution to congestion that is possible, is a third runway at Heathrow".

A third runway at Heathrow is being mooted as one possible solution (or rather, a partial solution) to the capacity issue.

Whether it would solve congestion is an entirely different question. Congestion (in the form of delays, ground and airborne holding, etc) and the ability of the airport to recover from disruption is a function of demand versus capacity, generally agreed to be running at around 99% at present.

Clearly if a third runway is built, the ATM limit won't remain at the current 480,000 per year. If, as seems likely, after the currently unsatisfied demand for slots is accommodated, demand continues to grow in line with the increased capacity (over time), then sooner rather than later the 99% point will be reached again and we'll all be talking about where to put R4. It won't have escaped anyone's notice that none of the proposals for an all-new airport - Boris Island, Cliffe, Oxfordshire or wherever - are for a three-runway airport.

Of course this isn't an argument either for or against the expansion of Heathrow, just an acknowledgement that R3 really means R3 and R4.