Proposed Thames Estuary airport land gets wildlife protection.
Its the $64,000 question - what is the solution to the capacity crisis?
Heathrow is the UK's only hub airport - the national gateway. It is currently at 98% capacity and there is no room or political motive for expansion.
Justine Greening, who is in charge of aviation policy in the government; her constituency is in Putney - directly under the Heathrow flightpath. Looking at the aeronautical charts, aircraft will be travelling at 2,000ft on approach - noticeable for noise. With prevailing winds, I'd say about 75% of landings take place on Runways 27L&R.
In my opinion, the expansion of Heathrow needs to happen sooner rather than later. Heathrow is already being left behind its international competitors at Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris. Many of the 21 key emerging market destinations are in China. There are under 9,000 weekly scheduled seats to Chinese destinations; around half of what there is at Frankfurt and Paris and around 2,000 short than Amsterdam - all of these airport's are expanding or have expanded recently. Heathrow stands to lose out on business, tourism and trade. Amsterdam, which is connected to 16 UK airports with enough frequency, is effectively a hub for the UK already.
The political argument seems to be an environmental one - it certainly isn't. Flights don't just disappear, they just move elsewhere. APD, which is supposed to be an environmental detterant, does not work - it does more harm than good.
As for HS2, the major airport players want it - Heathrow and Manchester Airports, in their government submissions, backed the plans IF its extended eventually to Manchester and then onto Scotland. It will be an opportunity to rebalance the UK's economy as well as feeding more into the UK's national hub. Manchester will see an enhanced local economy as more international business will relocate to the North, as a result of more long haul flights.
One slight flaw in the plan - people think this will end domestic flights. Will it? Look at FlyBE's network. HS2 will not effect Aberdeen, Exeter, Belfast, Norwich and all the other domestic destinations. It would only effect one route at Heathrow - the LHR-MAN route, so environmental benefits would be negligable.
Heathrow is the UK's only hub airport - the national gateway. It is currently at 98% capacity and there is no room or political motive for expansion.
Justine Greening, who is in charge of aviation policy in the government; her constituency is in Putney - directly under the Heathrow flightpath. Looking at the aeronautical charts, aircraft will be travelling at 2,000ft on approach - noticeable for noise. With prevailing winds, I'd say about 75% of landings take place on Runways 27L&R.
In my opinion, the expansion of Heathrow needs to happen sooner rather than later. Heathrow is already being left behind its international competitors at Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris. Many of the 21 key emerging market destinations are in China. There are under 9,000 weekly scheduled seats to Chinese destinations; around half of what there is at Frankfurt and Paris and around 2,000 short than Amsterdam - all of these airport's are expanding or have expanded recently. Heathrow stands to lose out on business, tourism and trade. Amsterdam, which is connected to 16 UK airports with enough frequency, is effectively a hub for the UK already.
The political argument seems to be an environmental one - it certainly isn't. Flights don't just disappear, they just move elsewhere. APD, which is supposed to be an environmental detterant, does not work - it does more harm than good.
As for HS2, the major airport players want it - Heathrow and Manchester Airports, in their government submissions, backed the plans IF its extended eventually to Manchester and then onto Scotland. It will be an opportunity to rebalance the UK's economy as well as feeding more into the UK's national hub. Manchester will see an enhanced local economy as more international business will relocate to the North, as a result of more long haul flights.
One slight flaw in the plan - people think this will end domestic flights. Will it? Look at FlyBE's network. HS2 will not effect Aberdeen, Exeter, Belfast, Norwich and all the other domestic destinations. It would only effect one route at Heathrow - the LHR-MAN route, so environmental benefits would be negligable.
They may spend in the terminal and they may overnight. I'd be interested in seeing stats about what transfer passengers are worth to airports. I guess quite a bit if they have a longer dwell time, as their stay is determined by the difference between inbound arrival and outbound departure, not a simple departure -x calculation, where x could be very small for an online check-in without hand luggage.
The other benefit from transfer passengers is that they make routes viable, which otherwise would not be. Look at any city in China with a European route. Outside SHA & PEK, they are almost all served by one airline, one route. How many people seriously want to fly from Helsinki to Chongqing? Hardly any, but add all the feeders and you have a route.
For many routes, a direct service is still preferable to the airlines, as that will earn higher yields, but the transfers still top that up.
The other benefit from transfer passengers is that they make routes viable, which otherwise would not be. Look at any city in China with a European route. Outside SHA & PEK, they are almost all served by one airline, one route. How many people seriously want to fly from Helsinki to Chongqing? Hardly any, but add all the feeders and you have a route.
For many routes, a direct service is still preferable to the airlines, as that will earn higher yields, but the transfers still top that up.
Infrastructure spending is good, spending for Ego is wrong.
What a joke we Brits are- we have Europe’s busiest airport and the world’s busiest air travel city. We depend on international finance and tourism for money and jobs .So what do we do-have no transport policy to allow people to get to London quickly and easily.
Airports need scale -a reason for LHRs traditional success so diversifying to LGW STN Luton etc (what next London Fairoaks, London Blackbushe!) is not really much use when competing with Paris Amsterdam etc.
So too choice Boris Island -a project which will take ten years longer and three times the current budget based on past experience or expand LHR.
Ok so there are a few of the chatterati in Richmond and Putney but one of the reasons they live there is because its near Heathrow-they don't go to Stanstead for a 5am departure to Wroclaw. A third runway will actually improve things for them as it will be mostly a landing runway and shift a lot of traffic overflights northward. Approaches from the east to a new runway-i.e. LHR westerlies cross a lot of open ground –golf courses parks a etc until well towards London when they overfly areas which shall we say have a significant demographic contrast with Richmond, Putney and Kew.ie the people who live there don’t count as far as the pollies are concerned. From the other direction it’s all open country except for Eton , well the boys are privileged all their lives so a bit of mild aircraft noise won’t hurt them.
So no problem with that side of Heathrow expansion. Now to address the wider area political problem. Why not announce the Estuary project is being brought forward to 2022 and that LHR will close and be converted into Europe’s largest warehouse depot and lorry park with now available space used for a prison and immigration detention centre and perhaps a giant incinerator /waste site and Europe's largest 'Travelling Community' site. Now see what that does to people’s opinions as house prices fall, employment opportunities vanish and people who work at Heathrow have to face the awful prospect of moving to the east of London in the desolate cold flatlands of outer East and South east London. How many BA captains will want to move from Camberley, Farnham, Henley, and Wokingham to Benfleet, Gravesend Dagenham and Tilbury?
Giving every householder in Sipson £500K probably cost less than consultancy fees for Boris island , which takes care of the people who really are affected and witht hat overall scenario who is going to complain about a bit of noise?
Simples!!
Airports need scale -a reason for LHRs traditional success so diversifying to LGW STN Luton etc (what next London Fairoaks, London Blackbushe!) is not really much use when competing with Paris Amsterdam etc.
So too choice Boris Island -a project which will take ten years longer and three times the current budget based on past experience or expand LHR.
Ok so there are a few of the chatterati in Richmond and Putney but one of the reasons they live there is because its near Heathrow-they don't go to Stanstead for a 5am departure to Wroclaw. A third runway will actually improve things for them as it will be mostly a landing runway and shift a lot of traffic overflights northward. Approaches from the east to a new runway-i.e. LHR westerlies cross a lot of open ground –golf courses parks a etc until well towards London when they overfly areas which shall we say have a significant demographic contrast with Richmond, Putney and Kew.ie the people who live there don’t count as far as the pollies are concerned. From the other direction it’s all open country except for Eton , well the boys are privileged all their lives so a bit of mild aircraft noise won’t hurt them.
So no problem with that side of Heathrow expansion. Now to address the wider area political problem. Why not announce the Estuary project is being brought forward to 2022 and that LHR will close and be converted into Europe’s largest warehouse depot and lorry park with now available space used for a prison and immigration detention centre and perhaps a giant incinerator /waste site and Europe's largest 'Travelling Community' site. Now see what that does to people’s opinions as house prices fall, employment opportunities vanish and people who work at Heathrow have to face the awful prospect of moving to the east of London in the desolate cold flatlands of outer East and South east London. How many BA captains will want to move from Camberley, Farnham, Henley, and Wokingham to Benfleet, Gravesend Dagenham and Tilbury?
Giving every householder in Sipson £500K probably cost less than consultancy fees for Boris island , which takes care of the people who really are affected and witht hat overall scenario who is going to complain about a bit of noise?
Simples!!
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In my opinion, the expansion of Heathrow needs to happen sooner rather than later. Heathrow is already being left behind its international competitors at Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris.
Many of the 21 key emerging market destinations are in China. There are under 9,000 weekly scheduled seats to Chinese destinations; around half of what there is at Frankfurt and Paris and around 2,000 short than Amsterdam - all of these airport's are expanding or have expanded recently.
Are we going to expand LHR because the whole market is growing, or to serve one or two distant countries?
Amsterdam, which is connected to 16 UK airports with enough frequency, is effectively a hub for the UK already.
