I chose EXT because it is generally a terrible place to get to. The road route is long, crowded and hoplessly unreliable if you are catching a flight. The south coast line (the way I went last time) is slow and tortuous, and often stopped by rough seas.

I put it to you that the real reason that there is no Flybe turboprop to LHR is that LHR is full, and there are no slots. Personally, I think that demand would be there, if LHR could cope with more arivals.

Note that during the recent snow, LHR cut flights IN ADVANCE, because it knew that ANY significant weather would impact arrival rates - and since LHR is already running at 98% of capacity, it cannot cope with anything less than perfect conditions.

Silver-Boris, with its dedicated 'domestic' runway and terminal, could accomodate any number of shorthaul routes to the regions.



.

Any regional turboprop service into LHR was:

1. Bought up by BA
2. Routes shifted to LGW
3. Bingo 'new' slots at LHR
4. Simples!

They did that for years and no one stopped them, now, AFAIK, there aren't any such feeder services left.

Silver,

You are talking about the South Devon Sea Wall around Dawlish Warren - that is beyond Exeter, plenty of dramatic photos of that section exist, it is perhaps the rail equivalent of SXM or Kai Tak. Anyone, back to airports:

No, not for the very short hops - APD, fuel costs, the whole wastefulness of such a short rotation, - that is why none of the airports I mentioned have service to any other London airport either.

So I put it back to you - even if it might be desirable to have service through LHR, from CAX, MME, LDY and so on - they are all a bit further away, the huge investment which would be needed in a new airport, spending £2 on relocation for every £1 spent on expansion, combined with the costs of an island location - just aren't worthwhile.

Obviously LBA & MME have been & gone from LHR, as the routes became unviable for various reasons, including the challenges of making optimal use of LHR's slots.

Problem is - build a new airport, and you still have to deal with the huge increases in PSC that would be needed. So the thinner routes would go from being unviable due to slot restrictions to being unviable due to the cost (in addition to all the othe challenges)>

Where's the gain?

I think you will find that the main cost of these 'domestic' routes is the vast cost of the slots at LHR (even if a slot were available). You are talking about £millions in investment, just for the right to fly there, and no short-haul route can justify that.

And such a route is hardly 'wasteful' for a business commuter. The train from EXT puts you into London, which is not exactly where you want to be. A commuter flight will put you straight into the airport, and hopefully with baggage and bording passes already checked into your final destination in South America.

Now THAT is what customers would like, and THAT is what LHR cannot provide. And no amount of building extra capacity at other airports around London or Birmingham can provide that service, either.

.

.

It looks like my prediction for another £50 billion in quantitive easing (printing cash) has come true, as it has been announced by the BofE.

So we now await the further prediction that this money can be used for infrastructure projects like Silver-Boris-Foster Island. The problem for the government, is that it has categorically stated that it will reduce spending, and so if they are to spend £50 billion on an airport, they will have to conceal the spending in some manner.

I would predict them perhaps getting 'inward investement' from 'abroard', while simultaneously funnelling funding out to these same foreign investors via the overseas aid budget. At £12 billion a year, the ruinously expensive overseas aid budget could pay for Silver-Foster airport in just four years. The only problem here, would be the eventual owners of the airport, for it would be galling in the extreme for the British taxpayer to pay foreign institutions hard cash so that they can own our own infrastructure (as the government has already done with Jaguar Cars and British Steel). Its a bit like you taking a month's salary in cash every year, and scattering it from the roof of an office block - utterly pointless, and ruinous to your own family.


.

For as long as politicians in the 21st century, continue to take the same actions of politicians in the 20th, we shall continue to go round in circles.

I am emphatically NOT asking for a retread of one or another brand of what has gone before, nor any mish-mash in the middle. Sadly, any attempt at new thinking is always going to get bashed by the vested interests in not changing anything. That starts with the banks and the press and goes on from their. Things have to get very much worse, before the pressue to do it differently will be big enough.

Look at poor Obama, anything he tried to do has been trashed by vested interests. He will get re-elected by a reduced majority but there is no chance that he can fulfil the promise. Now, I am not trying to make a JetBlast style political row, just saying that £50 Bn thrown the same was as the last will have no effect.

As I have said, this airport is not going to be built.

Silver,

Well, a lot of the time, London is exactly where the business traveller from Essex wants to be, and even though Paddington is on the western edge of Zone 1, it is still Zone 1. The City & Docklands will become much closer with Crossrail. For these short journeys, the train also wins on convenience - no downtime for security clearance, no queing at the gate, no long walks to faraway stands, no need to turn off the electronics for acceleration and breaking.

In terms of fuel usage, operating such a short sector is indeed inherently wasteful, and the UK govt also levies an APD charge of £12 for the privilege.

Those are two very key factors which weigh just as heavily against such flights operating as the PSC (which ultimately bears the cost of the slots) does.

Short sectors can still make sense when there is a body of water between the two cities in question - so actually, if you want to complain about the slot issue, go to JER / GCI / IOM etc.

But please don't make a business case based on the niche destinations which can't have access to Heathrow. We all agree that, given an absence of nimbys, Heathrow could do with an extra runway or two.

Where we won't agree is on what if anything can be done about it. So I simply take you back to the question I must have asked you about five times now. Given that £2 out of every £3 spent on the new airport will be replacing, not exanding capacity, at what level would you set PSC to make this airport work?

I should add - It is utter madness that Crossrail is not continuing at least as fas as Reading, which is a major junction and a key commuter destination (in and out).

Electrification to Reading would also enable a Reading to LHR through train, instead of the horrible bus link provided at present. Given that Exeter St Davids to Reading takes about 90 minutes, I think this train connection would be much more convenient than flying, especially as there would be no room for BE in T5, even if they wanted it.

A few thoughts.

The 'promise' of Obama was 'We Want Change' !! The most vaccuous election 'promise' ever devised, and how people fell for it, one will never know. When I run for president, I will campaign under a banner saying 'We Will Do Something'...

Brown did not throw £50 billion at anything - he threw £250 billion at something. Which is why some helpful wag left a note on the desk of the Treasury, when Labour left office, saying: 'there is no money left'.

You are right, if we make the same mistakes as Brown, then the new money will again dissapear into the Aether the same as the old. But Brown's folly was to use borrowing for daily expenditure, which never works. Borrowing has to be for special infrastructure - where is does work. Like Silver-Foster.

Think about it. If a factory borows to pay the wages, it is simply delaying the day it will go bust. But if a factory borrows to invest in new machinery, to make the precise knurled flange brackets that everyone needs, they are on the road to fame and fortune.

That, was Brown's folly, and the folly of every Labour government.


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Stansted The 3rd London Airport !!!!!!!
 

We have trodden this path before, they built Stansted !

THe 3RD London Airport Except......

Nobody Moved !

No services to US, Asia, South Africa, India Japan, Australia !

Not one LHR based airline uses STN !

Complete waste of time "if the argument was to replace LHR which at the times it was , it failed"

If the LoCo revolution had not happened it would still be empty !

Transport Secretary Visits Birmingham Airport
 

The Secretary of State for Transport, Rt Hon Justine Greening MP, visited Birmingham Airport today to learn more about the huge capacity that is available immediately, and how Birmingham Airport can take pressure off creaking South East airports.

The debate about recently-launched plans for a “Boris Island” has ignited a fierce debate about Britain’s aviation strategy and events of the weekend have heightened worries about the resilience of the UK’s airport infrastructure.

This is a debate worth having. The crisis of Britain’s airports threatens to derail economic growth. We cannot place all of our eggs in one basket.

Whatever the merits of an Estuary Airport, two important questions remain unanswered by London’s Mayor.

Firstly, there is a question of timing. Department for Transport projections, announced in December 2011, forecast that the number of passengers using the UK's airports could reach 540 million a year by 2040, ahead of the 2008 figure of 372 million. With the best will in the world, it hardly seems possible that an Estuary Airport could be built within twenty years. So how is Boris going to fill the gap in the meantime?

Birmingham’s nine million passengers could be doubled today, on existing infrastructure. Its approved ‘Master Plan’ sees over 27 million using the Airport by 2030, and this could increase to over 35 million. Boris will need this capacity to fill the gap.

Second, there is the question of location. Whilst a high-speed rail link would do much to link an Estuary Airport to other parts of Britain, it is critical that Britain maintains airport capacity near its manufacturing base to create swift, affordable links with our export and import partners.

Mayor Boris should accept that it is no longer desirable for millions of passengers from the North and the Midlands to clog London’s overwhelmed airports, particularly those travelling to destinations well-served by airports like Birmingham.

He should also support the possibility that some London-based passengers would be better off travelling to Birmingham Airport. After all, with a one-hour journey-time from Euston, travelling from central London to a plane at Birmingham Airport is often quicker than the complicated trip to a Heathrow boarding gate. Particularly if you consider the crowded check-in queues and long slog to many gates at Heathrow.

CEO of Birmingham Airport, Paul Kehoe, said, “We were delighted to host the Secretary of State’s ‘fact finding’ visit. Birmingham is a hidden gem and really is the missing part in the aviation capacity jigsaw.

“Boris is right to ask how Britain’s airports can meet growing demand, and to think in ambitious terms about the answer. Because, as he rightly acknowledges, the answer is not a third runway at Heathrow. Everyone accepts that option is now closed.

“Our message to Boris is simple. Britain’s long-term aviation problem requires courageous thinking. But make best use of underused assets, rather than simply adding to the imbalance that has taken place.

“And our message to Justine Greening, the Transport Secretary, is that the forthcoming Aviation White paper must recognise the opportunity to distribute aviation in a way that economically benefits the whole UK – not just the South East!"

Precisely, which is why LHR has to be closed if Silver-Foster is built.

I suppose you could make a case for just building another 5 runways at Stanstead, which would be a cheaper option (except good surface links would be more problematic). The only trouble would be that the planning enquiry would last 60 years, and still not come toma conclusion..





Except that BHX is not where international passengers want to go.

Have they never heard of interlining? Do they think everyone wants to visit the UK Midlands or the S.E., and that's it? Almost every international flight I have undertaken over the last 3 years has involved an element of interlining - and I never even bother about considering LHR because it is an awful airport that will lose your interlining baggage, and it does not go to where I want to go.

Simply put LHR does not have the capacity to suit the modern traveller, and splitting its capacity with BHX makes the situation WORSE, not better.


.

I agree with "STRATA" why on earth would you go to Birmingham ?:=

Its transit facilities are mediocre, interline connections are also poor , local roads are appalling, and the City itself is well to be honest dismal, its hardly a magnet for tourism so there is no incetive for inward traffic (sorry).

I just cannot see the argument for this ?

Put capacity where demand ALREADY exists whether that be the South East or infact ........Manchester !

It ALREADY has TWICE the capaciity available NOW that Birmingham could only offer on a "what if", basis.

It has fantastic domestic and European connections, with multiple daily flights to all major US cities. With the recent massive expansion via the Middle East it can at least demonstrate considerable outbound demand. It's also massively poplular as an inbound destination with a host of major attractions.

Airlines, Business and indeed passengers vote with their feet, the only two players in town are Heathrow and Manchester.

I have suggested before build a new airport AKA O'Hare 6/8 runways
and close Luton Stansted, Heathrow Gatwick, City, Southend etc etc.

...will not happen !

That is if you believe the DfT projections. Considering the state of the economy, the ongoing rises in APD, not to mention the cost of fuel - what on earth lead them to the conclusion of revising them upwards?

Now let's take the scenario that there is still some growth, and come 2017, Thai Airways want to add more capacity for UK to BKK, and they can't get slots at LHR. They consider LGW v a regional link from either BHX or MAN.

Ryanair have a few routes left at LGW, and Thai approach mgt about the route. Do they keep serving Ryanair at £10 a pop or do they tell MOL to get lost and go for the £20 a pop Thai are happy to pay + increased likelihood of catering, shop spend and parking.

So we play pass the airport - LHR to LGW, then maybe MOL, who has already got his budget terminal at STN, goes there. Maybe, and it is still a big maybe - STN and LTN are by now full, and only then would the low cost routes get farmed out to airports like BOH and BHX. Why on earth to BHX think the premium traffic will go there, just because they have an HS2 link?

If I was BHX mgt, I'd be looking for a Prestwick type deal with whoever takes on the Virgin franchise, which by 2026 will be the 2nd tier operator - and I'd be looking at offering cheap rail deals for anyone using the airport from London or Manchester.

Birmingham's city centre has improved much in recent years, but I think that increases its appeal as a domestic destination for conferences and so on.

We're talking about a global hub here, and I'm afraid London is the only game in town here. Manchester does extremely well out of its links to the east coast - and iiirc from the Thai example I mentioned, has it not had a BKK route a long while back?

Realistically though, if airlines want to serve the BHX or MAN markets, they can and will do so, and BHX's runway extension will add a handful of extra destinations not currently served.

But as for serving London airports, passengers will want an airport that is actually in, or near, London. Comparisons between walking out to LHR's more distant stands aren't relevant - the walking pace is controlled by the passenger. In the unlikely event that any airport people mover stalls, the flights will be held. HS2 is an entirely separate system - chances are that it will be very reliable, but it won't be infallible. At the moment, less than 20% of BHX pax use public transport to get there - even with HS2, this is unlikely to go much above 30% - so the majority will still use other means, and they will still want their flight to leave on time.

Jabird, had to use CDG a few times while there were no LHR-ORY flights. Always experienced long delays waiting to take off and land despite 4 parallel runways; always used remote stands when plenty of contact stands were available; long bus rides to/from remote stands (thought we were being taken to the Channel tunnel on one return leg!). CDG also has the worst reputation for losing baggage (not mine, was hand baggage only), and for those unfortunate to be passing thru CDCG1 and using the RER train, there's the hassle of a shuttle bus. An airport built
from scratch should be much better organised, so, a truly awful airport!

As for reservation-only trains there a couple of problems with this: not everyone can plan in advance, the advantage of rail is the ability to "walk-on" even if it costs more. The other problem is that on some train services, it is difficult to differentiate between long distance, commuter
and short-hop journeys. A compulsory rail reservation system would push up prices by restricting supply, and be guaranteed to drive people onto domestic flights (where available) and the motorways.

Not convinced that airlines do not value transfer pax. Obviously carriers like EK, EY, QR, SQ, and more recently TK, have transfer pax as a business model, but suspect that it is likely that the likes of BA, AF, KL, LH, etc., probably benefit from a mix. Some routes only exist because
of transfer traffic potential, but they can also generate origin/destination traffic. Obviously in the case of no frills there is no such thing as a transfer pax, even those that are actually doing a transfer.



Silver, your choice of EXT for a EXT-CDG-LYS was a good one not just for the reasons you stated but also because it illustrates the stupidity of "airport junction" being left "unfinished". It only allows rail access to/from LHR to the main line in one direction (to/from Hayes, Ealing, and London).

To save money on a short chord, it is impossible to run trains from a whole swathe of the country to LHR: the West Country (including Exeter), the Severn estuary, south and west Wales and the southern part of the West Midlands, either directly or with one change at Reading. It also doesn't help that long-distance trains do not stop at Hayes. No joined up railway there, no joined-up thinking either! Has no one heard of integrated public transport?



On the subject of a lack of joined-up thinking/integrated public transport agree 100% with Jabird's comment ("utter madness") on the ludicrous decision not to run the Crossrail as far as Reading (or Southend on the other side), as existing commuter trains run up to London from both Reading and Southend on what will become Crossrail.



Silver, you state that LHR has to close for SILVERing Sands to work. That is the biggest fly in the ointment -it won't happen, it's too late. The previous estuary plans were for additional capacity, not to replace LHR. Eventually, STN was chosen instead as a "THIRD London airport" (what did they think LTN was?), and as Bagso stated, STN was chronicly underused until FR and U2 moved in.

Last time I used CDG it was T1, and I took the RER, then the VAL. An iconic terminal just as much as T2, but I somehow think those escalators were more for show than practicality - the actual piers weren't so good. T3 looks pretty horrible, but that is only for the real cheapo airlines (apart from BVA of course!).

I know AF like to operate through connections in waves, so I wonder if the 'hog' a lot of the contact stands? Similar to many US airports where the airline leases out the gates?

As I said in my post - it would present a new set of problems, but it is what SNCF use, and it would mean no standing.

I doubt you will ever find Mr Walsh saying 'we hate transfer' passengers at a press conference, but the maths should spell it out - do you want higher yields and lower costs of the other way round?

Airlines like EK have to rely mainly on transfer passengers as there just wouldn't be a big enough market just to serve O&D. Having said that, as a result of these airlines existing, DXB has become a major destination in its own right, so now you have VS & BA flying there from LHR too.

Unfortunately, it isn't quite as simple as that:

* At the time the LHR express opened (98?), the only overhead wires west of Paddington were just the ones serving LHR. It is only recently that the project has begun to electrify the great western route, and even this will only reach certain stations.
* The LHR Exp is a four car unit, so you can't just shove in the kind of trains which currently operate the longer routes anyway (HSTs / Voyagers) - even if they were electrically powered.
* Most people heading on trains into PAD at present want to go to central London and beyond - only a small proportion actually want to go into Heathrow.
* Operating trains into LHR and then back out again would add to journey times - people would change onto direct services.

Ideally, when it comes round to HS4 or 5, they will operate through LHR and beyond. Until then, the most realistic option is for a four car service from a station that already has at least 4 trains per hour - so something like Oxford - Reading - Slough - Heathrow might work.

For similar reasons, it is going to be a challenge to get an HS2 spur into LHR. They are talking about only one train per hour, one from Manchester, one from Leeds - with a join / split at the Birmingham 'M42' station. HS2 uses quite a lot of existing corridor to get as far as Ruislip - but at some point they will have to drop a brand new spur across a new alignment to get into the LHR complex. That would cost a few billion for starters, then they've got a tunnel under the northern runway and somehow distribute a new line to the three terminal areas.

Can you really see that happening just to run one train per hour, without continuation anywhere else (like HS4 as mentioned above?).

Much cheaper to just interchange at Old Oak Common.

And there's Silver thinking 'yet another reason to close LHR'. Except that they haven't considered how to bring high speed rail into the new airport either.

From The Independent of today's date: HS2 rail link may face legal challenge - UK Politics - UK - The Independent


Just imagine how many challenges a Thames estury site would have. It is never going to be built.

Paxboy, although we're in agreement about the eventual outcome, there is a big difference in the HS2 process and the original 2003 Aviation White Paper.

The former only gave one route for consultation - take it or leave it. So the protestors have a point in that they were treated with utter contempt by the government. In 2003, various options were considered, including Cliffe, and a 2nd runway at Gatwick - again, after a legal challenge to include it.

I am assuming that the upcoming consultation will include more than just one option - or to paraphrase Mr Ford, you can have any airport you like, but we've taken Heathrow off the menu and we're not putting it back :=

Good point jabird. If they really want to try and have an estury port, then they will offer multiple versions and permutations. If they don't - they'll only offer one as it will get shot down!

Have to laugh at Paul Keyhole's comments.
"Birmingham is a hidden gem and the missing part in the UK's aviation capacity jigsaw"
Boll*cks.
I have heard Birmingham and Elmdon described as many things, but a "hidden gem" is not one of them.
On our early spotting trips, Elmdon was noted as being not actually an airport, but more like an excuse for one. The Who's 'Let's See Action' was an appropriate theme song for this sleepy backwater.
Latter, at university, a fellow geographer remarked that "If Britain had piles, they would be in Birmingham".
A true statement. Mr. Keyhole is probably aware that the tired motorway system, which enables Birmingham to be by-passed, and exited quickly, is built on piles. Thereby generating that lovely G'Dunk, G'Dunk, G'Dunk, noise as you speed past Fort Dunlop, heading north or south.
If EGBB is such a gem, why are it's air traffic controllers paid less than those at say, Gatwick and Manchester?
Forget Silver-Boris-Foster. Why not develop Shannon into a 6 Runway airport like EHAM?
Loads of space available, part of the UK/Ireland FAB. All traffic from the west could land at EINN, from where Fly(may)be can whisk the pax into the UK regions. Similarly from the east, PAX would land at Clogport, (EHAM, 6 runways there already). Fly(may)be would then whisk punters westward onto the Eurozone offshore islands. Planes from the south would use LFPG. High-speed rail links already in place to Asford and London.
- Just like those innovative Victorians (of which the Transport Munchkin :E is a big fan) did with the London Railway Termini, only on a larger scale.

Of course the problem with the London Railway Terminii is just that - the plural. All in competition, so no one wanted to touch each other, then you have to get from one to t'other. But the Circle line does not cross the river and so that's two of the biggest missed, for starters.

Yes, when it comes to major terminals for the capital, the Brits have form. :rolleyes:

Hey Zooker, you can NOT be serious! (with apologies to John McEnroe).

Why so negative? there's no need to slag off Elmdon Airport and the city of Birmingham, neither is nearly as bad as you suggest.

BHX is not relevant to this thread, BHX is not about to become London's 9th (or is it 10th?) airport.

It Certainly isn't.
That will be 'London Oxford', or as it might be known, 'Endeavour Morse International'.

G'Dunk, G'Dunk, G'Dunk. :E

In no particular order: LHR, LGW, LCY, LTN, STN, SEN, LYX and OXF (Endeavour Morse International) already claim to be "London" airports.


NHT (maybe one day), FAB, MSE, SOU and BOH ("London West" in FR-speak?) probably have have a prior claim to this status ahead of BHX.

Bizarrely LHR doesn't need to use the "London" prefix any more because the name "Heathrow" is so well-known worldwide.

Difference between SOU & BHX:

One has grandiose ambitions to develop a long haul network to places well beyond realistic demands, whilst spending millions on a runway, and relying on the government's heavily discredited rail project to make it happen. In the meantime, countless European capitals and major cities get ignored. Number of destinations served from BHX but not from LON?

The other has an incredibly diverse selection of routes considering its size, especially if you want to go to rural France. Airport management know pax can use the M3, M27 or an existing rail route, which stops right outside the terminal, and not in some stinking rubbish tip two km away, combined with an easy to use compact terminal. So a good proportion of passengers no doubt do consider SOU as a 'London' area airport.


And which airport does the transport sec visit as an example of how best to use our infrastructure? :D:D:D

He has clearly had a logic bypass in the rush to get a crass soundbite:

"Birmingham has many hidden gems" - of course it does, just like any medium-large sized city. I think the canals are great for urban walks.

=> "Birmingham" - the UK's second city, well known to all who need to - a) hidden? Come on:=

And b) a gem? Now that is really stretching it - good parts yes, but a gem? Rough diamond at best!

And this 38 mins rail link still doesn't explain how people are going to fork out £2-300 for a cab fare to London or why outbound pax would drive so far up the M40 / M1&6 to take a flight which is guaranteed to be available from another LON airport (why would that change?), and is unlikely to be much more expensive anyway (if at all) due to economies of scale*.


*Caveat - some flights will always be cheaper from BHX some of the time, I gather this happens with EK every now and then. But these are still the exceptions (high freq route), and any price differences are still counterbalanced by the cost of getting to / from BHX.

Right, where were we? Let's get back to Boris Island. Not sure which is more idiotic - London Johnson International (LJI) or LBI? At least LBI is only throwing £130m odd at the extension - less than 0.5% of LJI - and the HS2 project simply stops at Rubbish Dump Interchange because it suits the planners, serving the airport is just a co-incidence - otherwise they'd actually stop near the terminal.

Jabird, for those of us in West Middlesex, SOU is definitely much more of a "London" airport than say LTN or STN, certainly in terms of proximity and accessibility.

Rubbish Dump Interchange (sic) is just one example: HS2 in London will be at Euston not St Pancras, so no link to HS1, at Birmingham itwill be at Curzon Street so no access to the New Street interchange, HS1 at Stratford is nowhere near the existing Stratford interchange.

We never use railway interchanges to their best potential - there are countless examples, and that pushes people off rail and onto the roads.
There's no joined up thinking on the railways, so don't expect it in aviation. So in the unlikely event of SILVERing Sands ever being built, DO NOT expect any associated infrastructure to accompany it!

FDF, I think we are too much in agreement - see any of my previous posts or the Hs2 thread on Jetblast. :D

Where's Silver, we need to start arguing again! :ok:

In some respects, I might disagree. A Global hub could easily be in Birmingham or East Mids, and work faily well. The reason for choosing the Thames is:

a. Landspace, which the UK is rapidly running out of. This is mostly new reclaimed land.
b. Reduced noise problems.
c. Cheaper land costs.
d. Easier planning, with fewer objections.
e. Easy land connections into Europe, which is easier to serve from the south. As I don't like commuter flying, I will often choose TGV tranport rather than flying, and I am sure many others do likewise.
f. It is closer to London, and therefore can serve London easier that BHX.


In short, of all the possible locations for a UK world hub, east London makes the most sense. Not perfect, but the best of all the options.


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Silver, wow - you've toned down a bit ;)

a. Landspace, which the UK is rapidly running out of. This is mostly new reclaimed land. - At huge cost. Seems they learned a bit from KIx at HKG, but the Japanese kept building them, running up ridiculous debts for totally uncommercial projects.

b. Reduced noise problems - agreed, but how do you factor the cost of noise at LHR, unless govt imposed a specific noise tariff ontop of APD - like ZRH?
c. Cheaper land costs - false, see A
d. Easier planning, with fewer objections - there would still be loads of challenges from environmental groups, not so simple.
e. Easy land connections into Europe, which is easier to serve from the south. - we want an airport for London, not whole of Europe. Limited benefits, as discussed.
f. It is closer to London, and therefore can serve London easier that BHX - and LGW can serve London more easily than either at a fraction of the cost.

Now LGW isn't perfect either - but it is the least bad of all the options.

.....And all this pre-supposes that we close down Heathrow (AND probably a few other airports) in order to make room in the air !

It always amases me that nobody ever seems to consult ATC who have to sort all this stuff out in the London TMA.

Rather than a fact-finding visit to Birmingham which anybody with an ounce of common-sense knows is a non-starter we could look at other options.

Maybe the MPs could start with a view from NATS as to what is practical ?

Maybe its me, but their take on this never seems to get much airplay !

One other point can't recall the figures but by way of example circa 160,000 pax a year travel from the N West to use one of about 8 daily LHR - Hong Kong services. From the airlines point of view absolutely logical but why not put at least some of that demand where it originates....Manchester!

Why on earth clog up Heathrow with "Northerners", this at least would make room for a few more flights that the Southerners could take then take advantage of ...just a thought !

If you can get the locals to agree to a 6-runway airport I might agree, to a degree, but the planning makes this idea dead in the water. Even the STN idea just will not run.

The only option is to place the airport somewhere remote, and in the UK the Thames estuary is about as remote as you can get (while still being just 20km from London). The Thames is the only option, and the only real decision to be made is whether to go for the Isle of Grain or the actual estuary itself.




What should be happening, Navpi, is that there should be 15 daily commuter flights in from MAN and BPL and the like, all converging on LHR and then taking those passengers onwards to HK. Plus a TGV rail link doing likewise.

But it does not happen because LHR does not have the capacity to accept the commuter flights, and LHR is not on a mainline railway. To get in to LHR for an 0700 departure, you would need to leave Manch at about 01:00 (to get to Euston and then back out to LHR via the tube !! ). But I seem to remember that such an early train does not exist, and so now you are in for a nightstop at LHR to catch the flight the next day.

And even if you do manage to get an interline flight from Man, LHR will either:

a. Fail to interline your bag and then take 1hr to get it to the reclaim, so you miss your HK flight.
b. Close the transit corridor at 23:00 so that you get stuck in a transit lounge deep inside the terminals, with locked doors all around. We had to call the police to rescue us, and only caught the outbound flight because the company heard of our woes and held the flight.


So the answer is not to use MAN for more HK flights, which may be thin routes and unreliable/unprofitable, but to get a decent world hub in the UK that actually works.



.

Hub airports are great in theory, but can be a problem for ATC with the repeated convergence and divergence of traffic.
There is much spare capacity at EGCC. A 3000m runway is standing idle for most of the day at present.
No-one from the north of England/Scotland wants to route via London.

If, and it is a mighty big if, this Thames Estuary airport is ever built how long would it take to build and open if permission was given in, say 2014, which of course it won't

Silver,

I never said 6 runways - they are nice to have when the room is available, but the only way you will get such a facility in London is to consider all the London area airports as a single entity.

I remind you - we can all have our ideas, but the only option actually on the table at the moment is the one proposed by Lord Foster, partially on the Isle of Grain. So although it will have 4 runways, 2 of them replace LHR, net gain two runways. As already discussed, net terminal space gain around 50% compared to Heathrow.

To build 3 x 2 parallel wide spaced runway pairs on that site would effectively mean damming the Thames. That is the sort of stuff for Sim City geeks, not a serious proposition.

You say LGW would have problems with planning but there would still be incredible objections to your project from environmental groups.

Now you might say build further out - fine, but the Thames Estuary is not Kansas prairie so the cost is going to shoot up even more, over and above the 1:2 ratio you already have to deal with of capacity increase to Heathrow replacement.

I don't for one minute think extra capacity at LGW would be an easy sell, but take a look at a map of either LGW or STN, look at the number of houses underneath the approach paths and then compare that with LHR.

Then look at the political map around LGW - all blue, so a Tory government could piss on their own doorstep and be unlikely to suffer major seat loss. And do you think a Labour government would be bothered? On the other hand, LHR is a double-edged sword - allow a 3rd runway, and you would almost certainly lose any marginal seats. Even worse would be to close LHR and cause such massive relocation - LHR is the airport people love to hate, but watch the uproar if you actually proposed closing it.

I think the much bigger problem for LGW would be one of finance. The airport was bought iirc for £1.5bn, so to add a new runway would probably mean an investment bigger than what was spent on the airport itself. Ditto for a new terminal of the size needed to benefit from the new runway (25-40m pax pa) and create a hub operation. Then you'd have to tempt someone from LHR.

But all of this is pocket change compared to what is being proposed on Foster Island - which is more like £30bn compared to £3bn. And you'd have to force all airlines at LHR to move there - simply far too tall an order given London's disparate airports market and the realities of UK politics.

Bags can get lost at any hub airport. Are we not over T5 teething problems? Or are brand new airports (as opposed to terminals) immune to such occurences? Remember Denver?

Oh please! Can we focus on the day to day passenger experience, not some extreme case which is an operational matter anyway, nothing to do with the regular functionality of the airport.

And a high speed train? The kind of high speed train link proposed to LHR will consist of 2x8 coach sets on an hourly rotation from Manchester Piccadilly and Leeds (join / split at Birmingham Parkway. Two rail coaches alone carry the equivalent of an A320. The link is likely to cost around £4bn - watch when it quietly gets cast aside.

Now your airport is the wrong side of London, so any long distance rail link is going to cost even more. And you want that on top of 15 shuttle flights?

Manchester would be one thing, but Bole, Xingjiang? := Did you mean Blackpool? Far too thin, lost STN route yonks ago, direct train even further back.

Time to get real!

If it was in the Far or Middle East 5-6 years, North America slightly longer but not much. The UK God knows, some time never. This is based on working on airport construction projects in these areas, and the UK. My general observation would be that in the UK projects are run as a "demorcracy" in that everybody gets a say in what they want, and a design is finalized, which is the same as in the other areas. However where as in other areas a design freeze is applied at that stage, on UK projects variouse groups continue to dable / change items through out the design / construction phase leading to job over runs, and resultant extra costs. The latter in the UK invaribly seems to end up in court or the contractor / sub contractor goes bust ie Wembly and variouse Olympic projects.

Simple recipe in developing world. Decide what you want (arrange finance), where you want it, design it to cover what you need, and a view to future requirments where known, and build it.

Uk recipe. Start debate as to what you want with no idea of budget. Finaly get idea of what you want and then discuss where you are going to build it and have typical North / South argument at the same time with a dash of Green policy on the side. Hold public enquiry which takes years to allow every party to comment / disagree and drags on as we all know making some consultants very rich ( I know one individual who has consulted on infrastructure projects all their life and has yet to have anything built but lives very well on it!.) After protracted expensive navel gazing decide on what, where, and when ,but still do not freeze design. Start project construction with ongoing issues still in the air, and face cost and time overuns as a result, coupled with press comments about poor state of managment in UK construction industry which is often unjustified.

My own view re Borris Island is build it by all means another London centric project like the Channel Tunnel (Northern line extension in my book) . But it will not get me to use it no matter what transport link there is from the rest of the country, as I do, and always will, use Manchester or Leeds / Bradford as they are closer and currently offer flights to the places I need to go.

Will get off hobby horse now. :confused: