The old short runway has been used in recent years for late night landings to allow maintenance of the main one. It's the original RAF Turnhouse runway. I can remember when all flights were diverted to East Fortune while they built the new runway and terminal. (The original one was where the cargo area is now and the new runway severed the A9).

I have seen the BA B763 and the cargo B763 land and depart from runway 12/30 so it can definitely service at least up to that size. But since it cannot be used at the same time as 06/24 it has become generally useless.

aka selling or renting off land to the highest bidder for non-aviation uses

Nonsense. It was used simultaneously for many years. It used to be a favourite for departures off 12 for south or SE-bound traffic which then didn't have to do the long taxi to hold at A1 or D1 - and those movements could happen simultaneously with any amount of use of 06 or 24.
The current lack of use is because (a) they have deliberately excluded GA and non-CAT big jet movements from all other places to park apart from the end of 30; (b) they don't like the extra ops workload of 2 x runway inspections for relatively few movements and (c) their master plan has always been to close it to make way for much more profitable non-aviation activity.

I worded that badly. I didn't mean they couldn't physically be used together, I meant they aren't allowed anymore. And it's my understanding that it is due to the area centre not liking their dual use now that the airspace has gotten busier. Not heard any of the previous posters reasons for it's closure apart from maybe wanting the space to build on in the future.

If it had already been closed they could have built the airport train station on the other side, linked by a travelator or similar.

I don't believe it. If you take the typical past scenario of 06 being the main runway in use and departures from the SE apron going to southerly or south-easterly destinations wanting to use 12 for departure, splitting the departures between 06 and 12 doesn't give Scottish any particular issues because most 06 departures will be turning left the long way round. If you look at the AIP there are still published SIDs off 12 so if these are so difficult for Scottish, why are they still in there?
No, sorry, 12/30's closing because Edinburgh management - going back years, under numerous owners - see 12/30 as, in the short term, a suitably inconvenient and minimal support place to park those annoying business jets whose occupants don't spend any money on car parking or bawbles from the shops, and in the long term, the place where the shareholders can be kept happy by the massive rents from offices and business parks.

Gosam and Grice off of 06 against 12 departures are ok, but 06 Talla departures against 12 Talla departures are a problem, and 12 departures also would not be very high against 06 inbounds which isn't great. And when on 24 the only positive would be 12 for some southerly inbounds and outbound Grice departures. It would only really be useful situationally at the moment which is why it's more valuable to build on now.

only a potential problem in the very limited circumstances when the relative timings of the 06 and 12 departures could put them (a) within 3nm of each other and (b) within 1000ft of each other - on the law of probabilities, hardly ever.

again, only a potential problem on the very limited occasions when the departure is going south (not SE) and has a poor rate of climb. There used to be Viscounts, Electras, F27s and other relatively poor-performing aircraft departing off 12 southbound every evening, at a time when there were just as many aircraft movements at Edinburgh as there are now.

So....
Yes, as was always the case, but its closure is not because Scottish objects to its use, it's because EAL wants to make more money.

For many years, 12/30 has been declared as unavailable via a series of NOTAMs which used to be issued every three months. AFAIK, the only time it was available was during overnight closures of 06/24 due to maintenance. Aircraft parking on Block 33 (stands 50-54) precludes its use most of the time anyway.

More recently, 12/30 has been declared as always unavailable and is only opened when a NOTAM is issued for that purpose. It amounts to the same thing but saves the bother of issuing quarterly NOTAMs stating that the runway is unavailable.

Apart from the fact that Scottish control use 5 mile separation, not 3 and is irrelevant anyway. A departure from a non duty runway requires a specific release. Because the aircraft is not airborne the release has to be a procedural solution not a radar one. This does indeed cause Scottish control problems though they are not insurmountable.

All of this is beside the point because the main reason that 12/30 is not used on a more frequent basis is because of the vehicle crossing point. A number of low level incidents occurred with vehicles crossing the runway despite lights being set to red, barriers down and klaxons blaring. A decision was taken that without additional safeguards ( basically the crossing point being shut with an airfield ops vehicle providing an escort) then the strip could not be used as a runway with guaranteed safety. It is not possible to provide this level of cover during normal operations hence the reason it is only used at night when the main runway is being repaired. This decision was taken whilst the airport was still under BAA ownership.

Runway 12/30 had only recently been resurfaced when this decision was taken otherwise I'm sure it would have disappeared already. For the moment it still provides some contingency that can be utilised in various circumstances.

As to the future after it has closed, I'm not convinced that the land is immediately saleable. Look how long the Edinburgh international business park has been talked about without a brick being layed. However if they can sell off the land and use some of that money to reinvest in the airport then why wouldn't they?

Thanks for that, Baggy.

The EDI Masterplan talks about a new access road from the Gogar roundabout to the airport, so presumably some of the land freed by the closure of 12/30 could be given over to that?

EZY planning to operate an EDI-JER next year

The masterplan shows that in the long term, they want to build another pier running north-east from the terminal (which I would argue is pretty much aviation-related :) ) , cutting the top off 12/30.

I'm also sure that land will have to be safeguarded for future development of satellite terminal space if it is required as mentioned in the Masterplan. The only viable space for this is on the area that 12/30 currently occupies.

At some stage in the future, it might be worth building a domestic terminal adjacent to the new Edinburgh Gateway station and tram stop.

Door to door journey times are more important for domestic flights than for European or long-haul because of modal choice and door to door journey times from much of EDI's catchment area could be reduced by building a domestic terminal at that location.

Unless they can force those passengers in a hurry to trudge through a labyrinth of "Duty Free", it won't fit in with their business model. UK airports remain people processing facilities with shops, nothing more. Contrast with the huge public welcome and well run assets to the wider community seen across Germany, Netherland etc.

A good idea. I always thought that a separate international and domestic terminal would be good at EDI, or at least some kind of division between the two, to allow better international arrival facilities. I would hope the new piers they have planned will include a proper international transfer facility as EDI is becoming quite the transit point now, but it's a process that is long winded and involves clearing immigration and landing oneself before returning airside via the same security channels as local passengers, this all means the 45-60 minute transfer time stated for EDI rarely works out in real life.

They can't offer this kind of thing right now as there is an open route from the departure lounge to domestic arrivals, meaning an open door to the country, avoiding immigration for any International-International passengers. If they can fix that they will make EDI a more attractive place to transit, however, they will also require a separate domestic arrivals route, taking people away from the departure lounge. For anyone not familiar with EDI, if you arrive on a domestic flight you enter the departure lounge and have to make your own way to the domestic arrivals stairs, past all the shops and departing passengers.

I would hope the new Station at least includes some self service check in kiosks to encourage more people to at least head straight for check in desks/security and cause less congestion in the check in hall.

It would be ideal to separate international & domestic but unlike most other U.K. airports the Scottish airports are very reliant on Domestic passengers (they make up about 60% of pax at EDI & GLA and 80% at ABZ) and all those nasty "Duty Free" (which as an example Mont Blanc EDT 100ml at Edinburgh £55 on Amazon £32 isn't cheaper than the high str, ok online shopping) shops will have 60% of their footfall leaving the domestic terminal.

Edinburgh is very much a shopping mall first, airport second, that needs the 7,000,000 domestic passengers passing through outbound & inbound. GIP know they have a big project on their hands to get their £1.1billion back without spending the £1billion to fix the crumbling building they have. If pax seen the crumbling, leaking and rusting old dear behind the shiny shops they'd be amazed it hasn't fallen down. Oh and we won't mention the temporary/permanent cow shed that passes as International arrivals 2!

Not sure those stats re domestic passengers are accurate.

In 2015 I think international was well over 50% of passengers (5.9m out of 11.1m total) and given the dramatic growth of international this year and stagnation of domestic, I would imagine it'll be nudging up to 60% international soon enough.