We don't need any more runways in the U.K.
I live up here in the sticks, near the foot of Mt. Belzoni. If I want to travel abroad, our local airport is a £20 taxi-journey away. One-way, obviously.
If I want to go East or South-East, EHAM, EDDF, LFPG, OMDB and now, even LTBA offers me all the connectivity I need.
Westbound, KJFK, KATL, KORD and CYYZ are the 'hubs' of choice.

Spare all that land for housing the Roma.

Nice one ZOOKER!

getonitttAh, I think you've spotted the problem. ;)
Shall we rewind 30 years and not start new airports again? :p

You don't work for a civil engineering company, by any chance?

Either way, you clearly have never been to Luton if you believe there is room for another runway on top of the hill.

Short memory Dave?

http://www.propertyweek.com/pictures...ON_AIRPORT.jpg

From the 2004 2nd runway proposal...

EGNX may have plenty of land around it but the airport happens to be on top of a hill with the contours dropping quite steeply on all sides.
Housing and a large freight depot have now passed planning so the north side is unavailable for development, to the east is M1 and Kegworth, to the west Donington Park Racing Circuit
The original proposal for a second runway to the south would have involved re-scuplturing the landscape massively and anyway HS2 is now proposed to cut through exactly where the second runway was supposed to go.

No, I remember well the hilarity that accompanied Luton Airport's original 2002 proposal to built a second runway and terminal (in effect a second airport) in the valley to the south.

In fact, not content with that, they also suggested an alternative layout with parallel NNE/SSW-oriented runways. Apparently those little brown wavy lines on the map don't mean anything. :O

Anyway, have a read:

http://www.pavan.org.uk/Documents/2_runway_proposal.pdf

I'm very familiar with Luton thank you.

If they think they can build an airport in the Thames Estuary then I'd like to think it's possible to build an additional runway further south of the airfield where there's a lot of green room to build on!

The main point I was putting across was that 1 additional runway given to either LHR or LGW isn't going to change anything. Once it becomes operational in 15-20 years and NATS have done the required airspace changes they'll be talk of needing additional capacity because we're already behind.

Make the enhanced changes now, whilst NATS are already working on London Airspace changes, and catch up with the rest.

Hmmm. Have you mentioned that to the owners of those two airports?

They both seem to be under the mistaken impression that an additional runway will provide around 250,000 ATMs pa of increased capacity.

That's the obvious gain to the one airport who gets it, everybody knows that...

The wider picture is what the UK needs, not one airports financial gain, and the amount of planning and consultation it's taken us to come up with plan A or B with just one extra runway is ridiculous.

Think of the money that's already been spent and we're still not realistically closer to a conclusion. Whatever happens someone is going to get upset whether it's local residents, airport owners, airlines or 'Plane Stupid'.

To reiterate what I'm saying, say in 2030 when we have our extra runway at whichever airport, do you really think our capacity issues will be well and truly sorted or do you think the air travel industry will have continued to grow over the time it's taken us to build the runway and we'll start discussions again about the next solution.

I'm not saying I'm correct with my idea but I think our Government are being very short sighted and most likely scared to make a decision with the fear of losing public support when it comes to election time.

Agreed, you're mixing up runway capacity which is needed with hub caapcity which is needed more. There is plenty of spare runway capacity at Stansted and Luton for which the point to point market will fill as things improve. However the hub capacity, and there's only one of them, at Heathrow, is maxed out.

As the management of Gatwick have implied, if a runway is built at Heathrow, they would struggle to make the financial case to build one there too.
The same applies, probably to a greater extent, at Luton and Stansted.
Runways are very expensive to build, and their owners need to make a return on their investment. Bearing this in mind, and the fact that the major London area airports are in different private ownership, I can't see any justification for new runway capacity (to create a sustainable hub) anywhere but Heathrow.

Although it's an academic point, the land to the south of Luton's runway is relatively flat farm land on the same plateau as the current airport site, and very sparsely populated. It is eminently developable but faces a lot of political opposition (It's in Herts, not Luton; it's not owned by the airport freeholder (LBC); it is greenbelt land; it could never take the place of LHR as a hub).

Blackbush?

why not shift some capacity to some of the smaller struggling to survive GA airports?

100% - and construction of a 3rd runway at Heathrow should have started years ago.

Also something that does get overlooked is contingency. If Heathrow lose a runway and go single runway ops it puts pressure on pilots & controllers, not to mention the additional fuel pollution when the stacks get busy for the environmental friendly people! :ok:

Ah, Dave, you are showing a spectacular lack of knowledge of Lutons topography, well done mate. :ok:

The proposed Southern E-W runway isn't in a valley is it?
Appoaching the runway 26 threshold of London Luton Airport | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
I don't remember any hilarity at all, just significant concern from HCC as they realised the proposal was actually realistic as far as airfield construction and operation was concerned. The residents of Peters Green, Kimpton and Whitwell weren't laughing either. Don't remember the Consultative Comitteee laughing either, I presume you weren't part of HCC or LLACC or part of the earlier RUCATSE reporting team either, as your name isn't familar from the time. I'm sure we'd have recalled someone laughing.

The SW/NE alignment would have worked quite well, problems being the environmental impact on NE Luton, Hitchin and Harpenden who all would have been significantly affected by approach and departure, not to mention pointing most of Lutons departures and arrivals straight at the BNN hold. It is clearly explained in that report that the runway allignment annotation is indicative only. You did read and understand that I presume Dave? Because with slight changes to that allignment, the topographical picture improves 'considerably'.

OK, I'll settle for "dip" rather than valley, but the fact remains that the proposed second runway would be around 50 feet lower than the current one. That doesn't represent a very joined-up (literally) plan - in fact Abertis, the then owner, were telling the world in 2005 that the new runway and terminal would essentially be a new airport, with the current runway being relegated to emergency use only.

I can only conclude that you're looking at a different map, possible one that doesn't have any contours. Nor can I find any reference in the proposal to the NNE/SSW alignment being "indicative only", but assuming you're correct and I need a visit to Specsavers, I still fail to see how tweaking the orientation slightly can produce a pair of runways that don't each cross at least half a dozen contour lines.

Not that it hasn't been done before, of course. :O

http://www.akademifantasia.org/wp-co...-Airport-7.jpg

But then debating Luton R2 is all a bit academic now, isn't it?

We cant even fill in the land to extend taxiways to each end of the runway as it is in the latest plan. If you think we could put a whole new runway up on the little hill and surrounding green belt you are living in la la land, not to mention its Hertfordshire and not Bedfordshire. They would be extremely opposed to that from day one and find a million ways to delay it for all eternity..

A new runway isnt even required, some days you can go hours and hours without airline movements at LTN. It would be a waste of time. If airlines really were so desperate they would have started flooding in years ago. Instead a couple of eastern european airlines picked up some routes and Flybe/Arann/Adria Left.

A good and important point. LGW management appear to be indirectly acknowledging LGW's current role as a waiting room/overspill for LHR, and that if this traffic was lost because of adequate capacity at LHR, they would need to attract traffic from other airports e.g. LTN and/or STN, and that may mean lower charges.



Exactly which capacity do you have in mind? GA at LHR is minimal, it would make hardly any difference.



Indeed, the third rwy should have been opened before some of the younger readers were born, and the fourth should have been opened by now, but we live on a strange planet! "Single rwy ops" should not even be possible at an airport as busy at LHR!

Plateau would probably be a better description Dave. It, according to your quoted report would have been 30ft lower and horizontal, (quite a good thing for a runway).

I am, you do.

And what did your quoted report say about this option? I assume you've read it. The 'practicalities' for that option and how they were going to be addressed/managed was clearly explained at the roadshows, do you not remember?:rolleyes:

I'm guessing you've not been involved a great deal in the hilarious and jovial pastime of airport planning/development, airport environmental issues and the consultations thereof. Am I right?

Starter for ten, HCC is ....

Quite so. In fact following the ban on GA movements during the Olympics last year, there have been hardly any since, apart from the usual Middle Eastern royals with their Boeings, Airbuses and Gulfstreams.

Ditto for the often-quoted argument that removing all-freight flights from LHR would ease congestion - they currently account for about 1 movement in every 400 or so. :ugh:

And from 28th. May you can add DOH (centre of the unknown universe). And in a shiny new Dream-thingy (ooh, err). :E

OTB, who's off to see the World via Hamsterjam soon in a Fokker (mmm, nice).

Who needs Eefrow?, apart from those big, soft, Southern Jessie's.