Heathrow expansion won't happen [Archive]

Surrey Towers

10th Sep 2012, 09:42

And opening Heathrow H24 for passengers would mean persuading British Rail, the underground and bus companies to start night operations. It's not going to happen.

Never say never. In aviation needs must, and there are MANY examples, where changes were made to satisfy an increasing population and more and more transport - including aviation.

Even a third runway will happen if it must. Politicians have a nasty habit of saying 'it will not happen' but after they have been rejected by the voters (or reshuffled or sacked) it does happen. You might even suggest that Justine Greening, a fierce opponent of a third runway, has been moved to where she no longer has a say, which allows for a more conciliatory Transport Secretary to take a forward step in this case.

LHR is such a case and IMHO I think a third runway will be built. When is another matter!

The mad Mayor's idea of another airport is an absurd option given the huge expansion at SND, with probably more to come, would create massive ATC headaches and cost far too much. Anyway, Stobarts are growing at a huge rate and will be seeking more return on their investment. They will not sit still and ignore such growth around them. Unlike Boris they are not fools.

Watch this space, as they say...but watch the flak too, it will be immense.

Momoe

10th Sep 2012, 10:03

AG has a valid point re.3rd runway being less than optimal.

What might be worth considering is taking a look at the bigger picture, factor in capacity across the South-East and if there is potential to re-locate slots to other airports, give appropriate incentives to do so.
Ramp up rail links and/or road networks to offset the extended journey times, this extra capacity also has benefit to the wider community.

IMO, LGW needs another runway before Heathrow.

Ancient Observer

10th Sep 2012, 10:38

I have no idea why the meeja repeat the nonsense about UK plc not having enough flights to various cities in China, Brazil and so on.

At lhr the airline have the slots. If BA, for one, decides to have flights to holiday destinations such as the Caribbean, it is BA that is denying businessmen the chance to fly to Chinese cities, not BAA, and not the Government.

BA also use their slots to fly to places like Prague. Prague could easily be serviced from lgw. Take the lhr slot and fly to Shanghai instead.

There is a lot of drivel talked about lhr. Some sensible business thinking would cut down on the drivel.

All power to Boris and Boris Island.

Andy_S

10th Sep 2012, 12:20

I'm sure someone will explain to me why this is a bad idea, but......

Why not expand Stansted to a 4 runway airport? It's close to London, geographically the right side of the city (i.e. accessible from the Midlands as well as the South East), not constrained by urban sprawl and already has links to the motorway and railway networks.

What am I missing?

TheChitterneFlyer

10th Sep 2012, 12:30

What with all the defence cuts et al why not utilise some of the government owned land for the purpose of building another airport?

Salisbury Plain? Rail/road connections could be easily modified for north and south access to this vast piece of real-estate.

DaveReidUK

10th Sep 2012, 12:51

I have no idea why the meeja repeat the nonsense about UK plc not having enough flights to various cities in China, Brazil and so on.

The media in general does not possess the necessary critical faculties that would allow it to question what it's told by the PR agencies on behalf of the players involved.

China and Brazil are irrelevant as far as the airlines and the airport operator are concerned - their responsibility is simply to maximise value for their shareholders, and if that's better done with flights to the Caribbean rather than to the Far East then that's what will happen.

But red herrings makes good press.

airsmiles

10th Sep 2012, 13:17

Re; losing the Prague slot. I think you'll find it's a good feeder for USA services as there aren't so many direct Prague-USA direct flights.

As for Stansted, I agree to a point but the key reason is the massive problem of what to do with the West London/M4 corridor businesses and employment, which rely on Heathrow nearby. We're talking a huge number of thousands of people (over 100,000 I believe).

Salisbury - interesting. If a new home could be found for the Boscombe Down test work, that airfield sits right next to the A303 (potentially M303?) and close to the Waterloo-Salisbury railway line. No idea if it's truly feasible though.

In a similar vein to Boscombe Down, perhaps Lyneham or Wroughton are viable?

Whatever, they are no simple answers and the decision (if the politicians could ever make one) would probably only be on a 'least damage' rather than ideal basis.

Libertine Winno

10th Sep 2012, 13:36

I've been wondering why there has been less promotion of a site just norht of the M4 between Reading and Maidenhead, or just south of it between Maidenhead and Bracknell.

There is space there for a 4 runway airport, plus it would have;

- Simple connections to the West Coast mainline and Crossrail, providing a truly integrated transport hub for the benefit not just of London but also the South coast, West country and Wales.
- Direct links to the M4 and either M3 or M40, meaning that traffic from the south and west could stay off the M25 car park.
- Flights could be routed to take off and land between the major population centres, meaning that less people would be affected by a 4 runway super airport than currently are by 2 runway LHR.
- There is no need for reclaiming land from the Thames, nor to uproot the entire economy along the M4 corridor to Kent.
- The LHR site could be made into 'Heathrow Garden City' which I have seen proposed elsewhere, creating dwellings for thousands of people

Problems? Well of course there are some;

- Inevitable demolition of some existing dwellings (but probably no more than at Sipson which provides only one extra runway, not 2)
- The still unanswered solution of how you force the closure of a private airport which just so happens to be the world's third busiest?!

Of course the solution is not perfect, but as far as I can see it the country desperately needs a 4 runway airport (which cannot be built on the current LHR site) but which is on the west side of London (ruling out, among other reasons, the estuary option).

Thoughts?!

green granite

10th Sep 2012, 14:25

Of course the solution is not perfect, but as far as I can see it the country desperately needs a 4 runway airport (which cannot be built on the current LHR site) but which is on the west side of London (ruling out, among other reasons, the estuary option).

I believe Cublington was the preferred choice of the Roskill commission

Libertine Winno

10th Sep 2012, 15:21

Yeah I've heard that too, but seems very far out! It would also need billions spent on infrastructure, whereas something along the M4 corridor would already have the rail links, or require only slight additions to either Crossrail and/or the West Coast mainline. LHR is on the right side of town, but should be outside the M25 rather than inside it! Removing LHR traffic from the M25 would solve most of LHR's access issues.

DaveReidUK

10th Sep 2012, 15:53

I've been wondering why there has been less promotion of a site just north of the M4 between Reading and Maidenhead, or just south of it between Maidenhead and Bracknell.

Red herrings seem to be flavour of the month at the moment. :*

Nobody, but nobody, is seriously looking at any alternatives other than a Thames Estuary airport or adding runway capacity at an existing airport.

Or of course the do-nothing option ...

Talk of an all-new airport to the W or NW of London is pure kite-flying.

Andy_S

10th Sep 2012, 16:04

As for Stansted, I agree to a point but the key reason is the massive problem of what to do with the West London/M4 corridor businesses and employment, which rely on Heathrow nearby. We're talking a huge number of thousands of people (over 100,000 I believe).

You're absolutely correct of course. But it begs a fundamental question - do we go for a bold solution which gives us an airport fit for purpose but in a fundamentally different location to the existing labour pool, services and commercial developments? Or do we decide that Heathrow is the only game in town and accept that it will never be ideal?

I really don't have an answer.

Flytdeck

10th Sep 2012, 16:39

An answer may be derived from observing the progress of commercial aviation in Japan. After the Narita debacle, the Japanese have only built large airports on reclaimed land. There are many problems with this approach (new Doha airport an example), but not as many and displacing people and confiscating land. The new runway Haneda airport is built on reclaimed (more accurately; generated) land in Tokyo Bay. No such option exists for LHR.

England is a relatively population high density country, especially in the vacinity of London. A more practical approach to expanding commercial aviation capacity in the area would likely be to seriously consider an airport on new land. Such a decision might aggravate those living in coastal communities near to the new facility, but it would offer the benefit of unimpeded approaches and departures and 24 hour operations. There are many good (and not so good) engineering firms with vast experience building such airports. It may be the most cost efficient and hopefully, politically acceptable solution. This approach would also provide vast employment for quite a few years.

As many governments have found out, airport projects tend to generate the NIMBY reaction (Not In My Back Yard). It may not generate quite so much sympathy if a few complain of it impeding their ocean view. Will likely be MORE difficult satisfying the environmentalists!

green granite

10th Sep 2012, 16:51

The estuary idea also has the advantage that no-one can build houses all around it and then complain of the noise.

enicalyth

10th Sep 2012, 17:50

Is that Stewkley by another name? It's got Leighton Buzzard to the East [BUZAD], Stewkley/Milton Keynes to the North with Woburn [WOBUN] to help orientation and the ground doesnt half roll off steeply when you have finished looking at the flat bit. Stewkley was in the frame in the very late 1960's but think on. The Bucks-Oxford county boundary reflects the terrain and you see in particular how it unfolds if you imagine a line drawn from Brize Norton to Cublington "A". Bounded by cumulus built-up-itis to the east and the Vale to the West the scope for a runway is now much less than it was. I used to refer to the "golf course" twixt Tubney and Frilford as the "proposed" RAF Abingdon Rwy 26 extension when supping some stuff in the "Feathers". It certainly ruffled the plumage. No sense of humour the Brits. Dear God! Forty four years on.... Is the "Feathers" still there, stands the church etc across Barrow Road and is there chicken in the basket for tea?

DaveReidUK

10th Sep 2012, 18:11

The Cublington site that Roskill recommended was going to be partly built on the old wartime airfield at Wing.

Easy Street

10th Sep 2012, 19:03

Salisbury Plain? Rail/road connections could be easily modified for north and south access to this vast piece of real-estate. I only have to quote from Wikipedia to show that this will never happen (in a more definite sense than the third runway at LHR will never happen!): The plain is famous for its rich archaeology, including Stonehenge, one of England's best known landmarks. Largely as a result of the establishment of the Army Training Estate Salisbury Plain, the plain is sparsely populated and is the largest remaining area of calcareous grassland in north-west Europe. Military ranges all around the country are some of the last bastions of various endangered species and habitats, simply because of the lack of access and other use. The idea that a large chunk of this wilderness would be obliterated to spare the residents of London some noise would not get past the planning system, however much it gets liberalised in the near future. Having grown up in west London, I have to say that I believe that urban noise is all part of the deal. City- and suburb-dwellers benefit from all sorts of conveniences, including access to services, culture, jobs, transport connections, etc. The downsides are usually noise, pollution and lack of space. City dwellers weigh these up and decide to stay put. Country folk value the peace, quiet and space above the convenience of city life. Why should it be OK to export noise and pollution onto them? Certainly the aircraft of today are far, far quieter (especially on takeoff) than those I grew up watching from my back garden some 30 years ago. The particularly influential bits of west London (Richmond et al) need to stop pretending that they are 'countryside in the city' and take a bit of pain for the good of the country. Which is what planning systems are supposed to inflict!

Libertine Winno

10th Sep 2012, 20:05

@DaveReidUK

Why are the Estuary or LHR the only two options?! Both have serious drawbacks, but as far as I can tell a 4 runway airport further west along the M4 would have far less drawbacks, more benefit, affect less people and cost far less...why shouldn't it be considered?! (aside from the obvious lack of political will, of course!)

DaveReidUK

10th Sep 2012, 20:31

why shouldn't it be considered?! (aside from the obvious lack of political will, of course!)

I think you have just answered your own question.

Momoe

10th Sep 2012, 20:35

In reply to Libertine Winno:

Easy to say when you live in Hertfordshire!

Please explain how (with all it's drawbacks) an estuary airport on reclaimed land affects more people than a 4 runway airport built somewhere along the M4.

Define more benefit - for whom and how?

Less cost and drawbacks, debatable - considering the rise in the cost of agricultural land has outstripped both residential and the FTSE100 - CPO's for the land required and compensation agreements/soundproofing for areas affected would be astronomic, that's before you put a spade in the ground.
Not to mention the inevitable public inquiry at taxpayers expense and all the local rearguard actions.
Not to mention the additional cost of upgrading the transport infrastructure, Paddington struggles at peak hours, M4 is a disaster especially at the moment.

Not going to get too many objectors in the estuary, under-utilised HS rail-link is practically adjacent, links to both A13//M2 corridors and even the Thames with high speed river buses linking up with Greenwich/Docklands.

Did I miss anything?

Libertine Winno

11th Sep 2012, 07:56

"Not too many objectors in the estuary"...seriously?! Apart from the entire environmental brigade, not just in this country but from across Europe, just for starters.

As for infrastructure, of course there will be upgrades, but that is exactly that; upgrades i.e. improvements to existing infrastructure. There is absolutely nothing in the estuary (apart from a load of birds) and hence there would have to be an entirely new infrastructure built to support the airport alone, costing many times more than mere upgrades to the existing stuff.

As for public enquiries, there will be enquiry after enquiry for whichever is proposed, and probably ones for solution that have been excluded as well, so I hardly think that this proposal is alone in that fact!

I'm well aware that this is just my opinion, and as many people will disagree as those who agree. However, I just can't see how east of London is the best solution even for London, let alone the rest of the country. Remember, this will be the UK's only hub airport, how is anyone from anywhere other than the south east going to be able to get there easily?!

In addition to this, it will be social and economic upheaval on a grand scale. The entire economy of west London will have to move to Kent; how fesible is that? Is Kent able to accomodate that? Will business even bother with the trouble, or just move elsewhere?

As I said, and as we all know, none of the solutions are perfect. But it seems to me that people are being very blinkered in that "it's either LHR or the estuary" when actually both of those still have massive issues that only look less bad when compared to each other, rather than looking at them rationally

Golf-Sierra

11th Sep 2012, 08:50

The issue with Heathrow is that it in fact serves many purposes: it's an airport which serves the many businesses in London, the M4 corridor and the South West, it remains an important airport for people living in the rest of the UK, finally it is a transit airport for people who fly to LHR purely to catch a further intercontinental flight or regional flight.

Think about this last category of passengers - flying them to London involves using a scarce resource (airport capacity) and a huge environmental impact (noise) whilst there really is no value added stemming from the fact they are catching a connecting flight in London. All they ever see is the terminal building anyway.

What the government could consider is building a purely transit airport, optimized for handling passengers switching between long haul and connecting flights. The location of such an airport should be purely governed by cost of land/reclamation, environmental impact, access to airways. I guess the business case for such an airport is too weak and the airport must serve terminal in addition to connecting passengers.

Thames Estuary makes sense if Heathrow continues to operate, is somewhat down scaled and focuses on terminal rather than connecting passengers.

Golf-Sierra

DaveReidUK

11th Sep 2012, 09:02

there really is no value added stemming from the fact they are catching a connecting flight in London

Except that the 35% (on average) of connecting passengers on each flight to/from Heathrow make many routes viable when they would otherwise not be.

I'd hardly call that "no value added".

Airline Economics 101.

clunk1001

11th Sep 2012, 09:08

Heathrow expansion will happen.

Golf-Sierra

11th Sep 2012, 09:13

Except that the 35% (on average) of connecting passengers on each flight to/from Heathrow make many routes viable when they would otherwise not be.

I'd hardly call that "no value added".

Airline Economics 101.

And what about the distribution? Is it 35% +- 5% across the board, or 90% for some routes, 5% for others?

Bear in mind also that with the huge cost of a slot at LHR airlines need to schedule fewer larger planes to spread the cost. A high capacity transit hub may make it feasible to schedule smaller feeder aircraft serving more numerous terminal destinations. So instead of driving/taking the train to T.E. you might be able to catch a connecting flight via small jet/turboprop from your local airport in the UK/north of France/Belgium/Holland etc.

Econometrics 101 ;-)

Golf-Sierra

Momoe

11th Sep 2012, 09:19

There is nothing in the estuary which is both a positive and negative, of course there will have to be links to existing infrastructure and in some cases completely new infrastructure created.

I don't see this as being either Heathrow or an other, I see this as trying to put together an integrated air travel infrastructure for the whole of Southern England, the point about the infrastructure already in place to serve Heathrow is valid and it makes no sense to relocate Heathrow.

Heathrow has finite capacity which needs to be addressed, Golf-Sierra makes a very good point about transit passengers, however they also have to share the connecting flights which means there will be an issue of cross London commuting which will need to be fast and efficient.

No chance of Manston expanding?

RVF750

11th Sep 2012, 09:42

LGW could be sorted with a 1500m runway at Redhill, domestic terminal and a transit shuttle across to the main LGW site.

LHR? What really is wrong with Northholt anyway? Why can't the same idea of moving the smaller aircraft over to do the near connections happen?

DaveReidUK

11th Sep 2012, 09:50

And what about the distribution? Is it 35% +- 5% across the board, or 90% for some routes, 5% for others?

I have no idea, airlines are hardly about to release that kind of data. But even if we accept, for the sake of argument, that the percentage varies widely from route to route, that hardly constitutes proof of the blanket proposition that transfer passengers don't add value.

Few would argue that UK Plc doesn't need a hub airport at all, and a hub (by definition) is an airport with a significant proportion of connecting traffic.

Libertine Winno

11th Sep 2012, 09:58

The hub argument is purely based on connectivity. One passenger may travel from the US, via LHR and on to HKG for example, never actually setting foot in London. However, another passenger on that same flight to HKG from LHR will be based in London due to the connections with HKG. Each of those passengers individually does not justify the route economically to an airline, but combined it enables airlines to put on the route, thus providing connectivity both to transit and point to point passengers all on one route (ignore the actual destinations, they are just an example!)

It is the very reason why Qantas have just signed a deal with Emirates to fly though their Dubai hub. Why else would anyone fly to the desert?! The answer is that, from DXB, you can connect to pretty much every European city via a direct flight, meaning that any city in Europe is within one connecting flight from any city in Australia, which is pretty powerful route planning.

felixflyer

11th Sep 2012, 10:03

Sir George Cayley

11th Sep 2012, 10:44

In all of these discussions there appears to be no account taken of the independent commercial entities which have invested money in their Heathrow operations. And it's not just Ferrovial (can we stop calling them BAA - HAL would be better) or BA or Virgin or Emirates. There are thousand and thousands of SMEs that earn a living from LHR.

Where would the investment come from to fund construction a new airport in any part of the UK let alone the southeast of london?

And supposing that investment was available, the Govt facilitated approval to build and NATS found a way of integrating traffic, by what direction would a move out of LHR be enforced?

Can you really see BA walking away in any shape or form from T5? Would Ferrovial's investor say "Ho hum, goodbye money"?

Leaving the flights of fancy, the political infighting, the lack of CBA and the free market aside can we say Heathrow is too big now to scale back or close?

Better not bigger will produce capacity with very little capital spent on infrastructure. Removing operational constraints such as the Cranford Agreement to get rid of alternation, extending hours for ops and improving the ratio of seats per movement (eg more 380s) is worthwhile before committing billions to another site which all the major LHR operators have poo pooed.

Lastly, how long is the Atlanta Hartsfield terminal transfer shuttle? Humour me - I have a cunning plan.

SLF

11th Sep 2012, 10:55

Yup, a fast shuttle underground to Northolt (or Terminal 6 as it may be known) for short haul connections must be a contender... and faster than Hartsfield E to T...

The Ancient Geek

11th Sep 2012, 10:59

LHR? What really is wrong with Northholt anyway?

Totally impractical, how do you expect the already overloaded ATC to cope with more conflicting traffic in their already overcrowded and messy airspace.

Any new airport needs to be at least 30 miles from London.

airsmiles

11th Sep 2012, 11:17

In terms of hub connectivity, I see no mention made so far about the vital need for new routes fior air-freight purposes. The whole issue of O&D v. transit passengers and freight is connected to make a route viable or not. You simply can't separate these and hive off some of the activity to other airports.

Also no one seems to realise the approach and departure paths for any hub airport are vast. An estuary airport will still generate noise over London, albeit primarily in the east end. This is particularly so for aircraft landing eastwards towards an estuary airport.

Perhaps they should do it the other way around. i.e. reclaim the reservoirs for airport use (as someone has already suggested), then build new reservoirs for London in the estuary. That would leave the West London economy intact and the estuary habitat intact. Possible the new reservoir project could also address the replacement Thames Barrier/flooding of London risk?

Easy Street

11th Sep 2012, 11:27

Possible the new reservoir project could also address the replacement Thames Barrier/flooding of London risk?

Only if you were happy to let seawater mix into freshwater reservoirs during tidal surges! Hosepipe bans all round...

An estuary airport will still generate noise over London, albeit primarily in the east end. This is particularly so for aircraft landing eastwards towards an estuary airport.

Easterlies being much less frequent than westerlies, the majority of landing noise would typically be out over the sea. The low noise footprint of modern airliners during departure would make an estuary airport much more palatable for most Londoners than is LHR.

Ancient Observer

11th Sep 2012, 11:36

The idea of moving the airport further West is interesting.
Someone suggested between Reading and Maidenhead.

As their centres are both concrete dumps, maybe locate the airport on either Reading or Maidenhead. Very few would miss these towns/dumps.

In reality, any politician with Victorian Vision would back Boris Island, funded by flogging off the land around lhr.

green granite

11th Sep 2012, 11:51

So, you build a third runway at Heathrow along with yet more fragmented and badly integrated passenger facilities and if you're lucky in 10 years time it will be open for business. Then in 15 or 20 years time it'll be "we need a 4th runway at Heathrow"................

Libertine Winno

11th Sep 2012, 12:12

And that, in my opinion, is the major problem with expansion at LHR. Presuming that permission were given for a third runway, that still would not really be enough, as four would be the minimum to guarantee that the airport remains functional well into the latter part of this century.

The question should not be about runway 3, but about runway 3 AND 4 at LHR. Why go through all this trouble when we know that 3 isnt really enough, and by the time it's operational we will be crying out for a fourth?!

Pietro

11th Sep 2012, 12:37

I recently read an article which points to a sandbank in the English Channel.
The author suggests that, if all neighbouring countries pooled their finances, it would be possible to build a super hub with no noise restrictions, no loss of land, 24 hour service and hi-speed rail connections to all major cities. This would make lhr, cdg etc. redundant. If you can dream it, then it's possible. The arguments about fog etc. also apply to the existing airports. I was once stuck at lhr for 3 days, due to fog.

valfire

11th Sep 2012, 14:05

No one seems to mention Manston, well rarely. What's the problem, apart from the locals moaning about noise? Enlighten me!!

Golf-Sierra

11th Sep 2012, 14:44

Only if you were happy to let seawater mix into freshwater reservoirs during tidal surges! Hosepipe bans all round...

You could separate the two using a big floating polyethylene bag type structure out in the estuary.

The question should not be about runway 3, but about runway 3 AND 4 at LHR.

Demolish the existing terminal buildings, rebuild the facilities underground and then build 27C between today's 27L and 27R.

Has handling departures and arrivals simultaneously from the west side of the airport ever been considered - tailwind limitations taken into account of course? Not sure if it is possible, but I guess that could alleviate noise over west London on certain days quite considerably.

The Ancient Geek

11th Sep 2012, 15:24

Has handling departures and arrivals simultaneously from the west side of the airport ever been considered

And how would the already overloaded ATC manage to maintain separation of opposing traffic flows in the same airspace ?.
Sorry, the idea is just crazy.

Noise abatement may sound fine but do you have any idea how much noise it makes when two jets collide and fall onto the houses below ?

pax britanica

11th Sep 2012, 15:37

And where would you find the space to build two vast reservoirs anywhere near London-as impoartnat as LHR is Londons water supply is abit higher up the priority list even for regualr travellers.

Sir George Cayley

11th Sep 2012, 16:10

And what would happen to the sheep on the reservoir sides specially bred with two legs shorter on one side than t'other? :)

Andy_S

11th Sep 2012, 16:13

No one seems to mention Manston, well rarely. What's the problem, apart from the locals moaning about noise? Enlighten me!!

Too far from London. Out on a limb, geographically. Not particularly brilliant transport links.

If you're going to expand an existing airport, there are better options.

Momoe

11th Sep 2012, 16:19

Fair point about reservoirs being essential but why not drain one at a time, excavate and rebuild reservoirs at a level commensurate for an airport satellite terminal on top?

Heathrow gets a world class satellite terminal for transit passengers with a 5 minute link to Heathrow itself with all the associated infrastructure, satellite would have easy access to M25 and extending the Piccadilly line isn't out of the question.

This would create more movements in an already congested airspace which is a huge issue and may prove a bridge too far.

Gove N.T.

11th Sep 2012, 17:28

The first step to parallel mixed mode operations at LHR seems to have been taken with the scrapping of the Cranford Agreement.
So why is it taking so long for someone with the right trouser equipment to get this into operation? Well, presumably the new Minister of Transport and his lieutenant have been put there to get it moving after the Greening disaster so Minister GYAIG

DaveReidUK

11th Sep 2012, 18:23

The first step to parallel mixed mode operations at LHR seems to have been taken with the scrapping of the Cranford Agreement.

Yes and no.

Officially, the ending of the Cranford Agreement is to allow, for the first time, segregated mode alternation on easterlies similar to what has been done for for many years on westerlies.

However that can't be done until there is a more symmetrical arrangement of taxiways on the 09s. At the moment, there aren't enough RETs on 09R to allow a sustained landing rate, nor enough access taxiways on 09L for continuous departures. This will be addressed over the next couple of years.

You are right in saying that those changes, of course, would also allow parallel mixed mode operations on easterlies, if a decision was taken to go down that route.

On the beach

11th Sep 2012, 19:34

"..so Minister GYAIG"

Fat chance with the likes of "Dithering Dave", "Nervous Nick" and "Deadwood Merely-bland" supposedly leading this country and unable to make a decision to save their lives.

Now, if Boris were P.M. :ok:

In the meantime, the only quick way LHR can increase capacity is to lift the night-time restrictions, then move to simultaneous mixed-mode operations, although the lack of standardised RETs may make that somewhat more difficult.

Let's face it, the 3rd runway is never going to happen and it would only ever have been a "stop-gap" bodge job before a 4th. runway would have been needed. So, let's hope one of the politicians has the g*nads to make a quick decision to start the reclamation work for a new state-of-the-art 4/6 runway airport east of London, aligned NE/SW. That way all noise is away from the City allowing full 24 hour operations. It might even be compatible with EGMC if a 5th./7th. runway was required.

OTB

P.S. London Gateway is showing everyone how to reclaim and build infrastructure in the Thames estuary. Europe's largest logistics park. All it needs is an airport to become a totally integrated transport solution.
London Gateway (http://www.londongateway.com)

Dairyground

11th Sep 2012, 20:23

How about build the third runway, tunnel the M25 west of LHR and build 1 or 2 more runways and associated infrastructure to the southwest of LHR where the reservoirs are. Lets build and airport where people want to fly to/from and make it big enough for 100 years of expansion.

Mention of the reservoirs reminds me that runway capacity is not the only resource in short suply in the south-east. Perhaps one solution is to encourage business to move to places where hosepipe bans and "shower with a friend" campaigns are less common.

If business expansion is not limited to London, demand for transport will expand where the business goes, and business will go wherer the transport connections are good. If both Boris and Ken believe that London is the only place for business in the UK, then the idea is almost certainly wrong.

As SLF on a few recent trips into Europe from Manchester, I have observed that load factors were very high, to the extent that, as a late booker, my choice of flights was limited. There are reports that passenger and freight loads on gulf flights from Manchester are good enough to justify 4-class configurations and multiple flights per day, and that hubbing takes place without active airline support. Perhaps its time for London Radial Airways to toke its head out of wherever it's stowed and consider transferring a small proportion of flights on fat routes to regional airports and using the capacity released at LHR for new services to long-haul destinations.

Fairdealfrank

11th Sep 2012, 20:36

Quote: "In all of these discussions there appears to be no account taken of the independent commercial entities which have invested money in their Heathrow operations. And it's not just Ferrovial (can we stop calling them BAA - HAL would be better) or BA or Virgin or Emirates. There are thousand and thousands of SMEs that earn a living from LHR.

Where would the investment come from to fund construction a new airport in any part of the UK let alone the southeast of london?

And supposing that investment was available, the Govt facilitated approval to build and NATS found a way of integrating traffic, by what direction would a move out of LHR be enforced?

Can you really see BA walking away in any shape or form from T5? Would Ferrovial's investor say "Ho hum, goodbye money"?

Leaving the flights of fancy, the political infighting, the lack of CBA and the free market aside can we say Heathrow is too big now to scale back or close?"

A very good succint analysis, Sir George Cayley, some reality on this subject is very welcome!

Quote: "Better not bigger will produce capacity with very little capital spent on infrastructure. Removing operational constraints such as the Cranford Agreement to get rid of alternation, extending hours for ops and improving the ratio of seats per movement (eg more 380s) is worthwhile before committing billions to another site which all the major LHR operators have poo pooed."

Indeed, a permanent end to segregated mode and alternation may be the only way to go if the "do nothing" option is still pursued.

The "squeezing a quart out of a pint pot" strategy will:

(1) increase movements by 10-15%;

(2) do nothing to address congestion and delays both on take off and landing;

(3) end the daily half day of quiet for those under the flightpath;

Once the implications become apparent, this will go down like a lead balloon with local residents, and, most importantly, will prove that the anti Heathrow expansion lobby (funny isn't it, how they're all miles away from Heathrow!) do not act in the best interests of those under the flightpath.

Quote: "Yup, a fast shuttle underground to Northolt (or Terminal 6 as it may be known) for short haul connections must be a contender... and faster than Hartsfield E to T... "

The concept of Northolt as a small regional airport like Southend has merit, but as a third rwy for Heathrow, doubtful.

Quote: "Perhaps they should do it the other way around. i.e. reclaim the reservoirs for airport use (as someone has already suggested), then build new reservoirs for London in the estuary. That would leave the West London economy intact and the estuary habitat intact. Possible the new reservoir project could also address the replacement Thames Barrier/flooding of London risk?"

The costs may prove too much to produce a return, especially after the expense of moving a sewage works for Heathrow-5, so almost certainly not cost effective for BAA/Ferrovial/HAL. Investment in rwy(s) north of the airport, on the other hand, is a sound business proposition and will produce a good return.

Quote: "The idea of moving the airport further West is interesting.
Someone suggested between Reading and Maidenhead.

As their centres are both concrete dumps, maybe locate the airport on either Reading or Maidenhead. Very few would miss these towns/dumps.

In reality, any politician with Victorian Vision would back Boris Island, funded by flogging off the land around lhr."

Easier to demolish a few already blighted villages north of Heathrow, Ancient Observer, than two large thriving prosperous towns (whether concrete dumps or not).

Part of the area covers Home Secretary Teresa May's constituency, so that may (excuse the pun) provide an answer why not.

Quote: "No one seems to mention Manston, well rarely. What's the problem, apart from the locals moaning about noise? Enlighten me!!"

Location, location, location!

Quote: "Demolish the existing terminal buildings, rebuild the facilities underground and then build 27C between today's 27L and 27R.

Again,this would not be cost effective, Golf-Sierra. With Heathrow-5 open for just 4 years, Heathrow-2 under construction, and an extension (a new Heathrow-1) to follow, this investment would be money down the drain.

Where would the terminals and asociated infrastructure be relocated, and where would the engineering bases at "Heathrow east" go?

A great idea if it was done before 1955, but forget it once the midfield terminal opened.

Quote: ""..so Minister GYAIG"

Would say "so minister GYFO", but for very different reasons and for a completely different decision.

Quote: "Fat chance with the likes of "Dithering Dave", "Nervous Nick" and "Deadwood Merely-bland" supposedly leading this country and unable to make a decision to save their lives.

Now, if Boris were P.M. http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/thumbs.gif

Yes, they are a waste of space the lot of them, but does Boris have what it takes to be PM? Does he look prime ministerial once the Olympic hype dies down and Cameron takes his revenge and reduces central government grants/money for the Greater London Assembly and the Mayor's Office?

Quote: "In the meantime, the only quick way LHR can increase capacity is to lift the night-time restrictions, then move to simultaneous mixed-mode operations, although the lack of standardised RETs may make that somewhat more difficult."

Exactly, and how's that's going to go down with flightpath residents (voters)?

Quote: "Let's face it, the 3rd runway is never going to happen and it would only ever have been a "stop-gap" bodge job before a 4th. runway would have been needed."

A fourth rwy is needed NOW and we don't yet have a third.

It will happen, they're just waiting for the next generation of even quieter and even cleaner aircraft to come on-stream.

Quote: " So, let's hope one of the politicians has the g*nads to make a quick decision to start the reclamation work for a new state-of-the-art 4/6 runway airport east of London, aligned NE/SW. That way all noise is away from the City allowing full 24 hour operations. It might even be compatible with EGMC if a 5th./7th. runway was required."

Not going to happen, see your earlier comments about GYAIG! Having kicked the can down the road for so long, they've now kicked it into the very very long grass, thus making them ideal candidates to run the European Central Bank.

rgsaero

11th Sep 2012, 20:44

FDF -

Seriously good post -

Says it all!

Fairdealfrank

11th Sep 2012, 21:57

Thank you, rgsaero, much appreciated!

dogle

11th Sep 2012, 22:04

It's here, ready made, at vast expense to the taxpayer (presently 8300' of parking space for unsold cars). Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=51.937069,-1.251411&spn=0.039159,0.068922&z=14&vpsrc=6) That's the existing rail link to London you can see just short of 026 threshold ... the motorway junction is just to the east. (Nice potential base for a future red- or orange-tailed hub and spoke expansion?). Too obvious? Too easy? ... or too little potential for large bungs to small people in high office? - Discuss...

c52

11th Sep 2012, 22:37

Build the third runway the same size and with the same rules as LCY and you get noise levels suitable for a city-centre airport.

Would Londoners be interested in a deal that opened a third runway in exchange for closing the airport totally from 2300-0700? I'm sure I'd prefer that.

cordless

11th Sep 2012, 23:45

Think Dogle has hit the nail on the head. Not enough bungs to any one, if this is the solution.Which I think is a good solution.

Carbon Bootprint

12th Sep 2012, 01:29

dogle -- for those of us who apparently aren't from around those parts, could you kindly explain where and what that is? Thanks. :ok:

airsmiles

12th Sep 2012, 06:19

Upper Heyford or perhaps even Bicester (London) airport. Perhaps the same principle could apply to Greenham Common near Reading/M4.

DaveReidUK

12th Sep 2012, 06:44

Perhaps the same principle could apply to Greenham Common near Reading/M4.

Now I've heard everything. :ugh:

I'm afraid there is a little more to airfield planning than scouring Google Maps for a big bit of existing concrete.

For a start, there are those pesky little brown lines on the OS map (clue: you want as few of those as possible running through your proposed site, otherwise pilots get a bit upset).

Greenham is situated on a flattened hill-top - does that suggest anything about its expansion potential ?

It's also about a mile away from a town of over 30,000 people, but we'll let that pass.

green granite

12th Sep 2012, 07:11

It's also about a mile away from a town of over 30,000 people, but we'll let that pass.

Yes a lot of people on here seem to be saying put it here or there and sod the feelings of the locals as they don't count.

felixflyer

12th Sep 2012, 07:23

The Ancient Geek

12th Sep 2012, 08:24

Upper Heyford sounds like a good idea.
Potentially more accessible to the rest of the UK outside of the SE corner and nicely clear of congested airspace.

The locals will no doubt object loudly but a new airport has to be build somewhere and this sounds like a least bad option.

Golf-Sierra

12th Sep 2012, 09:02

Regarding the reservoirs, they do not need to be open to the elements. There are many underground reservoirs around. You just build over the top of them. The runways could easily be built on piers over the top.

Those reservoirs are quite high above the ground. How would you get the planes from elevated runway level back down to ground level and then up again?

SOPS

12th Sep 2012, 09:16

Ramps, bridges??? Like they have at Schiphol? Maybe? Just a suggestion.

BBK

12th Sep 2012, 10:14

My guess is that there WILL be expansion at LHR albeit on a modest level compared to building a brand new airport. There are, I'm quite sure, plans for a runway north of the A4 with a feeder terminal 6. Maybe 7000 feet long so adequate for regional jets etc. Mixed mode ops where ATC can use either runway for departures and arrivals can provide a small increase in capacity but the environmental lobby will fight that one tooth and nail.

At LGW there is as many of you will know an embargo on a second runway but that expires, I believe, around 2019. On the south side of LGW all but one of the old hangars have been demolished. Of course it wouldnt allow parallel approaches but maybe it could allow greater capacity over the single runway ops.

STN? Nobody wants to go there it seems.

I think if the Tories already have a plan that should they win the next election they will make an announcement along the lines that in the interests of UK plc this expansion is vital and by using new technology blah blah blah...

Libertine Winno

12th Sep 2012, 10:33

Is Upper Heyford not far too far out?! General consensus seems to be that the airport would need to enable travel into central London in around half an hour, can't see that happening from all that way out?

felixflyer

12th Sep 2012, 11:04

'Those reservoirs are quite high above the ground. How would you get the planes from elevated runway level back down to ground level and then up again?'

The reservoirs would need to be rebuild/deepened below ground level as part of the works or moved to another location.

dogle

12th Sep 2012, 11:13

Carbon Bootprint, my apologies - I'd assumed that all here would be sufficiently savvy to use the map zoom facility (click on the little minus sign just north of the hamlet called Upper Heyford .... then you will see the M40 and the other existing rail link west of 080 threshold).

This former major airbase sits at the confluence of the Marylebone and Paddington lines on their way to the midlands (distinct lack of bung-potential from the construction industry, thus).

The locals will no doubt object loudly but a new airport has to be build somewhere and this sounds like a least bad option.Exactly. An airfield since well before WW1, the former RAF Upper Heyford was, following the departure of the USAF's F-111s, closed to aviation at the behest of a handful of shrill (but highly effective) NIMBY incomers squealing "No more flying!" (the longstanding locals were used to it). In reality, the low density of population in the immediate area, and lack of conurbations in alignment, would seem in comparison with other non-littoral options to minimise the disturbance impact of the additional capacity.

The Ancient Geek

12th Sep 2012, 11:23

Is Upper Heyford not far too far out?!

Nothing that a high speed rail link would not fix.
BTW, London is NOT the centre of the universe, the UK's major national airport needs to be accessible for the entire nation. This means that Boris Island is a non-starter.

DaveReidUK

12th Sep 2012, 11:53

At LGW there is as many of you will know an embargo on a second runway but that expires, I believe, around 2019. On the south side of LGW all but one of the old hangars have been demolished. Of course it wouldnt allow parallel approaches but maybe it could allow greater capacity over the single runway ops.

BAA, while they still owned Gatwick, indicated that any second runway would be located at a sufficient separation (1035m, under current ICAO rules) to allow simultaneous independent parallel approaches.

The Ancient Geek

12th Sep 2012, 11:59

Why dont we just follow the practices of a certain Irish operator and fly all low cost passengers into London Prestwick ?
:E

dogle

12th Sep 2012, 12:21

Nothing that a high speed rail link would not fix.Certainly, but - hold on! - Chiltern Rail are now claiming journey times out as far as Heyford of about ¾ hour with existing kit. That's faster than the trip out to Terminal 4 on the Tube.

Libertine Winno

12th Sep 2012, 12:50

@ Ancient Geek

I agree with you regards the airport being for the whole country, which is why I have also argued it should be located further West along the M4 between the M3 and M4, allowing connectivity to both motorways without the M25 in addition to the West Coast Mainline and an extension of Crossrail past Maidenhead through Reading (which will probably happen anyway). That way it is readily accesible to south and west England, the Midlands and Wales.

The fact still remains, however, that any 'London' hub airport will be the airport of choice for connections to and from the City from the rest of the world (owing to the restrictions on aircraft size @ LCY) and as such will still need to connect to it swiftly and easily.

@ dogle

Interesting about the 45 minutes to Upper Heyford on current equipment...believe it when I see it!

Golf-Sierra

12th Sep 2012, 13:00

the UK's major national airport needs to be accessible for the entire nation. This means that Boris Island is a non-starter.

Boris Island will be accessible from the entire UK (and further afield) via connecting flights - provided the capacity and economy is such that it is feasible to schedule such flights of sufficient frequency.

Think of this not in the context of 2012 - but of say 2040 - when economical, automated, small sized aircraft are available. When advanced navigation systems relying on GPS increase ATC capacity a few fold and just about any paved airstrip can be made CATIII capable at low cost. Your won't need to worry about getting to Boris Island but just getting to the nearest airstrip, of which there are plenty in the UK.

udachi moya

12th Sep 2012, 13:53

IMHO:
The easy solution to appease all non-aviation sides, is to free up existing capacity at Heathrow. Smaller, infrequent operators use up valuable slots for those carriers who wish or need to expand.

Carriers whose operations are moved, and Air Service Agreements (ASA) amended between countries, would be or should be compensated for the enforced move, cheaper landing fees, and subsidies from HMRC for an idea. Carriers with non daily ops should free up their operations and move out to regional airports such as STN and LGW, whose capacity (yet) is not at peak. Perhaps even BA should consider re-moving some of their moved LGW ops back, to free up more slots. Larger airlines who want the slots should pay and premium to the carriers moved. Just an idea...

The main problem for LHR is the ground connections, if there were better train connections (not just Paddington HEX and LUL) then maybe there could be scope for expansion, but with just one rail line to LHR, from central London, there isn't a reality for expansion..... not everyone travels from central London. The road network would need to be expanded, similar to T5 road network, direct from the M25, travelling to T4 is a nightmare, let alone the car park that's called the central area for T1 and T3, let alone for the newer T2.

I think the government here is just paper shuffling to appease the airlines, another white paper which we know will not see a reasonable chance of expansion. Scrap the Cranford agreement and start 24hr operations immediately, cargo and passenger ops and mixed mode arrivals/departures.

Just an opinion that's all, something rattled around the crew room.

DaveReidUK

12th Sep 2012, 14:21

Scrap the Cranford agreement

Actually, it was scrapped by the last government.

dogle

12th Sep 2012, 18:29

45 minutes to Upper Heyford on current equipment...believe it when I see it!
I'll admit to having shared some of Libertine Winno's scepticism at first, but now I see the current Chiltern timetable shows e.g. the 13.37 express from Marylebone reaching Banbury, some 10 miles further down the line, in 53 minutes. So, ¾ hour from town to Heyford looks entirely feasible even without railway upgrade, and certainly compares well with the time to LHR via the Underground (though lacking the 10-minute service frequency).

The fortuitous existing transport infrastructure links with Heyford are remarkable - LW, your connections with Wales and the West Country are there (the connection with the Paddington line), and there's the trunk A43 from Lincolnshire meeting the M40 right on the doorstep (what's more, the old rail line through to Cambridge is up to be reopened)

Now, DaveReidUK's good points on further expansion have got me going on this one and, sure enough, the scarcity of those little brown lines reveals good scope at Upper Heyford for another, parallel 2.5 km runway with the requisite separation (but mind, my original point was that we've aready paid for what's there now).

The more I think about it, the more Upper Heyford seems to be a no-brainer ... which is why it won't happen, 'cos Government always has to get it wrong.

BBK

12th Sep 2012, 19:36

Dogle

Are you suggesting Upper Heyford in addition to LHR or as a replacement? I agree the location has its merits although maybe not if you are living in a quiet Cotswold village.

That is the problem as I see it is this: do you try and enhance an airport already at near maximum capacity and one that has traffic overflying most of London or do you go for a brand new green field site populated with affluent NIMBYs who will be very well organised and influential in their opposition. This area as you will doubtless be aware is Tory heartland ie the rural shires which is why this government especially will probably never back the idea. Isn't Dave Cameron's constituency just to the north of Heyford?

Dave

I wasn't aware that the Cranford agreement, dating back to the fifties I believe, was no more. Does that mean that departures on 9L are allowed?

4Greens

12th Sep 2012, 19:44

Whichever Government brings in the third runway will lose all their (mainly Conservative) constituencies in West and South West London.

felixflyer

12th Sep 2012, 19:54

Its no good comparing the fastest train to Upper Heyford with the slowest train to LHR to try and make it look appealing. The HEX takes 15 minutes. Crossrail is being built at the moment and this will be able to take people from Canary Wharf to LHR in 30 minutes.

The facts are:

The UK needs a hub airport.
This needs to be in or very near to London.
It needs it asap
Any new airport project will take at least 20 years just to start on site.
Any new airport will cost the taxpayer billions.
LHR expansion will be paid for by Ferrovial/BAA.
LHR Expansion can be carried out by Ferrovial who are also one of the biggest civil engineering companies in the world (currently building the new T2)
Transport connections are already in place to LHR with more in progress (Crossrail, currently being built by Ferrovial coincidentally, who also donated a large chunk of money towards the project).
2 new world class terminals already on site. Baggage tunnels, fuel pipelines etc. already in place.
Hotels, cargo distribution centres, airline offices and staff all based around the airport.

There is only one 'no brainer' as far as I can see. The fact that they are going full steam ahead with large scale infrastructure projects at the airport and Crossrail is going there also seems to me like this was decided a long time ago and we are just seeing the political merry go round in practice.

Libertine Winno

12th Sep 2012, 19:58

@ dogle

I'd be careful with where your argument is going there, it is starting to look far too logical and therefore moving itself further and further into the realms of never going to happen!

David Cameron's constituency is indeed in the Cotswolds, however, so not entirely sure how keen he will be to sign the papers to build a massive new airport. Would be fun to see, though!

felixflyer

12th Sep 2012, 19:58

4Greens, I really don't think the opposition is quite as large as they like to make out. Many of those west Londoners will be seeing the financial benefits of Heathrow being there either directly or indirectly. Boris is being very quiet about the affect closing LHR will have on the area.

awblain

12th Sep 2012, 20:53

If you're going to take a train to upper Heyford, you might as well take it all the way to Birmingham, with the advantage of having an airport already built for you when you arrive...

...but then someone forgot to include Heathrow on the HS2 route.

dogle

12th Sep 2012, 21:12

Whoa! BBK, I was merely considering UHF as a ready-made, aready-paid 'third runway' for the LHR overspill, but oh! I salute your insight - it would have been excellent alternative many years ago before the West London economy became LHR-centic. (Disclosure: I am galled even now to think how the petty parochial rivalry between Ringway and Speke factions led to the splendid Burtonwood infrastucture being dynamited [it took a lot, I hear] instead of being turned into a well-connected, world-class, hub for the North).

Politics: Upper Heyford is I think actually just to the north of the Member (sic) for Witney's patch, under the aegis of Tony Baldry who, being a smart operator, could well sell UHF reopening as a great economic boon to the great majority of his Banbury constituents.

Yes, influential NIMBYS under a new flight path will squeal like stuck pigs, wherever it happens to be, and it remains for Central Government to act for the greater good for all (if only they ever did!).

green granite

12th Sep 2012, 21:29

Yes, influential NIMBYS under a new flight path will squeal like stuck pigs,

I find that attitude very offensive, why should it only be influential people who would be upset by the sudden ending of a reasonably peaceful existence?

DaveReidUK

12th Sep 2012, 21:37

I wasn't aware that the Cranford agreement, dating back to the fifties I believe, was no more. Does that mean that departures on 9L are allowed?

Yes, in fact they were specifically provided for in the recent Operational Freedoms trials:

Heathrow Noise: Operational Freedoms trial (http://www.heathrowairport.com/noise/noise-in-your-area/operational-freedoms-trial)

The reason full alternation hasn't yet been introduced on easterlies is that additional access/exit taxiways need to be added to 09L and 09R respectively to support a sustained departure/arrival rate.

dogle

12th Sep 2012, 21:40

No offence intended.

Right now, I enjoy a reasonably peaceful existence some 2nm from UHF 080 threshold. Personally I would not object to to this becoming somewhat less peaceful if Upper Heyford were reopened, because I can see the wider sense in that happening. However, I am not influential ...

My point was, really, that the 'influential' buggers get to spoil things for everybody else.

L'aviateur

13th Sep 2012, 04:04

Simple solution. Take a Northern airport such as Doncaster, create a non stop high speed rail link (along the present line) with full checkin/bag drop facilities in central London. This has been done in Hong Kong.

Would create jobs in deprived areas, and with a one hour high speed rail link experienced staff could commute. Would need far less development.

beamender99

13th Sep 2012, 19:13

Some maps
Heathrow Airport third runway - Google Maps (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&t=h&source=embed&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=107326342898097761681.0004608552b80b010bc46)

Some indication of rerouting roads etc
Boundary Map | Heathrow | Homepage - Hillingdon Times (http://www.hillingdontimes.co.uk/no_to_heathrow/boundary_map/)

The London Daily News (http://www.thelondondailynews.com/heathrow-splits-emerge-amongst-tories-p-3201.html)

The maps also show the boundary exending west from T5 over the M25.
I have not been able to find details of what this extension is earmarked for.
Can anyone help?

More to come?
MPs call for two more runways at Heathrow to revitalise Britain (From Your Local Guardian) (http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/local/richmondnews/9814147.MPs_call_for_two_more_runways_at_Heathrow_to_revital ise_Britain/)

Edited to add 4th runway info.

Loose rivets

13th Sep 2012, 19:50

Looking afresh, there's a lot of folk living between the the airport and the M4. Zooming in gives some indication of the hundreds of lives that would be affected by the north runway.

The golden mile of hotels. Last trip home I got chatting to a manager in one of the major name hotels. He told me they were going to build another one down the road. Also, another big name was doing the same. Can this 'strip' survive being between the existing and new runways?

Also, it's less than 1,800M from the eastern end of the existing, to the road itself. How is that going to buy the above mentioned requirement for spacing?

Last and not least. Is the Three Magpies still there?:p

felixflyer

14th Sep 2012, 07:12

beamender99, I think that area to the west is the M25 junction works that were done for T5 as this is an old plan.

I would have thought that finding your hotel suddenly in the middle of one of the busiest airports in the world that had just been upgraded to to a world class 'hub' would be a good thing.

beamender99

14th Sep 2012, 17:35

I think that area to the west is the M25 junction works that were done for T5 as this is an old plan.felixflyer. It certainly is and old map and you are probably right..

I would have thought that finding your hotel suddenly in the middle of one of the busiest airports in the world that had just been upgraded to to a world class 'hub' would be a good thing.I wonder how many will survive the civil engineering activity and the road realignment.
The old info I had indicated the A4 Bath Road in a tunnel plus the M4 spur totally realigned.

Rabina

15th Sep 2012, 06:55

There is only one solution for the expansion of LHR and that would by definition mean obliterating Harlington and Harmondsworth. Potentially two new parallel runways could be built and also meaning the re-routing or tunneling of the M4 freeway. Whoever has the balls to get this idea accepted and pay off all the local residents will have to have a conscience similar to Stalin however, I doubt anyone's political career would survive this. Now, if you'd have disguised this building work and re-location as a part of the Olympic Village, you'd have had tens of thousand of people smiling happily and waving Union Jacks as the bulldozers drove off over the horizon.

No one has mentioned Wisley which still has a nice stretch of concrete parallel to LHR's 09/27. Of course, the locals in Guildford would arm their Range Rovers and protest wildly if even an ultralight dared put some air under its wings, but who would have thought that even twenty years ago that Farnborough would have become such an important business airfield? As someone earlier posted, the NIMBY argument is a disease we are all infected by, but in the meantime, Schiphol and Frankfurt are moving forwards and LHR is standing still.

A and C

15th Sep 2012, 08:44

My understanding was the runway was going to be located to the north of the A4 and south of the M4 and cross the M4 spur with a bridge.

The runway was planned to be much shorter than the other two and take the the narrow body traffic, the advantage of this is that only the village of Sipson would have to be flattened and to be quite honest apart fron the 17th century pub it won't be much of a loss ( I advocate giving the residents at least six times the current value of their property to move, that way the people affected by the airport get a good deal and the money grabbing professional protest lawyers who always parasite on big projects will get very little).

I really can't see what all the fuss is about, the UK needs this runway now, so what we now need is a politician with the balls to give very large payments to those affected and to cut the lawyers out of the loop after all the terminal 5 enquiry was very expensive and if the money spent on that had been distributed to those effected by the expansion almost all the protest would have evaporated, after all tree hugging may be fun but money hugging wins every time!

FullWings

15th Sep 2012, 11:37

I really can't see what all the fuss is about, the UK needs this runway now, so what we now need is a politician with the balls to give very large payments to those affected and to cut the lawyers out of the loop after all the terminal 5 enquiry was very expensive and if the money spent on that had been distributed to those effected by the expansion almost all the protest would have evaporated, after all tree hugging may be fun but money hugging wins every time!
Well said.

Offer the affected residents 20% over the current value of their property plus free relocation to anywhere in the UK. People would be fighting to get in line.

This kind of national infrastructure project is where we should take our cues from the way the French run things: if it is of substantial, provable benefit to the nation, which most agree another runway at LHR would be, then just go ahead with it using minimum red tape.

There isn't time for a 'greenfield' solution, so expansion has to take place at an existing airport with a lot of infrastructure already present. Planning for a totally new hub can go ahead in parallel but we need another runway now (or yesterday). The space between LHR and the M4 has been deliberately left mostly undeveloped, precisely for an opportunity like this. Anyone who bought a house there within the last 50 years will know that.

DaveReidUK

15th Sep 2012, 11:52

My understanding was the runway was going to be located to the north of the A4 and south of the M4 and cross the M4 spur with a bridge.

I believe that may have been the original plan, but the current thinking is for almost all of the spur to disappear under R3 and T6, so we're looking at either a tunnel or, more likely, a re-route.

Depone

15th Sep 2012, 13:10

If there was an urgent need for capacity for London, why not utilise Stansted better. It must be operating at 50-60% capacity, there is space for another terminal too, even a temporary one.

PAXboy

15th Sep 2012, 13:41

The problem with STN, Depone, is that it's not LHR. The whole of the South East i sgeared towards LHR, not least the M4 corridor.

Of course, if govts had made up their mind to do the job properly in the 1970s, or the 1980s, or the 90s etc. :hmm:

DaveReidUK

15th Sep 2012, 15:10

If there was an urgent need for capacity for London, why not utilise Stansted better. It must be operating at 50-60% capacity, there is space for another terminal too, even a temporary one.

Nothing is stopping airlines from utilising that spare capacity at Stansted.

Apart from the fact that they just don't want to fly there.

DoubleMoonsofKrypton

15th Sep 2012, 15:16

Just a suggestion from someone who has no aviation experience except as passenger, during which I've noticed how much runway is unused even when I'm in a long-haul widebody. Couldn't the northern runway at LHR be extended a bit and made to function as two shorter runways? It looks to me as though it could then handle twice as many small- and medium-sized aircraft, which account for a surprisingly (to me) large number of movements at LHR. At peak times for jumbos it could function, as now, as one longer runway. I am sure it's unprecedented, and in any case wouldn't be ideal, but it seems to me much the cheapest and least disruptive option, and one which could be implemented much more quickly than any other. It's probably unworkable, but I'd like to know why before withdrawing gracefully from this discussion.

Golf-Sierra

15th Sep 2012, 17:41

Offer the affected residents 20% over the current value of their property plus free relocation to anywhere in the UK. People would be fighting to get in line.

The space between LHR and the M4 has been deliberately left mostly undeveloped, precisely for an opportunity like this. Anyone who bought a house there within the last 50 years will know that.

It's not just about that area. Directly underneath the flightpath the noise level is of a significantly annoying level as far out as Hammersmith. I can't imagine this would not have a negative effect on, for instance, all the cafes and restaurants on Chiswick High Road. Directly underneath the extended centerline of R3 you have a primary school in Chiswick, Gunnersbury Park, Osterley Park, not far off you have a primary school in South Ealing. Would you want your kids' education to be hindered by planes overflying every couple of minutes? (not to mention some part frozen stowaway falling out of the wheel wells into the playground from time to time).

What's wrong with Gatwick?

Andy_S

15th Sep 2012, 17:47

I think we need to distinguish between the need for capacity and the need for a hub.

Capacity is NOT the problem. There is no 'urgent need for capacity'. Ample airport capacity is available in London and the South East and there is nothing to stop airlines using it.

DaveReid is partly correct in saying that airlines don't want to fly to Stansted. To expand upon that point, airlines don't want to fly to Stansted because the opportunities for seamless connections are virtually non-existent. That makes it less attractive for passengers (because the opportunities to connect to another flight are limited) and less attractive to airlines (because they can't top up point to point traffic with transfer traffic).

And therein lies the problem. Major airlines want to fly to and from hubs because they are a financial game changer. And our primary hub is overloaded and barely suitable for purpose. So that is the real problem - not shortage of airport capacity but shortage of hub capacity.

I've previously advocated the use of Stansted - not as an alternative to Heathrow but as a replacement. But I do accept the arguments made by many that this would be very difficult to make workable in terms of the workforce, the support services and the commercial activity which has grown up around Heathrow.

So - I think there is a very fundamental question to be asked. Is Heathrow the only game in town? If so, all the other arguments and all the other options become superfluous.

DaveReidUK

15th Sep 2012, 18:05

DaveReid is partly correct in saying that airlines don't want to fly to Stansted.

Strange, I'd have said that was a 100% correct statement as far as it went. :rolleyes:

To expand upon that point, airlines don't want to fly to Stansted because the opportunities for seamless connections are virtually non-existent.

QED.

Walnut

15th Sep 2012, 19:28

If you ever talk to a developer they always prefer to build new rather than renovate or adapt existing structures. This I believe will be a major problem with building a third runway at LHR. The runway will need taxiway links to the existing airport, which will have to be threaded through the existing traffic links, the current M4 spur is a case in point. Most people currently use this access & so how the airport will function whilst this link is being rebuilt is beyond belief. Even now the M4 & M25 are close to capacity so extra traffic will just make things worse. So whilst it may seem sensible to have a total hub concept, the 10yrs of disruption whilst the building is undertaken will just as surely drive traffic away.

On the beach

15th Sep 2012, 22:05

Okay, time for a reality check.

Heathrow third runway involves relocation of the motorway spur, relocation of the M4, relocation of M25 intersection, purchase of Sipson village, relocation of Bath Road, new access point to Heathrow terminals 1,2 & 3, new terminal for 3rd.runway (terminal 6), new access to new terminal, demolition of a few hotels on Bath Road, rebuilding of demolished hotels, need I go on?

It's a non starter. Unless you are prepared to wait for 20 years for a bunch of politicians prepared to make a decision to proceed with a third runway, by which time Heathrow will need a 6th. runway. Face it guys. It ain't going to happen.

What should happen is for a Government with foresight to just jump in ahead of the competition in Europe and build a 22nd century airport that will blow the rest of Europe out of the water. Let's hope it's a UK government!

Okay, time for a reality check.

Politicians in the Houses of Parliament don't have the foresight to think more than the next sound-bite. So, I predict that there will be X number of years of "Third runway propaganda", followed by X number of years of "debate", followed by X number of years of "consultation" and then it will go back to ....

Oh, hang on a minute. Isn't that where we are now?

IT NEEDS A DECISION

And it ain't going to happen in this Parliament. That's something they have actually made a decision on. "A 3rd. runway will not happen in this parliament".

Oh, dear.

Meanwhile, in Europe......

Er, now how many runways does, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam Schiphol and Frankfurt have?

Well, actually it doesn't matter, because Heathrow is losing traffic daily due to the lack of available capacity.

I wonder how many airlines are being turned away, daily, from using Heathrow?

Okay, DaveReidUK, time to step forward and give us some statistics that will allow us to see how much money is being lost by UK plc, (i.e. you and me) each and every day.

Lost traffic from Heathrow is a gain for....?

DaveReidUK

15th Sep 2012, 23:32

Okay, DaveReidUK, time to step forward and give us some statistics that will allow us to see how much money is being lost by UK plc, (i.e. you and me) each and every day.

I think you're confusing me with an economist, I can barely work out my weekly bill at Sainsbury's.

Loose rivets

15th Sep 2012, 23:48

I have to say, when I started this thread, I had a nagging doubt in the back of my mind that even the current levels of aviation are not sustainable, so is this expenditure on expansion a remotely viable financial risk?

What is surprising about this vigorous cyber-conversation, is the positive feel for the continued expansion being necessary at all. My darker thoughts at the time of writing contained images of flattened villages/townships, new hotels halted mid-move, and rows of new kit parked anywhere the owners can find space. Okay, the modern world isn't fueled by negative thinking, but I've seen a collapse here in the 1980s Texas, that left five banks ruined and many, many square miles of abandoned dreams. The point being that all happened because of a natural swing in the local economy, with no other major factor - like global warming or major conflicts in oil producing countries - having to be taken into account.

Relatively small world-stage changes can cause a sudden and huge decline in the rewards from investments in aviation, so I feel that it's not so much a question of the current need per se, but more being in possession of a set of predictions accurate enough to spend these unimaginable fortunes.

A and C

16th Sep 2012, 17:57

With all the ills that you list why is a new runway OK for Gatwick and not Heathrow ?

Loose rivets

16th Sep 2012, 18:34

With all the ills that you list why is a new runway OK for Gatwick and not Heathrow ?

I didn't say it was, but I guess any expansion of Gatwick would incur far less collateral damage.

I can see the point about a major hub being a vital part of the whole concept, and that would be fine on a greenfield site. However, anywhere in the surrounds of Heathrow, the sheer magnitude of the losses that have to be born in demolition and compensation - before the first profit-making structure is built, is just bewildering. And that doesn't take into account the heartache of the hundreds of people directly affected.

All of it would be an investment in the nation's future - if, and it's a big if, aviation can keep expanding. Personally, I don't think it can.

I know global warming is a subject for Jet Blast, but just the recent calculations on the reduction of reflectivity with the loss of the polar icecap would stop me being an investor. That little snippet of science is a profound indicator of how one phenomenon can feed another and rapidly go into thermal runaway. Literally, in this case.

Okay, a post from an optimist please.

Landroger

16th Sep 2012, 21:19

Valfire asked;

No one seems to mention Manston, well rarely. What's the problem, apart from the locals moaning about noise? Enlighten me!!

A question I've been asking for years, especially when they start talking bo11ocks about Heathrow3. But Andy S opened accurate triple A and shot him down.

Too far from London. Out on a limb, geographically. Not particularly brilliant transport links.

If you're going to expand an existing airport, there are better options.

Good shooting Andy, but name one. Better option that is.

As far as I know, Manston has one of the longest runways in the south and conveniently built more or less 09/270. Google Earth suggests this could be extended westwards almost a far as you want, without bulldozing a picturesque village, an iron age fort or the habitat of the Smoke Tailed Bonfire Bird.

Further Google action shows a motorway or motorway standard road a couple of miles West and a high speed rail link a couple of miles North. Now expensive they may be, but a couple of miles of each transport system is a hell of a lot cheaper than building an island in the Thames estuary.

Unless Customs or BAA conspired to get in everyone's way, there is a severe risk of passengers arriving in St. Pancras in about an hour or Heathrow in an hour and a quarter. The motorway system would get you anywhere in the southeast in a couple of hours, just like LGW, LCY and LHR, but not Luton. So what's different?

I don't know enough about ATC to be certain, but since I live under quite a lot of it, it seems to me Manston would be a piece of cake. 09 departures would be largely over the sea with a moderate turn to the south and 270 departures are over open farm land. And it's a long way from the meat mincer over my house. (South London)

So, I will reiterate Valfire's very reasonable question and hope that someone, Andy S even, can tell us exactly why Manston wouldn't give us a lot more bang for our very few available bucks. And why we should be considering Galactic amounts of money on mimicing Hong Kong or trying to build a runway where ATC can't push any more aeroplanes? :ugh:

DaveReidUK

16th Sep 2012, 21:40

Manston has one of the longest runways in the south and conveniently built more or less 09/270. Google Earth suggests this could be extended westwards almost a far as you want

I think you might have hit on the solution - another single runway airport like Gatwick, but with a very, very long one.

PAXboy

17th Sep 2012, 01:11

It's all too late.

By the time we have ANY expansion at LHR, leave alone a new hub (irrespective of location) it will be too late.

The big west European hubs are so far ahead of us that we can never catch up.
The influence (=$$$) of the USA is falling rapidly and their great desire to txfer at an English speaking hub is diminishing.
The mid Eastern hubs are expanding rapidly and will continue to do so (such as QF linking with EK)

Even if we signed the deal (LHR 3+4 or UHF or Island or anything) today - it is already too late. Sorry, but the inaction of govt over the past 30 years have ensured this result. The die is already cast. The time for action is past.

I am not in the business but have paxed since 1965, and LHR has been my local field since 1979. I have lived in other countries and seen how they do it.

Father Jack Hackett

17th Sep 2012, 01:46

First of all, a disclaimer, I haven't read every post on here so I may be retreading similar arguments but here goes: it's fecking Gatwick! Good links. Plenty of undeveloped real estate. An established business model. Yes, I know there's a moratorium on new runways until 2019 but given this administration's never-never attitude to making meaningful decisions, that doesn't seem so far off. Build a second (and third?) runway at Gatwick and conduct a progressive transfer of hub status. Build the fast rail-link between the two to create the virtual hub.

Enough of this fantastical nonsense of creating Tracy Island or Boris Island or whatever you want to call it and put an end to ridiculous notions of pouring a quart into the pint-pot that is Heathrow. The only similarly urban airport that I can think of was Kai Tak and that had it's illustrious but ultimately anachronistic fate resolved in a very decisive fashion. This nation needs to grow up and devise an appropriately grown-up scheme for civil aviation in this century.

Loose rivets

17th Sep 2012, 04:44

Disregarding entirely, the above post, what about that almost unbelievably empty piece of land across the water from Canvey Island? Over 50,000 feet long, and mostly out of the water.

Where was that explosives ship again?

manrow

17th Sep 2012, 07:22

DaveReidUK

17th Sep 2012, 07:32

Lyneham vacated by RAF recently, beckoning and waiting! Close to M4 junction 16, and rail links too.

And it's on top of a hill, with zero expansion potential.

:ugh:

Golf-Sierra

17th Sep 2012, 08:38

With all the ills that you list why is a new runway OK for Gatwick and not Heathrow ?

It seems that the area both to the west and to the east is primarily rural. The area directly adjacent to the airport (south, southwest, northwest) is also rural, so there is potential to build additional runways.

West London - you are talking of many thousands of houses being affected and it's not really possible to relocate people a fair distance. With house prices in that area being well into 7 digit figures that could turn out a very big bill to foot.

Of course Gatwick is also not ideal.

This island out in the estuary - have any proposals been put forward as to how it would be built? Would it involve depositing sand/gravel on the ocean floor or would it by some kind of pylon based or perhaps even floating structure?

Yamagata ken

17th Sep 2012, 09:27

When I make (mercifully rare) visits to the UK, I travel to somewhere called "not London". If I fly in to Heathrow, I have to travel through or around London. Gatwick (not that I have that choice) would involve travelling through, or around London. Boris Island would also require that I travel through or around London. For those of us from "not London" and travelling to "not London", it would be nice to avoid London.

Andy_S

17th Sep 2012, 09:42

Good shooting Andy, but name one. Better option that is.........So, I will reiterate Valfire's very reasonable question and hope that someone, Andy S even, can tell us exactly why Manston wouldn't give us a lot more bang for our very few available bucks.

Roger.

Wow! I really seem to have got under your skin!!

A simple question. Are you talking about Manston as additional runway capacity, i.e. to relieve the strain on Heathrow? Or as a new hub?

If the former, fine. But there’s absolutely nothing to stop airlines using it now. And yet they don’t……

If the latter, then there are many many reasons why Manston is not practical. But in a nutshell – as someone else pointed out – location, location, location……

For the record, my remarks about there being better options for expansion related to taking an existing airport and turning it into a replacement hub for Heathrow.

Landroger

17th Sep 2012, 10:09

Ah, you are talking replacement hub for Heathrow, I was responding to what I understood to be a shortage of capacity at Heathrow. I think someone else has pointed out the utter folly of trying to replace Heathrow and create an all encompassing hub. We could buy Belgium for the price! :ugh:

At this stage in the game, I would have thought a relatively cheap method of increasing capacity into southern UK - which is what we are talking about - would have far more support and far higher likelyhood of it ever happening. Boris Island is a very good idea, that's how they replaced Kai Tak, but which economy could withstand a cost like that, jobs and prosperity notwithstanding?

We have suggested Manston because it is doable and doable in, say, five years maybe less. Anything else and the lead time stretches into 2020 - 2025 and probably irrelevant by then. The costs are minimal, but would provide employment and investment in an area sorely in need. I suspect the airlines don't use Manston at present, because getting to and from it is a bit rural, but the infrastructure is very near by and, as mentioned, I think the ATC issues would be dealt with relatively easily.

Almost anywhere else and anything else, becomes a very, very long term project with trailing zeros being added with every passing month.

DaveReidUK

17th Sep 2012, 10:36

increasing capacity into southern UK - which is what we are talking about

Actually, we're not.

As the thread title suggests, we're talking about hub capacity - be it at Heathrow or elsewhere.

Hub = step off on flight onto another.

An hour's train journey or more between flights doesn't qualify as a hub in anyone's book. :rolleyes:

The Ancient Geek

17th Sep 2012, 11:12

There is a big difference here between what airlines like and what the country needs.

Britain is an end of line destination at the edge of europe.
There is no significant gain for the economy to have transit passengers hopping from one flight to another, they might spend a few pounds in the shopping mall but this is insignificant.

What BRITAIN needs is an airport with rapid access to the entire country, this is best acheived by a large airport somewhere around the midlands with rapid rail access to all major cities and connecting short haul flights where this is not available.

So - a national hub not a global hub - leave that to more centrally located countries.

Andy_S

17th Sep 2012, 12:02

I was responding to what I understood to be a shortage of capacity at Heathrow.......At this stage in the game, I would have thought a relatively cheap method of increasing capacity into southern UK - which is what we are talking about - would have far more support and far higher likelyhood of it ever happening.

There may indeed be shortage of capacity at Heathrow, but there is NO shortage of capacity in the Southern UK generally. Once again, are we getting mixed up between the two? What we are short of is HUB capacity. ‘Boris Island’ is intended as a hub. Manston is not. We’re not comparing like with like here.

We have suggested Manston because it is doable and doable in, say, five years maybe less.

Actually, Manston is doable tomorrow. It is a functional airport. It’s just that no airlines particularly want to fly there. I don’t think the ‘rural’ location is what puts them off – more likely the lack of connecting flights.

Golf-Sierra

17th Sep 2012, 12:27

An hour's train journey or more between flights doesn't qualify as a hub in anyone's book.

If there was a way to do it without having to go through passport control, security screening, etc. - would you still hold that view?

DaveReidUK

17th Sep 2012, 12:40

If there was a way to do it without having to go through passport control, security screening, etc. - would you still hold that view?

Yes - even if that was feasible, which it isn't.

DaveReidUK

17th Sep 2012, 12:43

It’s just that no airlines particularly want to fly there. I don’t think the ‘rural’ location is what puts them off – more likely the lack of connecting
flights.

Exactly.

Proponents who simply ignore the synergy that a hub provides by virtue of the choice of connecting flights available, are missing the point.

Whether transfer passengers spend money in the airport shops isn't relevant. Whether the 1 in 3 connecting pax on every flight make it viable to operate that route at that frequency, or at all, is.

DaveReidUK

17th Sep 2012, 14:48

Panic over - LCY to the rescue.

London City Airport ready to help free up capacity at Heathrow (http://www.airport-world.com/news-articles/item/1889-london-city-airport-ready-to-help-free-up-capacity-at-heathrow)

On the beach

17th Sep 2012, 16:35

Panic over - LCY to the rescue.

So, an extra 150 movements a day (except for the half-day weekends). Could be a bit noisy down on the "Eastenders" set. :E

Now, let me see, where can I hub to through London City?

And why is LCY so under-utilised?

But, as they say; "Every little helps".

Meanwhile back in the real world......I shall be flying from EDI to AMS (8 flights a day) on a foreign airline to hub to HKG (hub), on another foreign airline via DXB (another hub).

Who gains? AMS, DXB and a couple of foreign airlines. Says it all really.

Roll on a UK Aviation Policy.

DaveReidUK

17th Sep 2012, 16:59

Now, let me see, where can I hub to through London City?

Now be fair, you can hop on the DLR and Tube and be at Heathrow in an hour and a half. :hmm:

Cows getting bigger

17th Sep 2012, 20:02

I think Paxboy sums things up rather well. Too much of the British hand-wringing (sorry, democracy at its best) affliction whilst the rest of Europe has just got on with it.

Fairdealfrank

17th Sep 2012, 22:32

Quote: “Boris Island will be accessible from the entire UK (and further afield) via connecting flights - provided the capacity and economy is such that it is feasible to schedule such flights of sufficient frequency.”

Local airlines doing feeder flights from the smaller regional airports are currently conspicuous by their absence from Heathrow (and increasingly from Gatwick as well) because of the relatively high airport charges for smaller aircraft.

Those at fantasy Island would a great deal higher, they would have to be if investors were ever to obtain a return. So, one has to ask, how on earth would local airlines doing feeder flights afford the eye-wateringly high airport charges at Fantasy Island?

Yet another reason why Fantasy Island, if ever built, would remain largely unused.

Quote: “The facts are:

The UK needs a hub airport.
This needs to be in or very near to London.
It needs it asap
Any new airport project will take at least 20 years just to start on site.
Any new airport will cost the taxpayer billions.
LHR expansion will be paid for by Ferrovial/BAA.
LHR Expansion can be carried out by Ferrovial who are also one of the biggest civil engineering companies in the world (currently building the new T2)
Transport connections are already in place to LHR with more in progress (Crossrail, currently being built by Ferrovial coincidentally, who also donated a large chunk of money towards the project).
2 new world class terminals already on site. Baggage tunnels, fuel pipelines etc. already in place.
Hotels, cargo distribution centres, airline offices and staff all based around the airport.

There is only one 'no brainer' as far as I can see. The fact that they are going full steam ahead with large scale infrastructure projects at the airport and Crossrail is going there also seems to me like this was decided a long time ago and we are just seeing the political merry go round in practice.”

A very concise summary of the situation as it exists in reality. It hits the nail right on the head.

Quote: “I think the government here is just paper shuffling to appease the airlines, another white paper which we know will not see a reasonable chance of expansion. Scrap the Cranford agreement and start 24hr operations immediately, cargo and passenger ops and mixed mode arrivals/departures.”

Quote: “Actually, it was scrapped by the last government.”

And nobody protested! Too near the airport?

Funny, isn’t it, how all the vocal NIMBY anti-Heathrow expansion activity is miles away from Heathrow: in Richmond (Zac Goldsmith), in Putney (Greening), in Notting Hill/City Hall (Boris), in Clapham (HACAN).

They do not explain why people pay a premium to live under the flight path, house prices are among the highest in the country. Would they do so if it was so intolerable?

Quote: “Simple solution. Take a Northern airport such as Doncaster, create a non stop high speed rail link (along the present line) with full checkin/bag drop facilities in central London. This has been done in Hong Kong.”

No, Hong Kong has a 20 mi. rail link, not a 200 mi. one. The journey takes about 25 minutes, and there are 5 trains/hour.

City check in Hong Kong is very convenient, we had it London in the 1960s: it was called the West London Air Terminal and located in Kensington.

Quote: “The runway was planned to be much shorter than the other two and take the the narrow body traffic, the advantage of this is that only the village of Sipson would have to be flattened and to be quite honest apart fron the 17th century pub it won't be much of a loss ( I advocate giving the residents at least six times the current value of their property to move, that way the people affected by the airport get a good deal and the money grabbing professional protest lawyers who always parasite on big projects will get very little).”

Could very easily be done: very few owner occupiers remain in Sipson. BAA bought up most of the properties years ago, and the remaining population is now largely transient, based on six-month lets. The area has been blighted for years.

Quote: “What's wrong with Gatwick?”

Connectivity, connectivity, connectivity!

Specifically, the lack of sufficient connectivity.

Quote: “So - I think there is a very fundamental question to be asked. Is Heathrow the only game in town? If so, all the other arguments and all the other options become superfluous.”

Answers: Yes; and, exactly.

Quote: “First of all, a disclaimer, I haven't read every post on here so I may be retreading similar arguments but here goes: it's fecking Gatwick! Good links. Plenty of undeveloped real estate. An established business model. Yes, I know there's a moratorium on new runways until 2019 but given this administration's never-never attitude to making meaningful decisions, that doesn't seem so far off. Build a second (and third?) runway at Gatwick and conduct a progressive transfer of hub status. Build the fast rail-link between the two to create the virtual hub.”

Yes, all very well, but how exactly does one “conduct a progressive transfer of hub status”, whatever that means?

All the evidence on the ground shows that airlines that move tend to go the other way!

PAXboy

18th Sep 2012, 01:47

FairdealfrankLocal airlines doing feeder flights from the smaller regional airports are currently conspicuous by their absence from Heathrow (and increasingly from Gatwick as well) because of the relatively high airport charges for smaller aircraft. Also because (due to shortage of capacity) BA ran a highly successful policy of buying up the feeder airlines, then transplanting them to EGKK and BINGO, they had another 3 or 4 pairs of slots every day! Later, they quietly folded the feeder into their operation, or simply sold it off, dumped it, franchised it, depending on the what was in fashion that year.

One of their finest achievements was to buy up the old Manx operation (Viscounts) and appropriate the slots. Then dump them. A new Manx carrier then sprang up, got slots and made a great succes of the IOM feeder route (146s) and then [wait for it] BA bought THEM up and scored ANOTHER set of slots, whilst tipping the route into EGKK and then selling them off again. :ugh:

Naturally, no one stopped them because there was no policy. Irrespective of any lobbying power ... :hmm:

Thanks, Cows getting bigger, it doesn't make me happy to be the doom monger but I've seen more than enough of British non-mgmt and govt. The game is over. Anything now is just idle chat. Nothing can save EGLL from relegation.

blue_ashy

18th Sep 2012, 12:17

The only sound, logistical idea is to expand Heathrow, it is an absolute no brainer. There will always be local opposition, that came with Manchester's new runway and it'll come with HS2 and it'll come with any project. As far as a cost effective, logistical and timely solution goes the only solution is a new LHR runway. The only thing stopping the government from going ahead with it is public opinion.

The Thames estuary airport is an engineering nightmare and will cost the taxpayer probably 100 times more than a new runway. Expansion of a current airport really does not solve any problems because the vast majority of people use LHR as their way into the UK as it has everything they need. The only possible solution to any capacity issue is LHR expansion, it is simply the only solution which meets all cost,transport links etc criteria.

DaveReidUK

18th Sep 2012, 12:27

The only thing stopping the government from going ahead with it is public opinion.

Well that and a 2015 General Election.

DaveReidUK

18th Sep 2012, 12:58

Worthy, if inevitably somewhat simplistic, article today on the BBC News website:

BBC News - Heathrow expansion: The alternatives to a third runway (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19570653)

Golf-Sierra

18th Sep 2012, 13:52

Those at fantasy Island would a great deal higher, they would have to be if investors were ever to obtain a return. So, one has to ask, how on earth would local airlines doing feeder flights afford the eye-wateringly high airport charges at Fantasy Island?

Well maybe the same way a loco can sell tickets for ten quid and still be profitable, i.e. look at marginal cost/revenue rather than average cost/revenue. Perhaps landing fees could vary depending on the passenger composition of the particular flight thus attracting feeder flights? Perhaps a pax with a 6 hour stopover who is likely to burn time and spending money at the shopping mall/food hall/ice rink/casino/aquatics center/Estuary Eye & Madam Tussauds experience is charged differently to the the one with a quick stopover. Perhaps single class flights (i.e. locos) can be charged differently then multi class flights?

I would also believe a designed from scratch airport would be far more efficient than one originally built in 1929 so operational costs should be lower.

As far as the cost/benefit of building the estuary airport bear in mind that there is an opportunity cost involved with the area suggested for R3 at Heathrow. If this area is planned for development and BAA already holds a stake in this area then surely enormous profit can be made through commercial development. Profit which would offset part of the cost of the island.

Dannyboy39

18th Sep 2012, 16:54

There is so much contrasting opinion amongst experts, decision makers, politicians etc, its going to be impossible to ascertain a common consensus in the medium term.

Heck, is there even a consensus on PPRuNe? Airport capacity is the $64,000 question.

Fairdealfrank

18th Sep 2012, 17:02

Quote: "Well maybe the same way a loco can sell tickets for ten quid and still be profitable, i.e. look at marginal cost/revenue rather than average cost/revenue. Perhaps landing fees could vary depending on the passenger composition of the particular flight thus attracting feeder flights? Perhaps a pax with a 6 hour stopover who is likely to burn time and spending money at the shopping mall/food hall/ice rink/casino/aquatics center/Estuary Eye & Madam Tussauds experience is charged differently to the the one with a quick stopover. Perhaps single class flights (i.e. locos) can be charged differently then multi class flights?

I would also believe a designed from scratch airport would be far more efficient than one originally built in 1929 so operational costs should be lower."

Indeed, all this could happen, but, realisticly, would it?

To repeat the point, obviously, investors have to see a return on their investment. There would need to be a hell of a lot of investment, so there can be no question that airport charges would be eye-wateringly high.

It is not a case of just covering costs, so it is not a question of whether Fantasy Island would be more efficient, and therefore cheaper for the airlines, than LHR or LGW.

However, before any of this could happen, there is one tiny detail that is always overlooked by supporters of the Fantasy Island idea: airlines would have to be persuaded to move, and that could prove difficult.

This is one of the many reasons why this is not a good business investment.....or are they expecting the government to pay?

On the beach

18th Sep 2012, 18:36

Reality Check

Even if a third runway gets the political nod in 2015 and UK plc manages to build said runway in 7 years, after public consultations, environmental impact studies, NIMBY protests etc, etc, we are still a runway short of a proper airport for another 10 years i.e. 2022.

Alternative 1. Thames Estuary International. Build time after public consultations, environmental impact studies, blah, blah, blah. 2022, at the earliest.

Alternative 2. And here I defer to statistics from the CAA:

Emirates offered direct Manchester-Dubai services, along with indirect routes via Frankfurt and Zurich in the 1990s, before adding Birmingham, Glasgow and Newcastle to its network between 2001 and 2007. In 2011, between UK regional airports and Dubai, Emirates offered a frequency of two departures from Manchester, two from Birmingham, and one each from Glasgow and Newcastle every day. Qatar Airways started daily Manchester-Doha flights in 2003, and Etihad has been operating daily departure flights between Manchester and Abu Dhabi since 2007. The frequency of both routes increased to around 10 weekly departures in 2011.
The number of passengers between UK regional airports and the Middle East hubs has been growing every year since 1997. The Gulf carriers’ share of passengers at regional airports grew from 26% in 2001 to 40% in 2011. Connections to these non-UK hubs provide UK regional passengers travelling to the Eastern hemisphere with alternatives to European or domestic hub airports.

The third runway for London Heathrow (aka the whole of the UK) is alive and well and living in Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Newcastle and all those supposed "regional" airports that have the 1st. World mentality to go out and grab an opportunity whilst Heathrow and it's third runway languish in a third world mentality.

Heathrow is no longer the only UK hub, it has competition from alternative UK Airport Authorities who have a 10 year head start to build on the "Dithering Southerners" to permanently demonstrate that theirs is a credible alternative.

Londoners, I suggest that you start to plan your future (well at least the next 10 years) business trips and even holidays hubbing via the "supposed" UK regional leaders. 'Cos, Heathrow is dead, thanks to political inactivity.

The evidence is clear to see.

jabird

18th Sep 2012, 18:54

Heathrow is dead, thanks to political inactivity

Heathrow is far from dead, especially for flights heading west - although APD and lack of pre-clearance not a good help when competing against DUB.

I have to admit I@m getting rather fed up with politicians coming up with pointless statements on this - who is the great genius of Cable to dictate airport policy, he is neither a Tory nor transport minister, nor an MP in the area affected.

Have any of this lot cared to ask what the airlines think.

Here's what I expect they'd hear:

BA & Beardie Air - (actually in agreement for once) - we want R3 NOW!
Easyjet - Gatters?
Ryanair - MOL wants runways at STN, LHR and LGW, but only on his terms (esp STN).
Jet2 - keep on bickering?
Thomson - Gatters?
Monarch - make best use of Luton first?
Thomas Cook - will we still be here by the time a new runway opens?
Emirates, Etihad, Turkish, Lufty, AF-KLM - keep bickering!
Flybe (bizarelly) - backing Boris Island (not Brum, one of their largest bases).

Fairdealfrank

18th Sep 2012, 21:08

Quote: "Reality Check

Even if a third runway gets the political nod in 2015 and UK plc manages to build said runway in 7 years, after public consultations, environmental impact studies, NIMBY protests etc, etc, we are still a runway short of a proper airport for another 10 years i.e. 2022."

UK PLC are not building the third rwy, BAA will be doing so. No public funding needed, so no taxpayers' money required.

No, once the go-ahead is received (and not revoked) the rwy will be built quite quickly.

Quote: "Alternative 1. Thames Estuary International. Build time after public consultations, environmental impact studies, blah, blah, blah. 2022, at the earliest."

Not a chance!

Quote: "Alternative 2. And here I defer to statistics from the CAA:

Emirates offered direct Manchester-Dubai services, along with indirect routes via Frankfurt and Zurich in the 1990s, before adding Birmingham, Glasgow and Newcastle to its network between 2001 and 2007. In 2011, between UK regional airports and Dubai, Emirates offered a frequency of two departures from Manchester, two from Birmingham, and one each from Glasgow and Newcastle every day. Qatar Airways started daily Manchester-Doha flights in 2003, and Etihad has been operating daily departure flights between Manchester and Abu Dhabi since 2007. The frequency of both routes increased to around 10 weekly departures in 2011.
The number of passengers between UK regional airports and the Middle East hubs has been growing every year since 1997. The Gulf carriers’ share of passengers at regional airports grew from 26% in 2001 to 40% in 2011. Connections to these non-UK hubs provide UK regional passengers travelling to the Eastern hemisphere with alternatives to European or domestic hub airports.

The third runway for London Heathrow (aka the whole of the UK) is alive and well and living in Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Newcastle and all those supposed "regional" airports that have the 1st. World mentality to go out and grab an opportunity whilst Heathrow and it's third runway languish in a third world mentality.

Heathrow is no longer the only UK hub, it has competition from alternative UK Airport Authorities who have a 10 year head start to build on the "Dithering Southerners" to permanently demonstrate that theirs is a credible alternative.

Londoners, I suggest that you start to plan your future (well at least the next 10 years) business trips and even holidays hubbing via the "supposed" UK regional leaders. 'Cos, Heathrow is dead, thanks to political inactivity.

The evidence is clear to see."

Hardly the "third rwys", these are important international airports in their own right, although obviously not in the same intercontinental league as LHR.

BHX, GLA (PIK before GLA was built), and MAN used to be secondary hubs for BA and its predecessors, and would be contenders if an airline decided to establish a UK hub outside LHR (or any other of the "London" airports).

It is therefore wrong to imply that LHR was always the UK's only hub.

From your comments and the piece from the CAA, how do you conclude that LHR is dead?

70,000,000 pax say otherwise, and as they say: "70,000,000 pax can't be wrong"!

Let's face it, it's not as if the 70,000,000 pax don't have other choices!

Quote: "Heathrow is far from dead, especially for flights heading west - although APD and lack of pre-clearance not a good help when competing against DUB."

APD is a killer for flights going in all directions from all UK airports.

US pre-clearance at DUB could become a good selling point, a potential advantage for EI perhaps?

Quote: "I have to admit I@m getting rather fed up with politicians coming up with pointless statements on this - who is the great genius of Cable to dictate airport policy, he is neither a Tory nor transport minister, nor an MP in the area affected."

Indeed, Cable's constituency, Twickenham, is slightly nearer to LHR than Goldsmith's, and equally unaffected by a 3rd rwy.

He's toe-ing the Libdem line: "no new rwys in the south-east - ever".

Quote: "Have any of this lot cared to ask what the airlines think.

Here's what I expect they'd hear:

BA & Beardie Air - (actually in agreement for once) - we want R3 NOW!
Easyjet - Gatters?
Ryanair - MOL wants runways at STN, LHR and LGW, but only on his terms (esp STN).
Jet2 - keep on bickering?
Thomson - Gatters?
Monarch - make best use of Luton first?
Thomas Cook - will we still be here by the time a new runway opens?
Emirates, Etihad, Turkish, Lufty, AF-KLM - keep bickering!
Flybe (bizarelly) - backing Boris Island (not Brum, one of their largest bases)."

Suspect that U2 and BE would also be happy with a third (and fourth) rwy at LHR as it would free up LGW slots for them as all the longhaul, all the LGW-based BA and all the LGW-based VS migrated to LHR. It also would make some LHR slots affordable/free for them in the unlikely event that they ever wanted to start up there.

FR probably doesn't care as there is more than enough capacity for them at STN, although O'Leary is on record of supporting (demanding?) extra rwys at LHR, LGW and STN.

LS aren't in the south-east so probably not bothered.

BE backing Fantasy Island is indeed bizarre: they may get some free slots, but they'd never afford the eye-wateringly high airport charges that will inevitably have to be levied there (to enable investors to obtain some sort of return).

Golf-Sierra

18th Sep 2012, 21:36

Indeed, all this could happen, but, realisticly, would it?

It would require very innovative thinking. You can't just compare R3 1:1 with Thames Estuary. The former is a patch, the latter is planting a seed which can grow well into the 21st and maybe even the 22nd century. Can the UK live up to the legacy of names/projects such as e.g. Babbage, Stephenson, Whittle, Radar, Concorde, Harrier, Channel Tunnel? There may have been ups and downs, but the UK has very often been at the forefront of technological innovation.

To repeat the point, obviously, investors have to see a return on their investment. There would need to be a hell of a lot of investment, so there can be no question that airport charges would be eye-wateringly high.

Maybe the level of investment is grossly overstated? Maybe some innovative thinking is needed to make this affordable? Is building a fairly big floating concrete pontoon in the middle of nowhere really that much more expensive than laying an equivalent concrete slab between the A4 and M4? Is laying some rail track and motorway on otherwise useless land really that expensive?

Finally - when this investment project goes forward, would any global airline dare not to fly to the most modern and innovative airport in Europe? That would be commercial suicide.

The Ancient Geek

18th Sep 2012, 22:49

One point missing here is that Boris Island could probably be paid for by selling off all of that nice valuable west london land currently occupied by LHR for redevelopment.

Property developers would happily pay a substantial up front deposit as soon as the island is started for the promise of getting their hands on the ex-LHR land the day after the new airport opens.

fireflybob

18th Sep 2012, 23:03

The Channel Tunnel was a huge investment but it was built.

So what's stopping us building a new airport?

Fairdealfrank

19th Sep 2012, 01:07

Quote: "Finally - when this investment project goes forward, would any global airline dare not to fly to the most modern and innovative airport in Europe? That would be commercial suicide."

(1) BA and IB for one. IAG have stated categorically that they are not leaving LHR. Other carriers will follow suit to prevent BA and IB from having a competitive advantage.

(2) Probably the same carriers that refused to use Montreal's white elephant, Mirabel (YMQ).

Quote: "One point missing here is that Boris Island could probably be paid for by selling off all of that nice valuable west london land currently occupied by LHR for redevelopment.

Property developers would happily pay a substantial up front deposit as soon as the island is started for the promise of getting their hands on the ex-LHR land the day after the new airport opens."

You're making the assumption that BAA would be willing to sell, any evidence to support this assertion? Having put in a great deal of investment into LHR recently and continuing to do so does not give the impression of a company about to sell its most profitable asset!

Quote: "The Channel Tunnel was a huge investment but it was built."

One subtle difference: it is the first and only Channel tunnel, we already have a world hub airport handling 70,000,000 pax.

Quote: "So what's stopping us building a new airport?"

In this particular case? It's a bad business proposition.

fireflybob

19th Sep 2012, 01:16

One subtle difference: it is the first and only Channel tunnel, we already have a world hub airport handling 70,000,000 pax.

We already had lots of boats and aircraft carrying people across the Channel!

DaveReidUK

19th Sep 2012, 06:26

IAG have stated categorically that they are not leaving LHR.

You don't say.

No carrier will voluntarily move its operations from an operational LHR to a Thames Estuary airport, given a choice. But that's not what this is about.

Nobody, as far as I'm aware, is proposing a scenario where both airports will continue to operate in parallel - so we're not talking about a Mirabel/Dorval situation.

You state, at every opportunity, your view that the Government will not be able to bring about the closure of Heathrow and its replacement by an estuary airport.

Others, myself included, take the view that, while BAA/Ferrovial will undoubtedly have to be dragged, screaming, through the courts, there are ways and means available to any government to make strategic changes like this happen.

Those are simply two different points of view, so why don't we just all agree to differ, and move on.

Andy_S

19th Sep 2012, 07:16

IAG have stated categorically that they are not leaving LHR.

What they've actually said is that they won't be moving to Boris Island or any other new hub while LHR remains open........

Torquelink

19th Sep 2012, 09:18

The parallel with the Chunnel is a good one. As has been stated, there were plenty of ferries and unlike LHR they weren't reaching capacity. The Chunnel was seen to be a political necessity and got built at a price way over budget. Original investors were practically wiped out but, today, no-one would suggest that it was not a good idea, that it is not a vital part of the transport infrastructure and will last a 100+ years. And, in this case, the ferries continue to run.

The estuary airport should be seen in the same light. It is something that will be required to last for 50 -100+ years and should be seen as a national project combining public and private funds appropriately. Can anybody seriously imagine what LHR would be like - even with a third runway - in 50 or even 20 years? Of course LHR would have to close to make it viable (i.e. the ferries stopped in this instance) and the compensation etc worked out but, one way or another Ferrovial could / would be involved in the development of the new airport and would reralise substantial sums from the redevelopment of LHR.

If, as has been stated, a new and much larger barrage has to be built across the Thames to prevent flooding then surely a reasonable portion of the new airport infrastructure costs can be shared with that project: if you are building a structure across the estuary anyway - it can't be that difficult to stick a railway line on top.

When the Vitctorian's built the UK's railways they were building for the distant future - we need to do the same now.

green granite

19th Sep 2012, 10:11

However, before any of this could happen, there is one tiny detail that is always overlooked by supporters of the Fantasy Island idea: airlines would have to be persuaded to move, and that could prove difficult.

This is one of the many reasons why this is not a good business investment.

So you build Boris Island and then designate Heathrow as a freight hub and Maintenance base. Any freight brought in on passenger A/C can be sent by rail to Heathrow.

DaveReidUK

19th Sep 2012, 10:31

and then designate Heathrow as a freight hub and Maintenance base

That would be a colossal waste of resources.

Heathrow currently gets around 24 main-deck freighter movements per week. Even if carriers moved other freight services from Stansted, Luton and Gatwick, that wouldn't cover the direct cost of running Heathrow, let alone the opportunity cost.

Ancient Observer

19th Sep 2012, 10:36

Heathrow is a dump. It is not, and never will be a modern airport.

It is in the wrong place, is badly designed, and is useless in a modern world.
It is a 3rd world airport.

Anyone who thinks lhr is any good should go to Dubai and Hong Kong to see a modern airport.

So, it needs to go. Build Boris Island, or some other place out to the east, and convert lhr in to a business park and a housing estate.

If it is just money that is the issue, nothing that a little bit of Quantitative easing cannot fix.

Walnut

19th Sep 2012, 14:40

I agree with Ancient Observer, IF a new short r/w is built, which is only usable to S/H a/c, then it is not going to give the flexability a modern hub airport eg HKG DXB SIN etc offers. All movements from the short r/w will have to cross 27R/09L unless they are restricted to the NEW 6th terminal.
This new terminal in itself adds a further complexity, with further ground links to other parts of the a/p. Only by starting afresh with one large terminal are you going to cut down on the ground movement chaos which will ensure. Even now LHR is a bewildering place for the occasional traveller. So yes lets start again,, most other countries manage it why can't the UK?

PAXboy

19th Sep 2012, 17:15

fireflybobThe Channel Tunnel was a huge investment but it was built.And went bust, having to be rescued by the public purse.

It does not (and as far as I know, never has) run at full capacity because the LCCs arrived and changed the game for the whole world. What if the LCCs had already existed? Would it have been built?

TorguelinkWhen the Vitctorian's built the UK's railways they were building for the distant future - we need to do the same now.And went bust, having to be rescued by the public purse.

to repeat myself I agree that LHR is very poor and that R3 will not improve it. But it will remain the UK hub airport for the next 50 years for reasons already stated by myself and others.

fireflybob

19th Sep 2012, 17:19

And went bust, having to be rescued by the public purse.

If as a nation we are to remain competitive there are some things which need to be funded from the public purse.

Also assuming we are still in the United States of Europe, I mean the EU, some of the funding would surely come from the EU purse, after all we have paid enough into the kitty?

stephenkeane

19th Sep 2012, 19:19

:8The reason the Government (tory and liberals) don't want Heathrow expansion is simple, votes! Politicians want one thing to get elected, and fulfill their ambition for power. They are not interested in the long term economy of the country, just getting elected! There are a lot of marginal constituencies around Heathrow, so if you tell the voters no 3rd runway vote for me........The fact that Frankfurt has 4 runways never mind 3 says it all. That's why U.K. is falling behind in terms of hub growth, and most other long term economic plans, because of useless politicians. So the jobs go elsewhere, they trash everything then blame something else e.g. last Government, global downturn etc etc.

stephenkeane

19th Sep 2012, 19:23

Why not expand Stansted to a 4 runway airport? It's close to London, geographically the right side of the city (i.e. accessible from the Midlands as well as the South East), not constrained by urban sprawl and already has links to the motorway and railway networks.

It's called NIMBY ism, too many tory voters would object, see me reply re getting votes.

Loose rivets

19th Sep 2012, 20:02

I waited my entire career for Stansted to get going. Finally, I was flying from there, but too old to enjoy it.:rolleyes:

The thing is, the runways suggested would really have to be pointing the same way as the existing . . . wouldn't they? The continuous requirement to avoid annoying the residents of Bishops Stortford means one can never realign the runways in a veering kind of way, and SID turns would be severely limited immediately after takeoff to the west.

Runway heading has us seeing Harlow on the port side in about 7 st miles - closely followed by Greater London. Luton ahead at 23 miles-ish if a turn onto west is made after Bishops Stortford. The trouble with the south of England, is that there is not a heck of a lot of true open space.

Then again, the issue of dragging more and more hardware over the city is something I've always been uncomfortable with. London is one of those places that doesn't offer many areas thump a double engine failure into.

Let's face it, the last one making the grass was a combination of skilled use of flaps, and a lot of luck.

Still, we've been saying it has its dangers for over 40 years, always with fingers tightly crossed, but should we just assume we can fill the skies with yet more metal over millions of people's heads, and just assume that's okay?

Fairdealfrank

19th Sep 2012, 21:08

Quote: "they are not leaving LHR. You don't say.

No carrier will voluntarily move its operations from an operational LHR to a Thames Estuary airport, given a choice. But that's not what this is about."

Exactly, and they cannot be forced to.

Quote: "Nobody, as far as I'm aware, is proposing a scenario where both airports will continue to operate in parallel - so we're not talking about a Mirabel/Dorval situation."

Dorval continued as a domestic only airport until the government conceded defeat on Mirabel and allowed international flights back to Dorval.

If as you state "Nobody, as far as I'm aware, is proposing a scenario where both airports will continue to operate in parallel", then reality has gone out of the window!

Quote: "You state, at every opportunity, your view that the Government will not be able to bring about the closure of Heathrow and its replacement by an estuary airport."

Because it is true, unless you are seriously suggesting some sort of compulsory purchase? Such action would cost millions of taxpayers' money in compensation for BAA and millions in litigation. The government won't go down that road, at least half it actually favours LHR expansion!

Don't think for a minute that a compulsory purchase order would not be challenged in the courts.

Quote: "Others, myself included, take the view that, while BAA/Ferrovial will undoubtedly have to be dragged, screaming, through the courts, there are ways and means available to any government to make strategic changes like this happen."

Other way around in the unlikely event that the government were to adopt this course of action (see above).

This is not the 1950s/1960s/1970s: the government no longer owns the aviation industry. You can argue the pros and cons of the policy of privatisation and deregulation, but it is not about to change.

It is for this reason that the government cannot just close Heathrow at a stroke.

Quote: "The parallel with the Chunnel is a good one. As has been stated, there were plenty of ferries and unlike LHR they weren't reaching capacity. The Chunnel was seen to be a political necessity and got built at a price way over budget. Original investors were practically wiped out but, today, no-one would suggest that it was not a good idea, that it is not a vital part of the transport infrastructure and will last a 100+ years. And, in this case, the ferries continue to run."

Isn't that a good reason for potential investors to stay away, Torquelink, to learn from others' bad experiences?

Quote: "Heathrow is a dump. It is not, and never will be a modern airport.

It is in the wrong place, is badly designed, and is useless in a modern world.
It is a 3rd world airport."
Yes, a lot of people say that, on the other hand 70,000,000 pax use it each year, and let's face it, there's plenty of choice.

Quote: "Anyone who thinks lhr is any good should go to Dubai and Hong Kong to see a modern airport.

So, it needs to go. Build Boris Island, or some other place out to the east, and convert lhr in to a business park and a housing estate.

If it is just money that is the issue, nothing that a little bit of Quantitative easing cannot fix.

LHR is as good/bad as CDG and FRA, in fact it's a whole lot better than CDG, now that really is a dump - a busy one admitedly!

No more QE thank you, enough already!

Quote: "The reason the Government (tory and liberals) don't want Heathrow expansion is simple, votes! Politicians want one thing to get elected, and fulfill their ambition for power. They are not interested in the long term economy of the country, just getting elected! There are a lot of marginal constituencies around Heathrow, so if you tell the voters no 3rd runway vote for me........The fact that Frankfurt has 4 runways never mind 3 says it all. That's why U.K. is falling behind in terms of hub growth, and most other long term economic plans, because of useless politicians. So the jobs go elsewhere, they trash everything then blame something else e.g. last Government, global downturn etc etc."

To suggest that the fate of marginal constituencies under the Heathrow flightpath will be determined on a decison (or not) about Heathrow expansion is risable, and reveals an ignorance of voting patterns.

People rarely vote on single issues which is why the Greens, BNP and UKIP and various independents do badly in elections.

There are exceptions, of course, but they are few, Martin Bell on an anti-sleaze platform in Tatton and an anti-hospital closures candidate (forget his name) in Kidderminster are two examples, plus Caroline Lucas in Brighton. Perhaps this is why the anti airport lobby have never put up candidates(?).

No, like the rest of the country, electors will vote on issues such as the economy, whether they think that they and the country will be better off, how useless the present opposition is, etc., etc..

Quote: "Why not expand Stansted to a 4 runway airport? It's close to London, geographically the right side of the city (i.e. accessible from the Midlands as well as the South East), not constrained by urban sprawl and already has links to the motorway and railway networks.

It's called NIMBY ism, too many tory voters would object, see me reply re getting votes."

Because
(1) it's no where near its capacity, in fact it's contracting;
(2) like Fantasy Island, airlines and pax cannot be persuaded to use it;
(3) location, location, location!

jabird

19th Sep 2012, 22:49

Let's agree to disagree

Normally I see a white flag fluttering alongside that statement, but actually, let's keep disagreeing. Compared to the Fantasy Island thread on AA&R, this one actually has quite an interesting discussion, and a few more people prepared to back it.

However, I'm not one of them:

It would require very innovative thinking

Not really. This airport has been proposed many times before, and rejected on each occassion. All that has happened now is that one of our leading architects has come up with a specific layout proposal, although on closer inspection, it looks far too much like a C&P job from HKG.

legacy of names/projects such as <snip> Concorde, Channel Tunnel?

The former was a vanity project approved by a champagne socialist in the name of the champagne quaffing rich, however beautiful she was.

The latter is indeed a remarkable feat of engineering, but not a good investment.

Is building a fairly big floating concrete pontoon in the middle of nowhere really that much more expensive than laying an equivalent concrete slab between the A4 and M4?

Err - did you hear the one about the concrete life jacket?

We're talking four runways + foundations + terminal complexes, and you are comparing that with one short runway and one long taxiway?

it is the first and only Channel tunnel

It is the first and only completed Channel tunnel, several false starts.

we're not talking about a Mirabel/Dorval situation.

No, Fantasy Island is worse, because it would have to be privately funded. This raises the prospect of it either not being completed, or needing a massive bailout before opening - and all that is long before anyone gets round to answering the question of what a typical PSC might be at the new airport.

Also, Mirabel was just supposed to replace Dorval, LGW, LCY, STN & LTN would still be open.

no-one would suggest that it (Chunnel) was not a good idea

Lots of people would. Economist has done expose on this, pointing out the lack of ROI. Any of the nimbys and fiscal conservatives who opposed it at the time will now be saying they were vindicated.

I will admit to being pro high speed rail in theory, but in reality, when I tried to book Eurostar to go to Paris in March and include a stop in Lille, it was just too complex. For most people in the Midlands, it is still easier to fly as the network is still not properly joined up.

will last a 100+ years

Unfortunately, in net present value accounting terms, 100 years is an eternity.

It does not (and as far as I know, never has) run at full capacity because the LCCs arrived and changed the game for the whole world.

I don't think that is the biggest reason. Eurostar still carries more than all airlines combined on LON > PAR / BRU - but then so it should! How many loco routes are there in these city pairs? Largely just Easy on LTN-CDG?

However, the Locos may have decreased people's expectation of how much the train should cost, thus bringing down yields.

I suspect that the real reason why the whole Eurotunnel project has not been a financial success is that the projections of passenger numbers were over stated (as they are for modal shift from air to HS2), and the costs were under-stated - as they tend to be on major engineering projects, because there are always unquantifiable risks.

Can anybody seriously imagine what LHR would be like - even with a third runway - in 50 or even 20 years?

Yes I can - quite possibly just like it is now, a bit busier, a bit fatter, don't think anyone says it is perfect but it is the least bad option.

I don't think there is any reason to automatically assume the airline industry will keep growing exponentially anyway - just as there are reasons for growth, there are also significant negative factors beyond the economic ebbs and flows - cost of fuel, teleconferencing and environmental concerns for starters.

green granite

20th Sep 2012, 07:35

Not really. This airport has been proposed many times before, and rejected on each occassion. All that has happened now is that one of our leading architects has come up with a specific layout proposal, although on closer inspection, it looks far too much like a C&P job from HKG.

Wrong, there has only been one enquiry that looked building an airport in the Thames Estuary and that was the Roskill Committee. The more recent proposals have not been subject to any formal government investigation or consideration and have not therefore been rejected, they have just had a few words mumbled about them and then ignored which is not the same thing.

Torquelink

20th Sep 2012, 10:22

PaxBoy / Frank:

An estuary airport will never be built by private funds alone - way too much and way too long term for a commercial return. The public purse is going to get involved one way or another and for a nationally important infrastructure project so it should - especially if it's going to have to build a barrage anyway. Some projects just are not suited to commercial funds - railways, tunnels, airports, Olympic sites and, I suspect, nuclear power stations being among them. At some point, governments will have to recognise the fact.

Jabird: you may be right but if in 20 - 50 years time, LHR is still soldiering on: a bit fatter, a bit busier it will mean that London and the City will be well on the way to becoming irrelevant backwaters. That is, of course, a valid option but I don't think it's what the majority of our descendents who will have to earn a crust in an increasingly competitive world will want.

Piltdown Man

20th Sep 2012, 14:48

LHR is really about the future of BA. BA will not be able to expand with the constraints imposed by LHR's infrastructure. And when ever there is spare capacity, it always seems as if it goes to BA's competitors. LHR is not, and probably never will be, big enough to enable BA to be the airline would like to be. Its only solution is to move to somewhere else. Let the dinosaurs remain at LHR. The ideal location for anew airport would be on the north west coast of the UK, located on a through railway line or regional terminus. Run high speed trains to all points of the Britain and create an in-train check-in. Then allow LHR to come the airport it should be - a small regional one located in a pointless location or better than that, a housing estate full of people who keeping complaining about the lack of noise.

What will actually happen? Eventually (15 years?), maybe another runway will be built. But that still won't be enough - taxi and waiting times to cross active runways times between the new, third runway and parking positions will make it all but useless. By then, CDR, AMS, DUS, FRA and maybe even BRU will have left LHR in the dust.

Dannyboy39

20th Sep 2012, 16:15

Wrong, there has only been one enquiry that looked building an airport in the Thames Estuary and that was the Roskill Committee. The more recent proposals have not been subject to any formal government investigation or consideration and have not therefore been rejected, they have just had a few words mumbled about them and then ignored which is not the same thing.

Marinair
Cliffe
Maplin Sands
Boris Island

More than one scheme. And they've all been rejected for one reason - DOSH! And that's never going to change.

Ancient Observer

20th Sep 2012, 16:36

Even with Runways 3 and 4, lhr just will not do. Wrong place, bad design and etc.

People such as BA and their pax only use it because they have to.

Build Boris island.

TopBunk

20th Sep 2012, 17:00

I am firmly in the Heathrow expansion corner as it is the hub that is the most important factor for the benefit of UK plc. I also believe that the UK needs to think strategically for the longer term, something which the politicians have failed in for decades.

My plan therefore would be to:

1. Build a third runway at Heathrow asap, to serve domestic (poss UK + Ireland) traffic. As I understand it, LHR has about 480,000 movements pa of which ~66,000 are UK+I.

If these were moved to Rwy 3/T6, then all arrivals and departures would be from/to the north and not need to involve routine runway crossings and minimise SID/STAR conflicts.

66,000 movements pa equates to about 180 per day (90 dep + 90 arr) or about 12 per hour spread evenly over 15 hours, allowing for increased domestic routes if desired, achieving better access to the regions.

The capacity released would facilitate massive expansion worldwide using the present runways.

2. Recognising that LHR is not viable indefinitely, in parallel a longterm solution for a 4,5 or 6 runway replacement hub airport should begin in the Thames estuary or wherever. When it is finally built, LHR should be closed, as was Kai Tak.

What is most important is for the politicians to think beyond the next election for a change and come up with a strategy that is best for UK plc as a whole. But for me, to preserve any chance of maintaining our role as a major world hub, we need to build rwy 3 soonest.

Fairdealfrank

20th Sep 2012, 20:39

Quote: "I suspect that the real reason why the whole Eurotunnel project has not been a financial success is that the projections of passenger numbers were over stated (as they are for modal shift from air to HS2), and the costs were under-stated - as they tend to be on major engineering projects, because there are always unquantifiable risks."

Indeed, and will be the same with Fantasy Island.

Quote: "An estuary airport will never be built by private funds alone - way too much and way too long term for a commercial return. The public purse is going to get involved one way or another and for a nationally important infrastructure project so it should - especially if it's going to have to build a barrage anyway. Some projects just are not suited to commercial funds - railways, tunnels, airports, Olympic sites and, I suspect, nuclear power stations being among them. At some point, governments will have to recognise the fact."

Governments know this, they also aware of the stick they will get for approving a yet another private sector undertaking that ends up being bailed out (it's too soon after the Channel Tunnel, various banks, etc.).

Could this be why all the fantasy island proposals, going back to 1958, have been ignored by sucessive governments?

Quote: "Even with Runways 3 and 4, lhr just will not do. Wrong place, bad design and etc.

People such as BA and their pax only use it because they have to.

Build Boris island."

Not so, BA are in no hurry to go: they have stated quite catergorically that they will not leave LHR. Why should they? When cutting costs, why pile a load of unnecessary costs on the business?

The same applies to VS, and indeed, any carrier using LHR, especially those that have paid millions for slots, which is most of them.

Apart from that, if BA won't leave, nor will the rest, they would not want to leave BA with such a competitive advantage.

Pax have plenty of choice: AMS is only 217 mi. from LHR and linked to over 20 UK airports. Ditto DUB at 288 mi. from LHR, plus there's CDG and FRA for those who want an "LHR bypass".

Yet 70,000,000 pax use LHR, a success story by any account, and this success is being stifled.

Quote: "2. Recognising that LHR is not viable indefinitely, in parallel a longterm solution for a 4,5 or 6 runway replacement hub airport should begin in the Thames estuary or wherever. When it is finally built, LHR should be closed, as was Kai Tak."

Who owned Kai Tak? Who owns Heathrow?

Exactly. How many times: Heathrow cannot be closed without the owners' agreement, or with millions of taxpayers' money wasted on compensation and years of litigation.

Quote: "What is most important is for the politicians to think beyond the next election for a change and come up with a strategy that is best for UK plc as a whole. But for me, to preserve any chance of maintaining our role as a major world hub, we need to build rwy 3 soonest."

Yes, and rwy 4 soon after.

Fairdealfrank

20th Sep 2012, 20:56

Quote: "Those are simply two different points of view, so why don't we just all agree to differ, and move on."

Quote: "Normally I see a white flag fluttering alongside that statement, but actually, let's keep disagreeing. Compared to the Fantasy Island thread on AA&R, this one actually has quite an interesting discussion, and a few more people prepared to back it."

It's very reminiscent of the street-preachers and their ilk. Usually after being confounded by logic and finding themselves on the losing side of an argument/discussion, they terminate the conversation with the words "you've got to have faith".

DaveReidUK

20th Sep 2012, 22:21

Usually after being confounded by logic and finding themselves on the losing side of an argument/discussion

I don't think anyone has won or lost any argument.

We have simply expressed different opinions on what may or not be possible/likely at some indeterminate point in the future.

And when some indeterminate point in the future arrives, we'll know who was right. :ugh:

Heathrow Harry

21st Sep 2012, 12:53

fairdeal frank wrote:-

Quote: "they are not leaving LHR. You don't say.

No carrier will voluntarily move its operations from an operational LHR to a Thames Estuary airport, given a choice. But that's not what this is about."

Exactly, and they cannot be forced to.

they may change their minds on final approach when the place is covered in 100,000 houses

FullWings

21st Sep 2012, 13:34

they may change their minds on final approach when the place is covered in 100,000 houses
Long before that they'll have gone elsewhere, not necessarily in the UK. BA's transfer traffic was approaching 50% in 2007 - if you're going to be forced into an airport in the North Sea somewhere, why not go a further 30 miles to another country, maybe one which is expanding existing airports and has no APD...?

The UK is in danger of being marginalised in Europe because of airport capacity and taxation. If nothing is done, we'll become the equivalent of the station at the end of the branch line, with shuttles by air/train/coach to mainland hubs.

Fairdealfrank

21st Sep 2012, 15:52

quote: "I don't think anyone has won or lost any argument.

We have simply expressed different opinions on what may or not be possible/likely at some indeterminate point in the future.

And when some indeterminate point in the future arrives, we'll know who was right."

Agreed of course, DaveReidUK, plenty of discussion yet to be had, and a good job too. Let's hope that when the indeterminate point in the future arrives, we are all still alive!

quote: "Long before that they'll have gone elsewhere, not necessarily in the UK. BA's transfer traffic was approaching 50% in 2007 - if you're going to be forced into an airport in the North Sea somewhere, why not go a further 30 miles to another country, maybe one which is expanding existing airports and has no APD...?

The UK is in danger of being marginalised in Europe because of airport capacity and taxation. If nothing is done, we'll become the equivalent of the station at the end of the branch line, with shuttles by air/train/coach to mainland hubs."

Good point, FullWings, had forgotten about it momentarily: current (and future?) levels of APD are playing an equally important part in destroying the UK aviation industry.

jabird

23rd Sep 2012, 20:30

Until yesterday I at least thought there was a theoretical chance Gatwick could be used as a second hub.

Then my brother, who lives in Ealing, killed the argument dead. He said he and his mrs were staying overnight in a hotel near the airport for an early morning flight the next day - public transport to the airport was just too much hassle for them.

From Ealing?

V_2

23rd Sep 2012, 22:15

Well if Gatwick became a "perfect hub", why would public transport matter as all the pax would be transiting...?

jabird

24th Sep 2012, 21:26

Well if Gatwick became a "perfect hub", why would public transport matter as all the pax would be transiting...?

I said second, never perfect! Two entirely different concepts :=

Even if Gatwick, Fantasy Island, BHX, or Blackpool (NW coast)??? - were to become the biggest hub in Europe at the time of opening, you still need to deal with O&D traffic. There is no airport in the world that only operates on a hub basis with ZERO O&D. There are two railway stations in the British Isles that work this way, but they are very unique cases!

Even if we take somewhere like DXB as your definition of a "perfect hub" - on the basis it has 380s coming in from Europe and 380s going straight out to east Asia and Australasia, aswell as smaller a/c - there is still a significant city that has been built on the back of this airport existing.

And when some indeterminate point in the future arrives, we'll know who was right.

Well actually, that also translates as "let's agree to disagree". You can't make policy based on saying "let's see who is right in 20 years". We have to look at what we've got now, what we're likely to need, and the best ways of meeting that need.

there has only been one enquiry that looked building an airport in the Thames Estuary

I never said enquiry, I just said proposed and rejected. The 2003 White Paper quite clearly included Cliffe as an option, and rejected it very strongly.

it will mean that London and the City will be well on the way to becoming irrelevant backwaters

Please re-read what I said. My point was that aviation as an industry isn't going to keep growing forever, and certainly not in its current form.

The cost of fuel, and the pollution it causes are two huge challenges the industry faces. My personal view is that in the long run, the market for flights within the mature European and North American markets will grow slower than the rest of the economy. The emerging markets will continue to emerge, but they will still only make up a small proportion of the pie.

Now this is where there is an element of crystal ball gazing, but we have to go with the trends we know are happening. A third runway at LHR would allow for an element of growth, whilst the other airports could also continue to handle the loco traffic.

Ernest Lanc's

24th Sep 2012, 21:50

Had David Cameron won an outright majority in the last election...IMO plans would now be underway for a third runway at Heathrow..

He would not have been able to stand up to his backbenchers who want the extension..Simply because he would have not had the Liberal baggage round his neck, and running scared of a coalition split if Cameron now backs a third runway at Heathrow.

He used this as an excuse to silence the pro extension faction.

In the very unlikely event that Cameron or his successor wins outright in the next election, you IMO can bet Heathrow will get it's runway..Reason is all the other alternatives are crackers, like the floating runways.

There will be another coalition most probably after the next general election..Heavens knows what the make up of the UK government may be.

If the leaning is left of middle(Liberal) - Heathrow won't get it's runway, Boris has no chance with his riverport..So that will IMO leave the UK falling behind in world aviation.

The decision on Heathrow's third runway, or for that matter any major scheme like Boris island, won't be based on the need for more capacity - it will be based solely for political expediency.

Point of my post..While we have the current political set up. I can't see any appetite for upsetting London voters.

I could be wrong though, who knows what News 24 may tell us tomorrow:(

Goes without saying - i think the only viable solution to this argument that benefits London and the UK is general in time.Is a third runway at Heathrow.

DaveReidUK

25th Sep 2012, 06:19

Reason is all the other alternatives are crackers, like the floating runways.

Make up your mind.

Are all the other alternatives crackers ? Or specifically floating runways ?

Ernest Lanc's

25th Sep 2012, 07:07

Make up your mind.

Are all the other alternatives crackers ? Or specifically floating runways ?

I think you know what I mean..Specifically the floating runways..Not far behind, expanding other airport such as Gatwick, or wherever.

The floating runways are a none starter IMO,and expanding any airport has it's own problems..So it may as well be Heathrow.

As you well know DaveReidUK - The main point of my post was that supply and demand would no enter the equation..Heathrow is little more than a political football.

if any other alternatives to expansion at Heathrow is viable. then I would be the first to want to know which and why - DaveReidUK.

With respect..I suggest you look at my post, then look at the real world..Then tell me why decisions on Heathrow..Are not politically motivated.

DaveReidUK

25th Sep 2012, 07:33

The floating runways are a none starter IMO, and expanding any airport has it's own problems..So it may as well be Heathrow.

Sorry, your conclusion doesn't logically follow from your premises.

You could equally well have written:

"The floating runways are a none starter IMO [agreed]

and expanding any airport has it's own problems.. [agreed]

So it may as well be a new (non-floating) airport in the Thames Estuary".

Fairdealfrank

26th Sep 2012, 11:01

Quote: "Had David Cameron won an outright majority in the last election...IMO plans would now be underway for a third runway at Heathrow..

He would not have been able to stand up to his backbenchers who want the extension..Simply because he would have not had the Liberal baggage round his neck, and running scared of a coalition split if Cameron now backs a third runway at Heathrow.

He used this as an excuse to silence the pro extension faction.

In the very unlikely event that Cameron or his successor wins outright in the next election, you IMO can bet Heathrow will get it's runway..Reason is all the other alternatives are crackers, like the floating runways."

Exactly right and no contradiction. All the other proposals are either nonsense, or won't address the problem, i.e. the country's hub operating at 99+% capacity, or both.

Don't think Cameron is neccessarily against a third rwy, especially as the alternative is a greenfield site near his constituency. The vanity project fantasy island stands no chance. Cameron gives the impression of a man dead scared of the Libdems "walking", so appeases them at every opportunity.

We all know that the Libdems are going nowhere, it's their first sniff of governent for 100 years! Cameron is obviously scared rigid of leading a minority government. Who knows why, it would have been the most sensible way forward.

Quote: "There will be another coalition most probably after the next general election..Heavens knows what the make up of the UK government may be."

What a depressing thought. No, please, no more coalitions!

Heathrow Harry

26th Sep 2012, 14:13

Given current polls the next Govt will be either Labour or a Labour/Lib Dem coalition

not much chance of LHR expansion there then

Dannyboy39

26th Sep 2012, 16:33

I very much doubt Labour would go into a Coalition with the Lib Dems, considering how they've sold out to the Tories this time around. It'll either be a minority government and/or another election.

Barling Magna

26th Sep 2012, 17:51

Now that the Conservatives aren't going to be able to change the electoral boundaries and reduce the seats in the Commons the likelihood is a Labour victory at the moment, with an implosion of Lib Dem seats. Since Labour supported the 3rd runway when last in government it wouldn't take much to support it again. But Eddie boy is more left wing than Blair and Brown were, so who knows......

Rabina

26th Sep 2012, 18:56

Bring back Catalinas and Empire flying boats to the reservoirs.

Fairdealfrank

26th Sep 2012, 19:42

Quote: "Given current polls the next Govt will be either Labour or a Labour/Lib Dem coalition"

Unlikely to be an early election, so much can change in the next few years.

Quote: "I very much doubt Labour would go into a Coalition with the Lib Dems, considering how they've sold out to the Tories this time around. It'll either be a minority government and/or another election."

It would be difficult for Libdem credibility, they would have to reverse policies that they were instrumental in creating.

Two examples off the top of my head: the NHS reforms and the monumental waste of time and money that is elected police commissioners, neither of which would not have been possible without Libdem acquiesence.

It would also be difficult for Labour. They have, and will, ram the message home that the Libdems are "the Conservatives little helpers", which of course they are. "Vote Libdem, elect a Tory", etc.etc.. Also how could Labour keep a discredited party, recently rejected by the electorate, in power?

Labour approved LHR expansion before, they could easily reverse the Conservative reversal of their origianl decision, especially if Howard Davies's commission favours this.

Phew, finally got back on the thread.

Quote: "Now that the Conservatives aren't going to be able to change the electoral boundaries and reduce the seats in the Commons the likelihood is a Labour victory at the moment, with an implosion of Lib Dem seats. Since Labour supported the 3rd runway when last in government it wouldn't take much to support it again. But Eddie boy is more left wing than Blair and Brown were, so who knows..."

It's not a question of "left" or "right". Clegg, Cable, Greening, Goldsmith, Johnson and the entire Labour leadership can hardly be described as "left wing".

Milliband is just as "new" Labour as Blair and brown (i.e. the party of the metropolitan elite and the chattering classes).

Don't believe the hype that Ed Milliband got the leadership because of the Unions, it was because of the AV voting system (the one Clegg tried to foist on us).

Among the first choices, David Milliband was the clear winner, Ed only won once the lower preference choices of the defeated candidates were included.

jabird

26th Sep 2012, 20:22

We all know that the Libdems are going nowhere, it's their first sniff of governent for 100 years!

Very true, you can count in one room in Brighton the number of people in the country who disagree with that statement.

The problem is that, for now, they are still a party of power, even if their only real influence has been on the fringe issues. Sadly, there are enough Tories who are sympathetic to the anti-Heathrow cause to make the Lib Dems position here the mainstream one.

There is little chance that Milbland will change his position on Heathrow, and he is so dull that he is unlikely to do a Kinnock on election eve, and you'll never catch him calling anyone a Pleb, even if he is to paternalistic academic elitism what Mitchell is to Toffs.

If anything will get Deadhead Ed to change, perhaps it will come down to offering a differentiator between his party and the Tories. With Cameron gone post-2015, Boris doing the seat swap with Zac and then becoming leader, the Tory position would default to fantasy island, unless they actually take some serious financial advice on the matter. The way they are going "full steam ahead" with the first phase of HS2, which is very dubious on its own, suggests that sensible financial thinking might not happen - even by then.

So the best case scenario for Heathrow would be that Labour realise that they can't just dither for another 5 years - especially not as that's exactly what Brown did. So given a chance to separate themselves from Boris, who being personally popular in an unpopular party is the nemesis of EM, they realise the only option is to back Heathrow.

Ernest Lanc's

26th Sep 2012, 20:59

Given current polls the next Govt will be either Labour or a Labour/Lib Dem coalition

not much chance of LHR expansion there then

There are a lot of issues..getting untangled from the shenanigans that Germany is imposing on the EU is one.

The fact that Ed has the charisma of a dung beetle is another...The polls are showing a Labour victory at the moment...

My bet is a Tory/Lib pact again..Yes - Clegg has got long pants now he has grown up.

It's not impossible that UKIP will have some say in the forming of a government.

Not that long ago people know what Brown did handing over our cash to the banks..The see what a mess Cameron is doing to the armed forces and institutions are being starved of cash.

One think is certain, the outcome of the next election is not...I reckon there will be a farce of a government..But also I think Heathrow will get it's third runway, as when politician have to address the lack of capacity - There will not be enough cash or will for a new airport.

But Eddie boy is more left wing than Blair and Brown were, so who knows......

How do we know what he is?..I have heard him say what Cameron and Osborne have done wrong, I have not heard his plans for, well anything..

With Ed on the third runway..It will be aye or naye, depending on who asked the question.

BTW..Why Cameron did not go it alone is beyond me...Wilson led a minority government, and won the following election, with ease.

jabird

26th Sep 2012, 21:34

The fact that Ed has the charisma of a dung beetle is another...The polls are showing a Labour victory at the moment...

Please don't insult dung beetles, at least they take cr*p, our leaders just give it.

Correct - polls showing Labour victory, ditto bookies. But the polls also show Dead Ed is the least preferred of the leaders.

It's not impossible that UKIP will have some say in the forming of a government.

Highly unlikely. They still can't get their act together, despite repeated press demands for a referendum on leaving the EU.

BTW..Why Cameron did not go it alone is beyond me

He's a yes man, he likes hearing yes. That's very difficult in a minority government.

Ernest Lanc's

26th Sep 2012, 22:01

Highly unlikely. They still can't get their act together, despite repeated press demands for a referendum on leaving the EU.

Maybe: It only takes for UKIP,Greens/BNP, and all the other odds and sods to gain a few seats, to make out government on a par with Greece.

We are in a coalition now, what's next I would not like to guess, maybe Cameron austerity will pay dividends..I doubt that without growth.

Cameron puts a chap in charge with sympathy for a third runway, then promptly says - no definitely not. We know Clegg does not want one, that's why Cameron dare not say he does.
Ed..i am not sure he knows there is a problem.

I still thing there will be a 3rd runway at Heathrow..probably Cameron will dismantle our nuclear deterrent and abolish the House of Lords, to get Cleggy to agree.

jabird

26th Sep 2012, 22:14

It only takes for UKIP,Greens/BNP, and all the other odds and sods to gain a few seats, to make out government on a par with Greece.

Brown tried to do a "rainbow coalition" of everyone but the Tories, but it would have been a complete mess.

Realistically, Libs are going to lose so many seats, they are unlikely to have much to bargain with, but they may just have the balance of power.

If there is any party likely to have enough seats to talk, it would be the SNP, assuming they are still with us, which is more likely than not. Now things get interesting - SNP have previously said they don't vote on matters only affecting England. Now of course, they could easily turn round and say that doesn't apply, because they want access to LHR. Except they wouldn't give their co-operation so easily! Expect to find HS2 suddenly extending to Scotland as part of the deal, which might actually mean it goes somewhere worthwhile at last!

Then HS2 might actually free up some slots at Heathrow. Expect the SNP to say they want DND and INV safeguarded. At that point, please hope the majority partner turns round and says you can't have that, because it is none of your business, none of our business, and solely BAA's business what they do with them!

Ernest Lanc's

26th Sep 2012, 22:31

The Liberals are going to lose seats..That's inevitable.

But I have been watching trends in Scotland for a while. and I doubt the SNP will have any more seats than Cleggs brigade,

This morning there were also some Scottish YouGov figures (http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ch5ijgodvt/Fabian%20Society%20Results%20-%20120720_Voting%20intention%20and%20Independence.pdf) for the Scottish Fabians. They had topline figures for Westminister voting intention in Scotland of CON 15%, LAB 43%, LDEM 7%, SNP 29%.
Labour have recovered strongly, in their Scottish heartlands. So Salmond won't IMO have much to bargain with.
UK Polling Report (http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/category/scotland)

At the end of the day the government whoever they are, will have to either agree to the third runway, or a brand new airport.

We can't afford a new airport, so a third runway it is, or London and the UK will miss out big style.

Well: I hope I am right!!

jabird

26th Sep 2012, 22:46

I doubt the SNP will have any more seats than Cleggs brigade

Maybe not, but then again, they aren't putting up candidates south of Hadrians - except they should be in Corby!

We can't afford a new airport, so a third runway it is,

I think we've been through the options enough times on this and other threads. Fantasy Island is not an option. Gatwick could only work if government could dictate that it HAD to become a hub airport, and we've been there too.

Birmingham is a rank outsider loved by politicians, and of course one or two Brummies, but once you look at surface access by anything other than a high speed rail line that doesn't serve the terminal directly and that doesn't even exist yet, you realise it is as ridiculous as FBI.

So the only other option is to do NOTHING. Oddly enough, I think that's a better idea than any of the others apart from LHR3. To make that argument respectable, you'd have to come out with the line -

we hate aviation, it is dirty, smelly and noisy, it takes more money out of the UK than it brings in and we just don't want it.

Now all of those arguments have an element of truth in them, but they can be robustly rebutted too.

At least the do nothing line is a policy - unlike the dithering we've had now for far too long.

PAXboy

26th Sep 2012, 23:04

Ernest Lanc's...probably Cameron will dismantle our nuclear deterrent ...Top military chiefs go cold on nuclear deterrent - UK Politics - UK - The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/top-military-chiefs-go-cold-on-nuclear-deterrent-8180688.html)
Senior military commanders have privately questioned whether Britain needs to maintain its current level of nuclear deterrence when the country's ageing Trident submarines are decommissioned.

Nick Harvey, the former defence minister who until September had responsibility for the Government's nuclear capability review, said officers had expressed reservations to him about both the costs and the benefits of such a deterrent.

Ernest Lanc's

27th Sep 2012, 19:29

PAXboy
The above is rumour by the Liberals..This was always on the cards when Cameron allowed them in bed.

The same has been said in France by lefties..

Fact is - If the UK or France give up their independent nuclear deterrent..They will have no influence (leverage) at all-- This will result in the UK losing it's seat on the UN security council. Cameron knows this..

To go back on topic..The Tories bedding the Liberals, is probably the main reason, no real solution to over capacity in London, has yet (if ever) to be addressed.

Fairdealfrank

27th Sep 2012, 19:42

Quote: "There is little chance that Milbland will change his position on Heathrow, and he is so dull that he is unlikely to do a Kinnock on election eve, and you'll never catch him calling anyone a Pleb, even if he is to paternalistic academic elitism what Mitchell is to Toffs."

What is his position? No one knows, but it could easily change.

Quote: "How do we know what he is?..I have heard him say what Cameron and Osborne have done wrong, I have not heard his plans for, well anything..

With Ed on the third runway..It will be aye or naye, depending on who asked the question."

Exactly,but then he doesn't need to, yet.

Quote: "BTW..Why Cameron did not go it alone is beyond me...Wilson led a minority government, and won the following election, with ease."

Have made the same point many times, a lack of experience maybe, a failure to learn from history more likely. More recently, Steve Harper, the Canadian Conservative prime minister led three minority governments before achieving a majority.

Quote: "It's not impossible that UKIP will have some say in the forming of a government."

It's unlikely that they will win any seats, they don't do the work at grassroots level and, unlike the Greens and the Libdems, they haven't learned to "target" specific councils, seats, etc..

Their only way of influencing the election result will be by taking disgruntled voters away from their traditional parties, especially
Conservative voters over broken promises on the EU, allowing marginal seats to change hands.

Quote: "Maybe: It only takes for UKIP,Greens/BNP, and all the other odds and sods to gain a few seats, to make out government on a par with Greece.

We are in a coalition now, what's next I would not like to guess, maybe Cameron austerity will pay dividends..I doubt that without growth.

Cameron puts a chap in charge with sympathy for a third runway, then promptly says - no definitely not. We know Clegg does not want one, that's why Cameron dare not say he does.
Ed..i am not sure he knows there is a problem.

I still thing there will be a 3rd runway at Heathrow..probably Cameron will dismantle our nuclear deterrent and abolish the House of Lords, to get Cleggy to agree."

Won't be a Greece style election result, we don't use proportional voting, good job!

There will be a third rwy, but not at the expense of a nuclear deterent, or the House of Lords.

Quote: "At the end of the day the government whoever they are, will have to either agree to the third runway, or a brand new airport.

We can't afford a new airport, so a third runway it is, or London and the UK will miss out big style."

Exactly, there would also be customer resistance from to a new airport.

Quote: "Senior military commanders have privately questioned whether Britain needs to maintain its current level of nuclear deterrence when the country's ageing Trident submarines are decommissioned.

Nick Harvey, the former defence minister who until September had responsibility for the Government's nuclear capability review, said officers had expressed reservations to him about both the costs and the benefits of such a deterrent."

Harvey's a Libdem so what do you expect?

The reason the nuclear deterrent stays is: prestige, prestige, prestige!

It means a place at the top table and a seat on the UN security council. It means punching above our weight.

It's needed more than ever now, the world is far more dangerous now than in the cold war.

PAXboy

27th Sep 2012, 20:30

FairdealfrankThe reason the nuclear deterrent stays is: prestige, prestige, prestige!

It means a place at the top table and a seat on the UN security council. It means punching above our weight.

It's needed more than ever now, the world is far more dangerous now than in the cold war. Off to Jet Blast we go ... :ouch:

Ernest Lanc's

27th Sep 2012, 20:43

Won't be a Greece style election result, we don't use proportional voting, good job!

The result was the same..We had parties sctraching arround for bedfellows.

The mould has been cast..we again will have a hung parliament after the next election.

How on Earth can a PM give the OK for a heathrow extention, with an eviromentalist party keeping him in power?.

A third runway will come, simply because it's the proposition that costs the least.

Fairdealfrank

27th Sep 2012, 21:26

Quote: "Realistically, Libs are going to lose so many seats, they are unlikely to have much to bargain with, but they may just have the balance of power.

If there is any party likely to have enough seats to talk, it would be the SNP, assuming they are still with us, which is more likely than not. Now things get interesting - SNP have previously said they don't vote on matters only affecting England. Now of course, they could easily turn round and say that doesn't apply, because they want access to LHR. Except they wouldn't give their co-operation so easily! Expect to find HS2 suddenly extending to Scotland as part of the deal, which might actually mean it goes somewhere worthwhile at last!"

The SNP can command a majority at Holyrood, but doesn't usually do well in Westminster elections. It will be a pleasant surprise if they end up with more seats than the Libdems.

SNP MPs could vote on Heathrow expansion: it's a UK matter, not just an English one, and vitally important to Scotland.

Quote: Then HS2 might actually free up some slots at Heathrow. Expect the SNP to say they want DND and INV safeguarded. At that point, please hope the majority partner turns round and says you can't have that, because it is none of your business, none of our business, and solely BAA's business what they do with them!

It's pointless for high speed rail to go to Birmingham, it's first stop northwards should be Ringway then Manchester Piccadilly, or Leeds on the other side, then on to Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, etc.. To provide the journey times expected of it, it needs to do long distances without stops.

Either way, this is way into the future, if at all.

High speed rail won't free up any slots at LHR, domestic connectivity is always needed.

Quote: "The result was the same..We had parties sctraching arround for bedfellows.

The mould has been cast..we again will have a hung parliament after the next election."

Fair point, Ernest Lanc's, but the maths ensured there were only two options: a Con-Lib coalition or a minority Con government. Cameron made the wrong choice.

Funnily enough, until the crisis, Greece always elected majority governments, either PASOK (Socialist) or New Democracy (Conservative).

Quote: "How on Earth can a PM give the OK for a heathrow extention, with an eviromentalist party keeping him in power?."

In theory, he can't. In practice, he could easily. Let's face it, the Libdems won't walk, particularly on this issue.

Quote: "A third rrunway will come, simply because it's the proposition that costs the least."

Exactly, and it's the the option that "does what it says on the tin".

jabird

28th Sep 2012, 23:03

(HSR) To provide the journey times expected of it, it needs to do long distances without stops.

True, but it also needs to add capacity where it is needed, so other stops get put in. The issue is not so much with additional stops being there, but with the ability to schedule longer distance services through the station without stopping trains getting in the way. The only station we've got plans for so far that this is relevant to is the M42 BHX Parkway Parkway that will have this feature.

High speed rail won't free up any slots at LHR, domestic connectivity is always needed.

Not many as currently planned, but it could. The train already wins to MAN / LBA / LPL / MME etc. The biggest swing would be NCL - U2 already gone, but LHR services would become very marginal. Time savings as currently proposed bring EDI & GLA to c. 3h40 - so that's far more of a threat to easyJet.

However - if HSR went straight to the central belt - ie HS dedicated line all the way - then journey would be down to c. 2h30, at which point the LHR & LCY services would be threatened, as night follows day.

Given current number of LHR-EDI & GLA rotations, you could certainly expect a few slots to be freed up in this scenario, and there would be demands for more services to ABZ & INV in lieu, as these are never going to be replaced by rail for the business and higher yielding leisure users.

jabird

28th Sep 2012, 23:13

How on Earth can a PM give the OK for a heathrow extention, with an eviromentalist party keeping him in power?

Don't forget "go green vote blue" aswell.

I've always believed in the theory of HSR, but nothing put me off HS2 quicker than it being presented as the alternative to short haul flights and a third runway at LHR.

Whatever positions you might take on the runway issue, or indeed high speed rail, neither is an alternative for the other. They need to be seen as projects with their own pros and cons, including costs, although the major difference with LHR R3 is that it is privately funded.

I think that, with the help of various analysts and the treasury, most of the cabinet are slowly coming round to the fact that the projects have to be treated separately.

The realistic likely transfer from air to rail might be in the region of 1m pax pa with the scheme as it currently stands. Certainly enough to juggle a few slots around, but still only around 1.5% of overall volume, which will, of course, be rapidly replaced by other European and long haul services.

Fairdealfrank

29th Sep 2012, 00:37

Quote: "Not many as currently planned, but it could. The train already wins to MAN / LBA / LPL / MME etc. The biggest swing would be NCL - U2 already gone, but LHR services would become very marginal. Time savings as currently proposed bring EDI & GLA to c. 3h40 - so that's far more of a threat to easyJet."

It's not train or air, both are needed. The train only wins on city centre to city centre.

If it's 2 hours up to London on suburban trains plus tube(s), in order to catch a long distance train, (and you don't have to be very far out of London for this to be the case), things look very different indeed, especially if you're lugging baggage and there's an airport nearby.

Price is also a factor, it is not always possible to get cheap train fares and it's a very complicated fare structure. Air is often cheaper. Apart from point to point, there is also the transfer traffic to think about

Of course there is no choice from LBA, LPL, MME, though there soon will be from LBA, BA are reinstating the former BD LHR-LBA service.

Quote: "However - if HSR went straight to the central belt - ie HS dedicated line all the way - then journey would be down to c. 2h30, at which point the LHR & LCY services would be threatened, as night follows day.

Given current number of LHR-EDI & GLA rotations, you could certainly expect a few slots to be freed up in this scenario, and there would be demands for more services to ABZ & INV in lieu, as these are never going to be replaced by rail for the business and higher yielding leisure users."

Would not say "threatened". LCY has thrived and prospered at the same time as train services have become increasingly faster and more frequent. That tells us that both modes are needed.

Agreed that domestic frequencies on trunk routes may be reduced and redistributed to thinner routes.

However, we are unlikely to see high speed rail in our lifetime and especially not to Scotland/north England.

Fairdealfrank

29th Sep 2012, 00:53

Quote: "Don't forget "go green vote blue" aswell."

And Clegg came out with that puerile nonsense that you need to mix yellow with blue to make green. Tell that to Caroline Lucas!

And don't forget that the "greenest government ever" hasn't managed to do anything practical to address the issue plastic shopping bags and problem of over packaging in the retail trade.

However, they're very good at taxing the hell out of us, particularly hidden taxes on utility bills, etc., and using phoney arguments to block the construction of vitally needed infrastructure.

Quote: "I've always believed in the theory of HSR, but nothing put me off HS2 quicker than it being presented as the alternative to short haul flights and a third runway at LHR."

Me too, and the fact that the present plans are nonsense!

Quote: "Whatever positions you might take on the runway issue, or indeed high speed rail, neither is an alternative for the other. They need to be seen as projects with their own pros and cons, including costs, although the major difference with LHR R3 is that it is privately funded."

Precisely, all transport modes should complement each other: air, rail and road. An integrated transport system is what is needed.

Quote: "I think that, with the help of various analysts and the treasury, most of the cabinet are slowly coming round to the fact that the projects have to be treated separately."

This is almost certainly the case, and one is privately funded.

Quote: "The realistic likely transfer from air to rail might be in the region of 1m pax pa with the scheme as it currently stands. Certainly enough to juggle a few slots around, but still only around 1.5% of overall volume, which will, of course, be rapidly replaced by other European and long haul services."

If high speed rail doesn't go past Birmingham, the transfer from air to rail will be nil: there's no longer any air services between BHX and any London airport. IIRC the BD LHR-BHX finished in the late 1980s(?).

There is no indication that it will, the government has refused to include the route north of Birmingham in the Bill that it has to put before Parliament before the high speed rail can start.

jabird

29th Sep 2012, 12:38

There is no indication that it will, the government has refused to include the route north of Birmingham in the Bill that it has to put before Parliament before the high speed rail can start.

If this is the way they do it, then any MP with even the most basic of calculators has to vote to reject the scheme. If you take out the more dubious "WEIs" (benefits based on secondary benefits, a lot of which is time savings on the highly flawed assumption that no-one works on the train - ever), then with the latest economic forecasts, the government will get 90p back for every £1 it puts in. What sort of case is that?

Ironically, the case for the second part looks a great deal better, as I'm sure the extension to Scotland would, but you have to assess a project on its own merits as it stands, and this one is one hulking great #fail.

Meanwhile, they get the runway for "free" - if they want to be seen providing a major infrastructure stimulus, better to take the dirty airport project than the "clean" train, which has actually just stashed the pollution problems it creates to the power stations on the Trent.

Fairdealfrank

30th Sep 2012, 23:40

Exactly, most of the country wants and needs Heathrow expansion ASAP because of the connectivity to the wider world. It is a national issue not just a local one. How many small airports up and down the UK are suffering because of a lack of a decent link to Heathrow?

There are far more MPs (in both parties) that support Heathrow expansion than oppose it, and this would become apparent in any free vote. In the case of the Libdems they are just against it for the sake of it as usual, so no change there.

Baltasound

1st Oct 2012, 07:11

"Most of the country" couldn't give a **** about Heathrow. Neither does most of the country need Heathrow to have a third runway. Neither is it fully funded by the private sector, so let us please please bury that hoary old chestnut.

The Lib Dems aren't against the expansion of Heathrow for the sake of it, they are against it for the very good reason that (the airport) is in the wrong place, expansion will be environmentally entertaining and will further benefit Heathrow and not a lot else besides and from a pragmatic point of view any expansion will run into 10 years of court time as the ECJ will become involved especially in terms of various directives.

The majority of Heathrow's traffic is for pleasure according to the stats. Perhaps a free market for slot auctioning is required to actually ascertain how much expansion is required for the x000 pairs to remote Chinese cities....

On the beach

1st Oct 2012, 08:03

Meanwhile, in Scotland, Emirates are doubling their daily flights from GLA to DXB and Qatar are commencing daily services from EDI to DOH next year.

All we need now is HS2 to be extended to the "frozen North" and punters down south will have another alternative to LHR.

beamender99

4th Oct 2012, 15:05

Thames Estuary Airport - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Estuary_Airport)
A map of the proposals to date. ( take note of the key to the locations and then expand the map) #5 is Shivering sands ( Boris Island )

The latest word from Boris
BBC News - Boris Johnson warns of 'risk of inertia' over Heathrow future (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19826547)

A comment was made that the transport links were £80M ?

Ernest Lanc's

4th Oct 2012, 15:47

Baltasound

Most thinking people of the country do care whether Heathrow is adequate or not..If the lack of a third runway is holding the UK back, or giving an advantage to EU states..Then without question, most would back a third runway.

The Lib Dems aren't against the expansion of Heathrow for the sake of it, they are against it for the very good reason that (the airport) is in the wrong place

The Liberals are against a third runway, simply because they are a Green/Left of Centre party opposed to any development that does not comply with their narrow criteria.
Bottom line is there is not enough capacity at Heathrow, there are delays that are not acceptable and soon business will head Eastwards.

We have two options..A third runway at Heathrow, or a completely new London airport.

A third runway would be avaiable much sooner, and would be far cheaper.

Some may not like this..IMO sooner rather than later, a third runway at Heathrow is going to happen.

LGS6753

5th Oct 2012, 07:25

How about 4 runways built over the M25, and existing terminals retained?

This suggestion is from a serious political think-tank:

http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/bigger%20and%20quieter.pdf

pax britanica

5th Oct 2012, 07:42

If LHR was closed and BJ International built ( EGBJ) a name that would readily remembered I am sure, then London will have fiver main airports LTN/STN/LCY/LGW and LBJ none of them west of a North south line through the centre of London.

So bearing in mind the huge population in west and west of London plus the concentration of hi tech business west of the city and the generally fairly affluent areas west of the city how is this market going to be served -in a word it isn’t so you now have a clamour to build an airport to serve this market or keep LHR going. For example if BA and all the majors were forced to shift to EGBJ why shouldn’t Ryanair shift half their business to the now empty LHR .
Sadly the whole thing is yet another joke at public expense like the delays to cross rail and the west coast main line fiasco because civil servants and pollies do not understand issues that result in actual concrete)( no pun) things being built as opposed to just lots of words. Perhaps one good thing to come out of the West Coast fiasco would have to be the opportunity to totally discredit the former Transport minister and her anti LHR views
PB

Libertine Winno

5th Oct 2012, 09:16

Just read those proposals from policyexchange and at first read looks exceptionally promising, with many of the benefits and far less of the drawbacks that other proposals have discussed.

Would be interested to know if anyone thinks of anything that would rule this option out? (aside from political inaction of course, which plagues any proposal other than 'do nothing'!)

ericlday

5th Oct 2012, 10:17

I also have just read this interesting proposal from Policyexchange, prior to digesting the contents I would not have considered Luton as such a priority but with all the facts they present I must say its worth considering. Financial aspects aside it has possibilities.

Libertine Winno

5th Oct 2012, 12:47

Agreed. It would still necessitate the closure of LHR of course, which remains the elephant in the room when discussing anything other than an extension of LHR (in whatever guise that expansion comes) but certainly interesting nonetheless.

The LTN proposal may be compromised by the fact that the local councils own a large proportion of the airport I believe, so could get just as political as LHR but in a different way...but it wouldnt be fun without a political bun fight!

Flightman

5th Oct 2012, 14:04

Page 46 - side note.

181 Emirates have argued that
they can begin their descent
at 5.5 degrees, before moving
to a 3 degree approach for the
last section. Although the idea
is worth exploring further, one
senior pilot commented to me
that “with enough training I think
I could land a plane like that
without loss of life 98 times out
of 100”.

And there you have it, a quieter future for all. Well apart from the boom as 2 out of every 100 arrivals ploughs into the runway!

:{

Libertine Winno

5th Oct 2012, 14:44

That's a done deal then! At least it will keep Airbus' A380 order book looking healthy with all those airframes they will have to keep replacing!

In all seriousness though, I am struggling to find a serious flaw in this proposal;

- It would have the 4 runways required, not making do with only one (shortened) extra.

- Noise issues to local residents seem to be placated.

- There would be no large scale destruction of existing dwellings, no more than what would be done at Sipson for runway 3, and none at all of any Grade 1 listed buildings.

- It seems to be an extremely cheap option (all things considered, and compared to a £50bn+ estuary airport)

- It is still on the right side of London, is easily accesible to large parts of the country and does not require the uprooting of the entire M4 corridor economy

The only issues I can see are those relating to relocating the reservoir and whether Thames Water get permission for one elsewhere...??

scotbill

5th Oct 2012, 14:53

Willie Walsh on Question Time last night opined that Heathrow RW 3 or BJ International could not be built without all-party consensus.
Therefore it is not going to happen.
BA will soldier on at LHR. It will have economic repercussions for the country but not to the extent of being an economic catastrophe

Ernest Lanc's

5th Oct 2012, 15:18

Willie Walsh on Question Time last night opined that Heathrow RW 3 or BJ International could not be built without all-party consensus.
Therefore it is not going to happen.

I don't think so...since when in modern times has there been all-party consensus on anything.

If Cameron says there is going to be a 3rd runway at heathrow, then there will be.

If labour ever get a majority again, and Militant wants a 3rd runway, then there will be.

I doubt political parties in the UK, could agree on the time - Even if they where looking at the same clock.

beamender99

5th Oct 2012, 15:28

Thinktank proposes four runway hub at London Heathrow (http://www.airport-world.com/news-articles/item/1959-thinktank-proposes-four-runway-hub-at-london-heathrow)

http://www.airport-world.com/media/k2/items/cache/3feb73ff81c97198f4b8a9e3765868ba_M.jpg (http://www.airport-world.com/media/k2/items/cache/3feb73ff81c97198f4b8a9e3765868ba_XL.jpg)

Dannyboy39

5th Oct 2012, 16:26

That report surely isn't suggesting that the existing runways be shut and are rebuilt behind T5? Madness.

Am I reading correctly that this report effectively bans the B744, B773 and A346?

We can and should go much further in refusing to allow the noisiest planes to arrive and depart from Heathrow. We propose new restrictions on noise classes that would apply at all times. All planes would have to be QC 0.5 or lower on arrival, and narrow bodied departures should be QC1 or lower, while widebodied departures should be QC2 or lower.

Flightman

5th Oct 2012, 20:51

Yes it does. Another flaw in the report is that the 346 is a QC2 on departure, as is the 773, yet the report says these aircraft should be banned!

Just one more. Quote:
Departures would follow existing
flight paths, so unlike the third runway proposal, there is no new group would
be under the flight path for the first time.

How can that be, if you've moved the runways 4kms to the west?

Libertine Winno

6th Oct 2012, 09:59

This new iteration of LHR wouldnt be ready for another 15 years anyway, so as the report itself suggests it is hardly as if all the world's airlines dont have enough warning about which airframes would and wouldnt be allowed in...

jabird

6th Oct 2012, 19:29

A comment was made that the transport links were £80M ?

Err no, the airport alone would now cost £80bn. And it was a bad idea at £20bn!

Boris says LHR would be "full up" by time R3 opens, but by his logic, surely Fantasy Boris Island would also be full up very shortly after opening, as it is only providing 4 runways instead of 3, and not a huge amount of extra space for terminals between the runways.

So whatever WW says about the politics, the economic reality remains that R3 is a c. £3bn spend, all of it going on new capacity, whereas the FBI project is going to build two runways and at least half of the terminal space just to replace existing capacity. If this was corn fields fine, but at £20bn per runway and associated terminals (or almost 10x the cost for each new passenger served), who is going to want in?

The reality might well be that any hub facility is always going to operate at close to capacity, because London is never going to operate only one airport (unless the doomsday decline projections come true).

So as far as ROI goes, doing nothing means you get to keep the highest yielding traffic, but thinner routes go elsewhere. Adding a single runway as proposed means you get to serve some more shorthaul, in turn justifying extra long haul routes (remember, most of the emerging BRICS destinations would only be 2-3x per week). Moving from 3 to 4 runways simply means you get to serve more lower yielding leisure markets (eg Caribbean), which would still benefit from the feeders, but which are never going to pay for an £80bn airport.

roverman

7th Oct 2012, 07:34

This from the same think tank which two years ago proposed that the solution to regional wealth disparity was that everyone in the North should move to the South East. Well, this airport might be needed if that were to happen.

Rather illuminating statement in the opening Executive Summary along the lines of 'as wealth grows so will demand for travelling'. The standard pro-global capital argument is that we must grow airport capacity in order to grow wealth. We could just try being content with what we have, which is a lot.

Dai Brainbocs

7th Oct 2012, 15:31

What struck me on an admittrdly superficial reading of the full document was that it looks like a fantastic solution from a civil engineering viewpoint, but that on noise reduction it was a bit fingers-crossed, e.g. the supposition that airlines would just trade non-compliant planes for compliant ones and the highly complicated rules around which planes could use which runways when.

It was also an insight that they view a new Heathrow as a gain for the people working there because they'd still have jobs!

beamender99

7th Oct 2012, 21:36

Heathrow could shrink to one runway to fund new hub airport - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/9591734/Heathrow-could-shrink-to-one-runway-to-fund-new-hub-airport.html)

Fairdealfrank

7th Oct 2012, 22:22

Again, this is a long term expensive proposal, albeit a more realistic one than Boris's white elephant vanity project. It does seem a shame to lose the 2 existing 2.5mi. rwys and have them replaced by rwys of just 1.8 mi..

Because of the time scale involved to construct "Heathrow-Colne Valley", a third and fourth rwy at LHR will still be necessary (as would be the case with the estuary proposals) to cope in the interim.

It may not be just the Wraysbury reservoir that has to go, the Queen Mother reservoir looks vulnerable too. The costs of this plus road diversions and tunneling plus railway and shuttle construction on such a large scale may make it uneconomic for BAA to contemplate on its own.

However, keeping LHR in tact and adding two narrow spaced rwys north of the airport, parallel to, but further west of the existing rwys seems to be the best remedy. This maintains the status quo for those currently under the flightpath, keeps road diversions/tunnelling to a minimum, and keeps aircraft higher over populated parts of the new flightpaths. This may be affordable and practical for BAA.

However, if, and it's still a big if, we decide to go down the road of an "entirely new hub airport in the UK", this or something similar is the way forward.

Forget about Heathrow with just one rwy. How would the proceeds of the sale of the land go towards funding the vanity project? If BAA sold the land, they would receive the income, it's as simple as that! Apart from anything else, years of litigation would ensure this will never happen.

Skipness One Echo

7th Oct 2012, 22:58

Heathrow could shrink to one runway to fund new hub airport - Telegraph
Who is this aviation expert? A Tory councillor. Did we really need to ask? Career bureaucrat and investment banker. Seems clever on the face of it, but leapt from Philosophy grad to investment banker?

Councillor Daniel Moylan « Early Career (http://www.danielmoylan.com/?page_id=51)

"You could also bring in services that are now at Northolt and free that up for development. It's a large site adjacent to the A40 – there must be value in that." sayeth the expert. Right, all those services at Northolt.

Junkjet

8th Oct 2012, 04:50

Looking at all these "solutions", are the runways not all far too close together for independent continuous operation in IFR and difficult to use in LVPs, and why do they all point the same way despite the fact that wind varies in direction?

Why did EGCC get a second 3000m runway, then find it was difficult to use both simultaneously?
How does EHAM manage to do it?

What qualifications and/or experience in Aviation do any of the "experts" have? Are there real (not fantasy) pilots or ATCOs on here contributing to this thread?
Does our government only seek wisdom from self proclaimed "experts"?
How do other governments manage to succeed in creating new multi runway transcontinental airports, without having 50 plus years of BS?

:ugh:

Suzeman

8th Oct 2012, 15:55

Why did EGCC get a second 3000m runway, then find it was difficult to use both simultaneously?

Not difficult at all. They are used simultaneously. This is a segregated operation where one runway is always used for departures and the other for landings when both runways are in use. Was always planned like that as there was nowhere practical to build a fully spaced parallel runway.

Suggest you read ICAO Doc 9643 Manual on Simultaneous Operations on Parallel or near parallel Instrument Runways (SOIR).

Then you can become an expert and offer your services to the Government :ok:

Suzeman

Dannyboy39

8th Oct 2012, 16:20

Excuse my language, but all these reports and "suggestions" from self proclaimed experts and politicans are just total bo11ocks. The world is going mad.

PAXboy

8th Oct 2012, 20:03

No, no Dannyboy39. Not 'going' mad. Gone mad. It was sometime last century during the 1980s. :hmm:

jabird

9th Oct 2012, 00:35

How does EHAM manage to do it?

Well they have 6 runways for a start, giving more usage permutations, and one of them is so far away from the terminal I'm surprised Ryanair haven't taken it as their own and called it Rotterdam.

What qualifications and/or experience in Aviation do any of the "experts" have? Are there real (not fantasy) pilots or ATCOs on here contributing to this thread?

Actually, airport development is largely a land use planning issue. The job of a pilot is to fly the plane. The job of the planner is to provide the pilots with a safe place to fly the planes to and from. Two very different roles, I would never expect a planner to bang on the cockpit door and offer to fly the plane, so why should pilots design airports?*

The job of the politicians is to let the planners plan, and every now and then to actually give the go ahead for those plans.

Does our government only seek wisdom from self proclaimed "experts"?

Government is about placating some of the people some of the time, for every forum thread there is here asking for more expansion, there is another elsewhere opposing it.

How do other governments manage to succeed in creating new multi runway transcontinental airports, without having 50 plus years of BS?

Like DXB or DWC? Well that is very simple. The government and developer are one and the same, and anyone who takes a different view gets a one way ticket out of there on a slow boat.

We have BS because we have a system that encourages BS. We only have two runways at LHR because the existing ones point directly at the centre of London, and there are land use conflicts which make expansion a tremendous challenge.

So I still hope that Vince "Genius" Cable is wrong, because for all the flaws with a 3rd runway at Heathrow, it is still our only proper hub airport, and that is a crown that my "local" at BHX can never claim.

However, that is my view, I fully understand why other people take different views, even if they are less likely to be regulars in this forum. If you question the authority of people on this thread, then try going over to any local politics or environmental forum and looking at the "informed" opinions about aviation there. Usually written by people who vehemently hate our industry, but happily use it twice per year to go on holiday in Spain.

*Unless, like Lord Foster, they happen to be an architect (with a planning department) AND a qualified pilot, although for some reason I can't quite understand, his Boris Island proposal is seriously flawed both in terms of planning AND the obstacles to the east of the southern runway.

Heathrow Harry

9th Oct 2012, 10:35

good post jabird

people talk about "planning " & "planners" as if they only listen to one set of opinions

in general they are trying to achieve a LONG TERM balance of land use - we don't have enough where we want it so it's use has to be effectively rationed. In the Uk they are influenced by our elected representatives and other pressure groups

In places like Hong Kong they only answer to the Head Man - effective at getting some things done but not encessarily a brilliant idea for long term outcomes.....

jabird

9th Oct 2012, 20:08

Well the planners can still only draw on the maps they have. The engineers still need to work out the alignments, and the builders need to build.

So can anyone explain why the Grauniad is now saying R3 will "only" cost £8bn, and the Torygraph is reporting £10bn?

For just over a MILE of concrete? Same again for supporting taxiways?

Isn't Sipson already largely CPd anyway?

I know this is private capital, but it is starting to make HS2 ("just" £145m per mile for ph1) and Fantasy Boris Island (who knows where the cost will end up, but 4 full length runways and totally new terminals) look good value now!

On the beach

9th Oct 2012, 21:49

Thames World Central is the only real, long term solution to the "Heathrow problem". Heathrow was a decent airport when it had more runways than it has now and fewer terminals and it did what it was supposed to do. However, times have progressed and Heathrow no longer has the ability to cope with the expansion in air travel which is in progress right now.

Talk of a third runway is fatuous for so many reasons. Traffic using this mythical proposal will have to cross 09L/27R to access 4 of the 5 current terminals unless a 6th. terminal and all it's associated infrastructure are added to the costs. Mixed mode operations will be necessary at all times. I can already hear the anti-noise uproar. The solution to this little conundrum being to build a 4th. runway. So, that means the M4 and probably the M25 being rerouted. Do you really seriously think that FGP TopCo Limited have the resources or more importantly access to the resources to finance all this?

Thames World Central or whatever you want to call the new Thames Estuary Airport and the associated infrastructure would have to be financed by central Government and if ever there was a time for a big infrastructure project spend, now would be the time for it.

The prospect of a third runway at Heathrow has been dismissed by all the political parties now so it ain't going to happen. Let's move on and discuss the reality of a totally new airport designed for the 21st. Century with 21st. Century facilities. 6 runways, spaced so that simultaneous parallel approaches and departures can be carried out in all weather.

The current designs being touted have obviously had no or very little input from those who will be using the airport operationally. The runway spacing is wrong, the alignment is wrong and the terminals need to be in the centre of the airport, not at the end of the runways. These are the aspects that need to be focussed on. A third runway at Heathrow doesn't solve any long-term problems. At best it would be a temporary sticking plaster solution only, requiring a proper solution later. It's a non-starter. Let's have some realism, please.

OTB

PAXboy

9th Oct 2012, 22:42

jabird So can anyone explain why the Grauniad is now saying R3 will "only" cost £8bn, and the Torygraph is reporting £10bn?

For just over a MILE of concrete? Same again for supporting taxiways?

Isn't Sipson already largely CPd anyway?on the beach Talk of a third runway is fatuous for so many reasons. Traffic using this mythical proposal will have to cross 09L/27R to access 4 of the 5 current terminals unless a 6th. terminal and all it's associated infrastructure are added to the costs.A new T6 IS included in the plans, as it is expected that the s/h machines would stay 'local' within the R3 area, unless there was a prob with R3 of course and that would include the crossing of 09L/27R.

Here's a list I prepared earlier in the main Heathrow thread:

legal costs
compulsory purchase + legal costs!
the A4 road has to be dropped down.
the road connecting to the M4 will have to have a roof on it for most of the way and a load bearing roof at that! Some buildings in the new area will have to be put on piles spanning the road
the Northern perimeter road and related access roads?
Access taxiways from the main area for a/c to cross the Northern runway when required.
There are shops and a petrol station that have to be vaporised (and vaporisation machines are costly http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/wink2.gif)
It's not just a runway but all the intermediate space that is built up with hotels and ancilliary buildings.
Security and other provision around an expanded site
Taxi ways with their lighting, guidance control for auto landing, ground spanning radar may need to be moved, or have whole new units put in. etc.
all the control systems have to be expanded to have the extra runway and taxiways integrated.
etcetera."

Then Fairdealfrank added:
Excellent summary, but don't forget the fire station! There'll have to be another one.