LHR Standing Renumbering

[Egg Mayo]

I've heard on the grape-vine that the stands at LHR are going to be rumbered in the new year. Any truth in this rumour? Apparently its a pre-cursor for something else.

[ATCO Two]

Yep too true! The stands are being renumbered on the night of 28 March 2003, and the taxiways will be redesignated in Spring 2004. Where possible the existing stand number will be retained and prefixed with the Terminal number e.g., A1 becomes 101, E3 becomes 203, V14 becomes 414. There are some exceptions to these rules which I won't go into now.

I'm sure all pilots will be fully briefed and up to speed with the new systems when they are introduced.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

God Bless Mummy and Daddy and please don't let me ever work GMC again!!!

[Max Angle]

Change for changes sake or will it be an improvement on what we have now?. I rather doubt it, the taxiway system seems to work very well, it's very rare to hear even infrequent visitors get lost. I know ICAO keep banging on about it not being a standard system but perhaps they should look at the system they dreamt up and change that.

As to the stand changes it seems ironic that everywhere else in aviation we are told we must use alpanumerics (flight numbers, taxiways etc.) and yet here we are changing to just numbers for stands. Very silly, it aint broke, don't fix it.

At the end of the day the ONLY people in concerns are pilots, ATCO's and the emergency services. Has anyone in those groups been asked if they want or need a change?. As usual, I suspect the answer is no.

[Skipness One Echo]

Good plan. People were getting to know their way around so lets be counter intuitive and change everything.
"Alpha one, yes that will be on the alphas,Terminal one, I know that."

"Stand two three eight, ah terminal two, but where......."

Maybe with T5 they had simply run out of letters. They've already got as far as X.

[ATCO Two]

This is being driven by ICAO and CAP168 (CAA). Significant taxiways wil be lettered, and intersections between the inner and outer taxiway will be known as "links." All present cul-de-sacs will be re-lettered as part of taxiways. Runway Holding Points will become alphanumeric, requiring that current stand numbers will have to be changed to avoid possible confusion.

Hi Skipness One Echo,

I see you're getting the hang of it already! Stand 238 will become the new designator for E38, and it certainly is in Terminal 2. :)

[cossack]

Make sure ATC get a good long look at the proposed changes well before they are cast in stone. Otherwise you'll end up with a dog's breakfast of a system designed by someone who has never had to work GMC anywhere, let alone Heathrow.
Take a look at Manchester. Straight taxiways with multiple letters and cuved taxiways keeping the same letter. We don't have the luxury of an expert LPO and so aircraft do take the wrong routes, frequently.
Best of luck!

(Spell checker please!)

[Max Angle]

Manchester was one of places I was thinking of when I wrote my first post. It is in essence a fairly simple airport made very complicated by the taxi way designators. I go there on a regular basis and still take the wrong route sometimes, it's a real dogs dinner.

Apart from the fact that it is not standard what is wrong with the LHR system?. There is no such thing as a standard airport and no fancy taxiway lettering system is going to make one, leave it well alone please Mr CAA.

[ATCO Two]

Too late! It IS cast in stone - the changes WILL happen. Heathrow ATC had, how shall I put this, SOME input, but now we just have to get on with the implementation stage.