Luton - 2 Runways ATC Implications?

[chrisN]

London Luton Airport has published a response to the Government's consultation on airport capacity. It includes proposals for 2 runways. I append extracts below. You can read the whole thing if you want, on Luton's website.

Has anyone any idea how ATC would cope with such a large expansion, interaction with Stansted etc., and what extra Controlled Airspace would be needed?

Are the bald statements of extra movement capacity (500-551,000 ATM's p.a.) achievable when such interactions are considered?

Chris N.
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Response to "The Future Development of Air Transport in the United Kingdom: South East" 03/12/2002

PRESS RELEASE – LONDON LUTON AIRPORT

2nd December 2002

London Luton Airport Submission to SERAS

London Luton Airport today submitted it's response to the Government's Consultation on Future Airport Capacity in the South East, reserving the right to provide an additional submission subject to any further consultation process involving Gatwick Airport.

[snip]

-----------------------
Then, from: http://www.london-luton.co.uk/pdf/download/15039Document.pdf

LLAOL appreciate that the SERAS team have discounted additional runway options in
the immediate vicinity of the existing airport, but closer examination of the
surrounding land has clearly indicated the potential for a 3,000 metre runway to the
south east running parallel to the existing runway, and at a separation of some 1,400
metres (Heathrow has a separation of 1,450 metres). A second runway, positioned in
this way could enable LTN to achieve the same movements a year as LHR (Halcrow,
Stage Two Appraisals); and add a further 55mppa in capacity for the South East. It
could therefore make a significant contribution to capacity development in the region.

5.4 This option, and a further alternative two runway option are illustrated (in schematic
format) in Figures 5.1 and 5.2 (overleaf).

5.11 The "maximum use" option would increase passenger capacity at LTN from the 2000
level of 6.5mppa to around 31mppa. A second runway would allow the airport to
operate up to 551,000 ATMs, which at an average passenger load of some 150 would
give a capacity of some 83mppa, at least double the proposed maximum capacity at
LTN.

5.12 In addition, one of the runways could be available at night to cater for London's need
for overnight mail and express parcels [and thus negate the need for Alconbury,
which we would regard as being too remote for this market] – the runway selected
could alternate each night. Such alternate use would automatically mitigate the
additional noise impact.
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[Spitoon]

Never mind the interactions in the air.

If there was a second runway at Luton, in order to offer the same pax capacity as LHR, it would need similar taxiways and stand capacity as LHR. There's not a lot of room for this sort of expansion at Luton.
Unless of course they were trying to start a trend for sloping airports - I'm not sure it would catch on though.

[Scott Voigt]

Parallel runways are always going to add to your ability to get aircraft in and out... The main thing is to get them far enough apart so that you can do simultaneous operations... That really helps <G>... But in the case of only two runways, you use one runway for arrivals and one for departures unless your departure demand is light and then you can mix arrivals in with the departures too...

regards

[Brilliant Disguise]

Scott
Parallel runways should add to your ability to get aircraft in and out. Unfortunately, if your airport operator has pandered to the demands of the public to get their new runway built and agreed to ludicrous noise abatement procedures then that ability will be much tempered.

And as for allowing mixed mode...they'd much rather have VFR aircraft going around in circles for 10 minutes waiting to land on the arrival runway, rather than allow it to land on the sometimes unused departure runway.
Logical? No
Political? Yes
Bull****? Absolutely!

Oh and back to the thread. Two runways at Luton. Once the first one gets near the capacity of a "proper" runway, i.e. taxiways to both ends, maybe then they could think about it.

[Not Long Now]

As a TMA controller, perhaps I'm being a bit blinkered, but let me set a scenario. A Tuesday morning in November, all Southern England covered in fog, best RVR for hours 250m (perhaps putting another runway on top of the hill would help?). All holds full for all airports. Any extra capacity? Well, no.
OK that's a 'bad case' scenario. Let's have a better one. Tuesday morning, bright summer day. All holds full for all airports. Any extra capacity? Still no I'm afraid.
The point is this. There is extra capacity in the ATC system. It's generally between 10 and 1130, 1430 and 1700, and then after 2130 on weekdays, Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings. Strangely, there still seems to be nobody catching on to this. Having extra runways in the London TMA will help a little, but things are still very crowded in the air and I don't believe you could get many more up there at peak times.
More airspace would help, but 'special interest'groups, the airforce, and the fact that we have crammed 5 major airports into the smallest space possible all make it a little difficult.
If there is to be a strategic long term plan for increasing runway capacity in the S East, perhaps we need a total reorganisation of the airspace? But when did what we need actually matter.....

I can only hope that if/when the government comes up with it's grand design, some thought is given to those of us trying to get the planes to and from these new runways!

[chrisN]

NLN, thanks for addressing my questions.

I had in mind particularly that if Luton got two runways and there were any attempt to use them to capacity, would that mean (a) dedicated stacks where there are none now, so more CAS at FL 55 or lower within range of Luton, and (b) maybe also more for Stansted, NE of the latter, to get all their traffic away from Luton/shared stacks?

[Scott Voigt]

Not long now;

I don't see how you can say that an extra runway would not increase capacity? When we added an extra runway at DFW we increased our landing rate quite a bit. By increasing the landing rate we decreased our delay rate in the hold or the conga line by at least 4 minutes an aircraft. That is substantial.

Now if you have a runway and you don't make it cat III or at least II then you are making a BIG mistake where you work.

regards

[Not Long Now]

Scott, suppose we get extra runways somewhere in the TMA, that increase the overall landing/departure rate for the TMA to 300 per hour(purely arbitrary number).
At present, during the busy periods morning/evening etc. the sectors feeding traffic into the TMA are already operating at maximum rate of let's say 230 per hour. The runway capacity increase is completely useless unless there's a way for the planes to get to/from the tarmac! This was the point I was getting at....

With NERC now open, if and when there are ever enough people to staff it fully, the delays won't go away, they'll simply be moved as TC/other centres put on rates rather than NERC to prevent the them being swamped. This may be great if you are a manager at NERC, and can claim your big bonus because NERC attributable delays are down, but it wont actually result in moving much more traffic!

A long term strategic plan is needed somewhere soon. So we've had it then.

[Scott Voigt]

Not long now...

Ahhhhhhhhh I see what you are saying. We had to redesign the airspace so as to be able to be able to flog more aircraft in and out of the metroplex... On a good day, DFW lands about a 148 rate. IFR goes down to about 121. If it goes real low, we then lose some more, but it doesn't really matter as most of the aircraft that seem to fly in aren't cat III

regards