Originally Posted by
Nimrod1965
Heathrow swaps runways at 3pm every day so that it gives the residents living under the immediate flight path a break from arrival traffic. This is only for the westerly 27 runways. For runway 09, the majority of landings are on 09L as rhe departures are on 09R; something about the taxiway to 09L not being suitable for all aircraft sizes with T5 domestic gates being so close to the runway threshold (I think).
Thanks for the explanation. However the transition is never smooth. I was on a flight departing 14:30 and held back until the runway swap has been carried out. Why not do one day runway L and the other day R. That would be much easie in my opinion.