Teesside Airport
Wonderful place. Flights from London, and for quite a while from Manchester. I used to enjoy going there. At times it felt like a private jet airport. cf Northolt. What with the decimation of ICI and British Steel, I'm not sure what will happen to the airport.

Heathrow.

All this Government spin. Heathrow runway 3 will never be built. Get used to it.

1. 80% of the pax at lhr are tourists. Only 20% of the pax are "business". Why spend billions on tourists when LGW would be so much cheaper?
2. Only BA gain from runway 3. Their loss making feeders pass traffic to their license to print money TA flights.
3. The NOX is currently 40% to 60% above legal limits. They have used weasel words to ignore this. No Court can allow this runway to be built.
4. Noise. Until BA and all other operators get rid of the 747-400s with RR engines, the noise will not be allowed. 747-400s with RR engines are the noisiest 100 seater plus pax plane in the world.

I'd agree on point 4, the 747s are very loud but they are being phased out. On point 2, 50% of the new slots would have to be made available to "new entrants" therefore would not be automatically allocated to BA (or any other incumbent airline). Any not allocated to new entrants would not automatically be allocated to BA either, this would be determined through the slot allocation procedure.

As for NOX, a lot of this is driven by vehicle traffic that is not necessarially related to LHR itself (think about all the traffic going past LHR on the way into/out of London).

First of all I'll declare I live in south west london. We never get planes on their landing approach over our house but get the take offs at times. They're loud, and the 380s and 747s are the loudest, in that order, followed by the 777s.
I don't mind them as it's not all day, but I don't want them to be all day and don't want them at night.
I grew up under the flight path for gla, and at school the teachers had to stop talking when a plane went over. Not that big a deal but I imagine it is difficult in Hounslow for example.

Mirabel is a crap comparison. At the time, flights to Canada had to stop in Dorval so there was demand for a new airport. That rule was changed so demand dropped significantly. Can't see that happening in London.

A tunnel for the m25 is needed because a runway and taxiway are needed, unless you want planes taxiing along the runway like at lcy. The m25 needs to be lowered so can go under the m4 instead of above, to allow the runway to go over. The runway can't be raised above as you'd need a hell of a lot of earth movement which would be far too expensive and complicated.
Given that part of the m25 is twelve lanes and gridlocked for much of the day already, as of the m4 I can't see how moving it, plus the slip roads is possible, unless you want the south east to stop doing business.

I doubt it will ever happen. It's doomed to fail.

JimSddie,
the 747-400s might have a lesser role in the future for pax, but they are the mainstay of the freight operation in lhr, and will remain so while Brits continue to eat, inter alia, Kenyan grown food.

Why go anywhere near the M25? Why not just demolish Sipson and Harlington/Cranford?

They could have Hounslow aswell, it is such a dump.

Where will the A 4 traffic go?

Anyone know the plans for BA's Waterworld?

Hounslow is a dump but it is one of the most populated areas of London! So removing Hounslow would be so expensive you might as well make Boris island! = )

Another good reason to bring back Concorde! :p

I assume everyone has read the detailed deliberations, over 342 pages, of The Report?

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...nal-report.pdf

Or, in true FT fashion, will discussion here ignore the details contained therein and just focus on personal preconceptions and prejudices? :D

Maybe they could move to a new artificial island in the Thames Estuary as a "proof of concept".

You mean as opposed to those of the report's authors? 😉

At least they have numerical data to support their case ;)

LHR is currently operating ABOVE capacity. By banning long haul and moving all of that to a new stansted international, it will be operating at the capacity it was once meant for (e.g. top capacity at the time it was built, when the world did not fly nearly as much as we do now).


No airport was ever built with the intention of being completely slot-restricted and congested.

OK, you've made your point. No need to keep repeating yourself.

That's why it needs the extra runway ! Simples...