CDG has a motorway running under 2 of it's runways as does ATL and MAN - as stated in the report. Also it's much easier to find a site to build a new reservoir than a new airport!

Makes sense to me.

It doesn't damage the local area economically, nor does it fundamentally change the way businesses in the area travel. Much of the basic infrastructure exists e.g.. fuel systems and train lines. Furthermore, some of the land occupied by old airfield could be sold off or developed into prime commercial space - right next to an airport and right next to direct links into London.

It's a big project, but certainly nothing complex in engineering terms.

No doubt noise is going to be an issue however aircraft are getting quieter and will no doubt be even quieter in the future.

The most sensible plan of the lot in my opinion.

From your own links

25% reduction just by moving the runways, Steeper approaches for narrow-bodies, ban on the noisier planes and a total ban on night flights reduce it even further.

Just reading further about the plans for transport between the three terminals & the Gateways and checkin which as I read it means you can checkin at any terminal and go airside at any terminal - whilst there is only one transit method between terminals each train is divided between airside & landside carriages. But why not go the whole hog and have checkin at the Gateways and you go airside from that point so all the terminals are "sterile". Is there a reason - apart from privilege - why all passengers regardless of airline could not use the same checkin desks at the same time?

Don't forget that it would be upwards of £9bn just for a 3rd runway and T6, which offer far fewer benefits. So a new airport, while expensive, is not so bad once you put it in context.

This is a crazy proposition.

You only have to read a few pages in to realise they know nothing about aviation.

Heathrow is not the right site for a 24/7 Hub airport.

The proposal would probably cost as much as building the proposed Thames Hub - all for an airport closed 25% of the time.

Not to mention all the disruption to existing heathrow ops for decades while it's constructed, yet more congestion at London's gateway, the destruction of Windsor as a peaceful town and increasingly expensive housing for those who work at the airport as more demand cannot be met by existing homes.

None of these problems at Thames Hub:

http://cdx.dexigner.com/news/xw/24129.jpg

Heathrow may not be the best place for a hub airport - but it has one massive advantage over any other plan - IT ALREADY EXISTS.

Creating a new hub airport elsewhere is going to create massive disruption - how does Boris intend to get the people currently working at Heathrow to Boris Island? What about the companies that moved into the Thames Valley because of where Heathrow is? Are they going to be happy that a 30 minute jaunt along the M4 now becomes a 2 hour slog through London? And has Boris ever considered what the east side of London will be like in rush hour with Heathrow level of traffic added to it - the M25 barely copes now.

@ alanR ... +1.

Whilst there a squillions of whiners about LHR's associated motorways, most of the time they work. I know they're bad at peak times, but so are most of the World's motorways. The reality is that LHR works (just). Boris Island will transplant the extant problems to an already congested area to the East ... exacerbated by the traffic coming from the former hub where people and companies will continue to exist for decades to come.

Quite so! LHR exists and provides services every day of the year. Its proximity to Central London makes it easy and quick to get to by public transport and it is an established hub.

LHR's problem is its lack of runways. It is perfectly possible in engineering terms to add further runways to LHR, there are various proposals on the table. This can also be done on financially acceptable terms.

By contrast, the whole Boris Island business is fraught with real technical difficulties and entirely unaffordable, plus highly disruptive in how it moves the point of gravity from West to East.

A Boris Island airport would also require new public transport of a scale well beyond the Jubilee extension or the Olympics high speed connection. For that there is neither the money nor indeed the space (think about the problems of Cross Rail and multiply by several factors).

Unfortunately, I can't see any politician with the vision and determination to cut through the knot and get the LHR expansion finally and speedily underway. So, in 20 years from now we'll still be arguing the toss about this, while European airports will have taken over most of the hub role from LHR at great cost to the UK economy and with significant jobs loss. By that time, instead of using a major hub, I'll be using a minor airport (although I guess it will mean less crowding in GC :D).

Heathrow's location may not be ideal, but you could say that about many, many airports around the world.

Don't be fooled into thinking an airport in the Thames Estuary is actually any better placed than LHR is.

I'm kind of puzzled by these drawings. There are two things that seem really bizarre about them:

a) the way they're drawn they don't actually make the airport any wider. If you just move the runways to the west but don't get any extra space what makes it suddenly possible to squeeze four runways in? Why not just build for runways where they are?

b) Why would you move the whole airport and repeat the basic error that makes Heathrow so impractical currently. Putting the terminals between the runways creates the whole traffic bottlenecks getting into and out of the airport and makes every inter-terminal transfer an interminable bus ride tour through the countryside. It also creates the whole space squeeze that makes parking at Heathrow so expensive.

But plenty of airports have been built in such locations in the past without issue. They have faced all the same problems as a Thames Estuary airport would. The ONLY insurmountable problem that the aviation policy faces is politicians. Until someone figures out how to overcome that, nothing else will be tackled.

Just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should.

Why people believe that the Thames Estuary is the perfect place for an airport, I don't know - because it isn't. Each area will be different, artificial land or not, off the coast or landlocked. ATC have already expressed concerns about the effect on air traffic in the southeast and Europe, as they have about the area being prone to fog - much more so than LHR.

Shifting LHR immediately west lowers the heights of the hurdles needed to be jumped. Sure infrastructure will need to be modified and beefed up - but it's a darn sight more workable than what an airport in the Estuary would need.

You don't disrupt the local economy, but rather make it more robust. Staff are based there, contractors and services are based there, large businesses are based there. Portions of the old 'East' Heathrow site could be developed into green spaces and prime commercial property with fantastic connections to the capital and the rest of the world - helping to ensure private funding.

Economically this plan makes sense. It costs less, is less disruptive, is potentially quicker, it is being built at a proven airport and provides the capacity needed with 2 more full length runways.

The various estuary airport plans exist for one reason - less flights over central London.

If we starting from scratch then an estuary airport might be an option - though economically it would be better for an airport to be north of London - but we aren't, so it isn't.

While I'd certainly entertain other options, a Thames Hub can provide an INTEGRATED solution.

Road, rail (including Channel Tunnel), sea (important for containers) and as well as air.

LHR would be lovely if it wasn't situated right next to London meaning it bathes the city in pollution, noise and has a mandatory closure from midnight to 6am - which means for every four runways you build at Heathrow, you need only build three to deliver the same capacity at an Estuary Airport, as you effectively lose a full days' slots by building at LHR.

Add to that the fact that its road are already congested as it's alongside the main gateway to London, and the fact that houseprices are astronomical and too expensive for the many support people needed to work in the increasingly narrow-margined aviation industry and it's plain to see that there must be a better alternative to Heathrow.

Closing it would allow the huge boon of a Westfield/mixed use style redevelopment of the site - you could even re-use the existing terminal "sheds" as shopping malls without too much effort...! PLenty of much needed new housing for London.

We forget that LHR itself had poor road links until the M4 flyover was built in the sixties, and that will need to be pulled down and rebuilt in the coming decades. If they can pull it down.

The Heathrow express is a relatively recent addition.

Sydney totally re-jigged its motorways just this past decade by building massive underground tunnels - we do have some experience of such projects here in the UK, and we're rather good at it (even if we did have the misfortune of finding France at the end of the most impressive one).

I do think we should at least acknowledge Heathrow's drawbacks openly, and give due consideration to alternatives, even if they may seem "adventurous".

Boris? Boris? Is that you? Are you ready now for your 0415 flight to Berlin?