I too hope it never happens. We already have one hub. Having two is a stupid idea, especially when they're on the opposite sides of a huge city. Who is going to connect from London West to London East when they could fly to FRA/AMS/CDG and walk down a corridor?

What we need is the rest of the government to ignore the braying idiots who represent 2 or 3 constituencies in West London and approve a full expansion of Heathrow.

The point is that the transit will be simple - if you lived in Sydney as I did when they engineered a series of underground tunnels to free up traffic, you'd see how effective such infrastructure is.

The point is that the Hub isn't being built for your generation, or even mine. It's being built for the generation after that, which will need to be connected to the world in a way that Heathrow simply will never manage to accommodate.

Your quite right that LHR was the right solution.

But developing this new solution is the right way forward, and no-one is suggesting doing so without the required infrastructure to support it. To suggest that the current journey across London (pre-Crossrail, which isn't even part of the proposed improvements attached to Thames Hub) will in any way resemble a journey post Crossrail and the additional infrastructure support this Hub is facile.

How quickly you forget that East London was the commercial hub but 60 years ago, and at that time Heathrow was a collection of tents with no tube, no flyover motorway from London and that the railway connection only started in the 90s.

http://www.transportbriefing.co.uk/c...in.php?id=1444

There will be no "two hub issue" in London as Heathrow can be redeveloped into a shopping mall (terminals are ideal for that already), university and business park as well as housing overspill for London; the sale and redevelopment of the site will generate tens of billions.

And what about the thousands of businesses that have located their infrastructure in West London because LHR is there, and the hundreds of thousands of employees that settled their families there because of it? They're not going to move, so to change the hub location is a non starter. Noone lives near the proposed location, and a rail link to central London isn't going to help anyone who lives more than a few minutes from St Pancras.

The only way it could ever be feasible is if a non stop, high speed railway of some sort was constructed between the two to link them. It would need a sub 30 minute journey time from airport to airport. Crossrail just isn't fast enough. That would cost tens of billions and require engineering on a scale never seen before, if its even possible. Again, its a non starter.

This Thames island is great for newspaper coverage and Boris's PR campaign, but its a horrible idea.

I have to say that I too find your posts on this matter rather tedious, they read like someone tasked with promoting the thing on social media without giving it too much critical thought. And when people start to name and personalise inanimate objects by capitalising the noun referring to it (the Hub), it rather tells me critical thinking has left the scene.

What kind of argument is the above anyway? It's some random statement about the benefits of a random piece of infrastructure. It doesn't in any way make the project as a whole more realistic or indeed address to what extent that piece of infrastructure is even possible in the location and for the purpose mentioned. In other words, it's a typical example of a red herring.

Boris island will never happen, it's a wet dream, a fantasy by people who prefer to indulge in dreamy fiction instead of addressing the actual issue in the harsh real world.

In the mean time, the incompetent lot that makes up the modern political caste will never make the decision on LHR expansion either, they lack the leadership and courage for it. So, the UK's only real hub, and a major asset for its economy, will slowly wither away while the competition abroad laughs all the way to the bank.

The UK does not have a history of grand schemes, unlike, for example, the French. And when we do carry them out, they are usually poor to disastrous. And I fear that Boris island is a grand scheme to end all grand schemes.

So, what are the likely outcomes if it gets built and IF they also build the transport (and you have to remember here that there is a rich tradition in the UK of failing to build the transport or fouling it up so that it's useless). First off, they must close LHR or else everyone will simply continue to use it (look at LGW or STN - they are both better located but cannot persuade people to use them). They must also stop LGW expanding to fill the gap, because if it does so, BA or Virgin or both might well prefer to move there. Likewise, perhaps that's where the major international airlines might choose to base themselves.

First off, it will be easier for many people to get to LGW, STN, BDX or even Bristol or Southampton. Certainly many people with a car (and these, of course, would have to be banned in Boris' plan) will find it easier to head to those airports and connect in CDG, AMS or FRA. Even those without a car may choose to take the train to LGW or STN or Southampton - depending upon their local station and upon the fares which will be charged for Boris' train set to his island.

All these issues will eventually go away, of course. Economic activity will decline in huge sections of the South East - basically, West London, Hampshire, Berkshire, Bucks, Middlesex, Wiltshire, Surrey and Sussex. Eventually, some of this will be replaced by new build in Kent and Essex and reclaimed land in East London. But not all of it: many will find the area too small and crowded - Heaven knows, the South East is already crowded and cramming it all into an even smaller area will make it intolerable to many. Many companies will find that they can live near a spoke for FRA, CDG or AMS just fine, but others will simply relocate to those centres.

So, thinking forward 20 years (or indeed 40 years as our FT proponent of the scheme wants) we will have impoverished the most successful parts of our country for a scheme that fails to deliver what we need.

Now, the alternative. Already, the technology exists to reduce noise levels at LHR by requiring steeper approaches - it's done elsewhere, so why not here? Secondly, separation and positioning technology will surely improve in 20 years. Thirdly, large sections immediately north and south of LHR are commercial with relatively little residential. Money makes people move. Fourthly, the vast majority of people living in houses they own in the blighted areas have bought their houses since LHR became London's main airport - they cannot have been ignorant of aviation. Fifthly, for those living further out (and I live under the flight path for the north runway), no one can expect to live in a major city in total silence. It doesn't happen and never will. Sixthly, with a four runway operation, it would be possible to alter the flight paths to avoid flying directly over Parliament etc., if that's the aim.

A third runway by itself is obviously nonsense and will immediately require a fourth. Plan for six and build to four.

The tides are turning. Or at least, Boris is for turning.

Stansted airport emerged as Boris Johnson’s favoured option for a new international hub for the South-East today. Sources close to the Mayor admitted he accepted expanding the Essex airport would be “the easiest” way to increase aviation capacity.

I dont understand why any scheme would mean closing LHR. Why cant they offer deals to smaller airlines to move to the new airport. okay BA, doesnt want to go, but other airlines would like cheaper landing deals and more slots. They didnt close LTN, when Standstead was opened. They opened Southened after all the other airports were open.

What are we defining smaller airlines as? Most of the smaller ones or those which operate a point to point service already aren't at LHR. There aren't too many others to move from there. Those which are in alliances or operate a hub and spoke network, need/want to be at LHR.

If LGW couldn't succeed as an alternate hub, then why would a new airport? Basically, for any new major airport to be successful, LHR HAS to be closed. The results of the white paper showed that airlines were not wanting to move, even if you held out the lure of a new airport and increased capacity as a carrot - you need a stick to get them to overcome the logistical issues and the costs of moving which the airlines have to bear.

Whilst Heathrow does seem to be just BA. there are many small airlines with one or two flights a day. If there really is a need for capacity, which over the next twenty years there will be.

Many companies are based in the LHR area, because of the airport. Would all these people want to move their work, or either spend longer to get to an airport or longer getting to work.

I appreciate there are more pople in London, then in the whole of Denmark.

You would have to close LHR to make a new hub work. Munich, Oslo, Hong Kong all successfully did it - and there were howls of protest then about both airport workers and pax having to travel further. But hey, people adapt - particularly when they don't have a choice. Those airports are thriving - I remember there was so much gloom and doom from the folk of Munich, ie it will kill the city, no one will use it, too far out, businesses will move away from Bavaria etc etc. Guess what - they didn't and MUC has even expanded considerably since it opened 20 years ago and is a thriving hub, second only to FRA in Germany.

But compare these examples to Montreal and Milan where the original airports did not close down on the opening of the new ones. The new ones are pretty much white elephants with Montreal-Mirabel now totally closed to pax traffic and Milan-Malpensa opersting way under capacity to that envisaged.

Is the problem with Milan-Malpensa the economy not the flights that are the issue. Italy hasnt been the best country for the past few years.

Plenty of people seem upset over HS2. I doubt we will get an airport investment until 2050.

Mainly the fact that Linate is still open and most O&D pax want to fly there as is much closer to the city. So is robbing MXP of alot of traffic and that would not be the case if LIN closed down as pax would have no choice then. Exactly the same would have happened if FBU had stayed open after Gardermoen opened, or the old Reims after MUC opened. People winge...but history says they soon adapt!

There are a number of issues at stake in MXP, not just that LIN remained open. At the time, AZ was supposed to have a hub in Milan and that hub would have had to be MXP. At it happened, AZ changed strategy completely and went for a single hub at FCO instead (although there are a few flights from MXP too). Closing LIN would have not changed that and MXP would still be operating at a much lower level than it originally planned.

There are counter examples too. neither ORY nor even LBG closed when CDG opened, for instance.

So, one cannot generalise. In the case of LHR, however, I agree that it is indeed difficult to see how a mega-hub airport in the LON could successfully open without closure of LHR.

Interesting listening to David Cameron bark on about how important investment in infrastructure is and why a white elephant railway is important yet he ignores more pressing issues such as roads which are in dire need of repair and airports being full.

If an alternative airport is built then LHR would have to be closed, non-LCC's prefer LHR as can be seen by the amount of them that do not operate to LGW/STN/LTN. They won't move their operations even if the new airport offers free landing fees.

In the long term future a brand new airport is needed that is convenient and is attached to transport links, however while it is built LHR needs expanding also as it will be at least 20 years away.

Short term: Mixed operations at LHR
Medium Term: New runways and terminals at LHR and LGW
Long term: New hub airport.

If the government really cared about NIMBYS then they wouldn't be putting a train line through villages in Cheshire/Derbyshire

Yes but you have the chicken and egg situation here. If LIN had closed then AZ would have had to move all flights to MXP (as would all other airlines). Then a much better critical mass of flights and pax throughput would have been achieved at MXP and this would have resulted in more long-haul flights as the connecting traffic would have been there to feed into them.

I agree one cannot generalise but the parallel can (and should be) drawn with MUC which has just thrived since opening, and Mirabel in Montreal which never stood a chance without a critical mass of flights and pax (O&D and connecting), denied to it because YUL remained open.

Milan and Munich are very similar as far as cities go, they are pretty much their respective county's second cities, they are in very wealthy regions too. But a key difference is one supports a prosperous second hub to the main one in the country, the other doesn't with a principle reason being because it splits it's air traffic between two airports.