AZ could not sustain two hubs, period. To that extent, whether they were forced to move to MXP or not is irrelevant. They would still have de-hubbed MIL in any event.

That in itself would not be enough of a parallel with LHR. London is not the UK's "second city". If you were to draw that kind of parallel, then Paris would be more comparable to London, which would push you towards comparing with LBG/ORY/CDG (although I personally feel that a parallel would be just as inappropriate here anyway).

Mirabel is yet a different story. What made Mirabel especially stupid was to segregate domestic and transborder traffic at Dorval and international traffic at Mirabel, precluding any chance of easy connections via Montreal. Who in their right mind would have transited via Montreal rather than YYZ in these conditions?
The problem at Heathrow/London-Megahub would be of a different nature and not comparable to the Mirabel issue.

All,

A couple of quick requests on this popular thread:

• Images are welcome, as long as they illustrate a point and contribute to the discussion. However, please avoid using oversized images that stretch the standard width of the thread, as this makes reading rather difficult, and dominates the discussion unnecessarily.
• If you disagree with any of the posts on the topic, then please dispute the content, not the poster.

Thanks,

stut
Moderator
UK & Ireland

The situation at London is not really akin to Milan or Munich, which are both substantially smaller and second cities. Likewise Paris and its surrounds are much smaller than London and its surrounds. Looking for comparable places, you have to look at New York, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo. Hong Kong has uniquely peculiar geography and a system which is not shy of doing what it's going to do, regardless of what people want. I don't know much about Singapore, but the lessons from New York and Tokyo make me believe that a major airport to the East of London, when the economic activity is largely to the west, nort and south, is not wise.

It's one thing building the Olympic site east - you can find land, it is largely being dismantled and, should the stadium slowly crumble, it will merely follow a proud Olympic tradition. But forcing a mass economic migration by closing down LHR, that's on the Mugabe side of managing an economy.

There are many solutions which could involve London's existing four or five airports. Leaving aside BA's interests(!!), they could sanction Gatwick and Stansted to four runways each. At the same time, they could ramp up noise limits on air traffic over heavily populated places on a timetable designed to eliminate heavy jets at LHR within a few years of the extra capacity elsewhere coming on stream. Such an approach would alloe airlines, and their alliances, to choose their London hub. You might find OW heading to STN for example, with Star heading to LGW. SkyTeam might decide to stick with LHR and provide feed to CDG and AMS from there.

This would be far cheaper, would give airlines and their customers a choice, could be cloaked in environmentalism and would only upset people in sparsely populated Sussex and East Anglia.

I do remember a famous lady making a comment about U-turns. Clearly BoJo doesn't agree with her. :D

Boris is off to see some bank managers

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/mayor...t-8490015.html

Do they show Have I Got News For You in these countries? :D

Boris is off on a tour of the Gulf to attempt to secure some of the £80Billion needed for his project.

However it seems senior members of the government favour a mega airport ar Stansted. Something I have come to think is the best solution. Stansted will be Britain's Charles de Gaulle, lots of empty flat land for many runways.

I strongly disagree with having an airport for short haul flights and another airport for long haul flights like the Heathwick idea. It is a stupid idea and totally ruins the 'Hub' concept which it the whole point of this growingly tedious debate.

Very good point however Britain needs an airport with four, five, six runways. This is why Stansted needs to be developed into Britain's Charles de Gaulle.

Yes, I don't think anyone was seriously proposing that Heathwick would be short haul at one airport and long haul at the other - there would be a mix of short haul and long haul at each. After all, most people usually transfer between flights of the same airline (or same alliance).

But, I agree its unlikely that Heathwick will move forward - the rail link would be very expensive, the cost/benefit hard to justify, and you'd still have a very busy Heathrow making the whole excercise a bit pointless. Stansted or Thames Estuary are the way to go.

Spot on

Heard on the tube last night ad we passed Paddington on the H&C that the HS2 "Will cut flights from Heathrow as fewer people will fly to Birmingham". I was so tempted to say and how many flights a day will that be but I held my tongue. ;):D

I see an opportunity for BHX to develop. However people need to take a risk and start to put more flights on there. However Emirates do fly from BHX, so in theory you can go anywhere in the world.

I'm fairly certain they meant flying from LHR to BHX given their other comments on the matter ;)

No point. Londoners won't leave London. That's also why ultimately STN will fail because of the perception it's too hard to get to. Afterall, it's been operation now for 30 years, and it hasn't emerged from under LHR's shadow and is still mainly a LCC airport.

Stansted *is* hard to get to, relative to other airports, from many parts of London.

But it becomes an entirely different proposition if you connect it to HS1 and Crossrail. With the right infrastructure it'll be faster to get to STN than it is to get to Heathrow or Gatwick today.