Despite its shortcomings the UK still has hell of a lot going for it. ^

Life there doesn't revolve around one bloody airport you know.

Actually, a high-speed "Heathwick" rail link would not use much land as, like the London-ends of HS1 and HS2, it would be mostly built underground.

Of course, it would indeed take years and would be expensive - BUT still would be significantly cheaper than a third Heathrow runway!

IIRC the estimates are something like £5 billion for the rail link vs. £9 billion for the third runway.

£9Bn for a third runway :eek: Guess a reasonable proprtion of that is compulsory purchasing of Sipson, Harmondsworth etc

Plus one here

Hiddy. Yes, I agree about taking up more land, etc. but the land does not necessarily need to be in the vicinity of the airports that already exist. One of the issues about LHR expansion is simply where does it expand to? If there is no land, or if the land that is there does not increase capacity by an appreciable amount then the comparison falls away. I also agree that taking such drastic measures to modernise the airports in the South of England for future will also get massive objections though.

I have often wondered why we don't expand JER. Move all the residents to Guernsey - nicer beaches for them, and concrete the whole place over. BA could then offer an A380 "shuttle service" to the island where we would connect onto other destinations. It's already an island so Boris can present it as a victory for him, London residents wouldn't suffer noise pollution and migrating birds can still have their estuary. Let's think long-term and start with six runways which surely will be enough to satisfy the China demand for the immediate future, and all those nitrous oxides will be blown over France protecting our school childrens' lungs - it's a win all round.

Just think of the saving in APD too.

But what about the cows?! :eek:

Oh hang on, they could graze the outlying parts...

You've got my vote for next Mayor of London. Shame I don't live there or have a vote...

Seems to work just fine at Gatwick. :p

I'm not necessarily advocating the use of mixed mode ops, but simply pointing out that the only reason that Heathrow is at "99% of capacity" is because "capacity" is an artificially derived number rather than an actual shortage of physical capacity brought about by inadequate infrastructure.

You could build a third, fourth and fifth runway as well but if they continue to maintain the hard cap on annual movements (which is the real limiting factor at Heathrow), people will continue to say that it is operating at "99% of capacity".

Just look at Dusseldorf for an example of an airport whose relevance and opportunity for growth was (and continues to be) shredded by artificial capacity limitations imposed by NIMBYs. Heathrow probably won't wind up the same way soon, but in a few decades who knows...

Heathrow Airport certainly won’t be the leading factor.


LHR has no spare runway capacity only because the runways are used inefficiently. By that, I mean too many small aircraft occupying precious slots. For example, on Thursday, March 15, I counted 41 movements by Regional Jets, 746 by A320/B737/MD80, 215 by A300/A330/A340/B757/B767, 143 by B777, 101 by B747, 12 by A388 and 6 by general aviation. So there is plenty of scope to expand passenger throughput simply by using larger aircraft instead of RJs and single aisle types.

It is no secret that over a third of Heathrow’s passengers are only changing planes. While BAA and BA would love to attract more of that market segment (which contributes relatively little to the rest of the UK economy), encouraging transfer traffic to move to EU hubs with spare capacity would release much needed space at LHR, which would benefit substantially UK residents and visitors, especially if new airlines start flights to and from cities currently served only via another hub.

Of course, most passengers, including me, prefer airlines to operate multiple departures per day to a wide range of destinations but as capacity is limited, we have to make the most of what we've got. When I am in London, I would love to be able to drive to my destination quickly and not be frustrated by unpredictable delays or take the train/underground without having to be intimate with other passengers but we can't always have what we want, can we.

I would argue that improvement in surface and sub-surface transport would do more to boost UK economic efficiency and attractiveness to investment than a third runway at Heathrow but I don't hear anyone proposing lots of new roads.

I don't understand why so many of you are so enthusiastic about a new runway. Perhaps you haven’t fully considered the reasons against. The environmental cost is enormous and extra pollution from aviation will require even stronger measures to reduce pollution from other sources, such as constraints and taxation on road vehicles. The UK's track record of completing efficiently and punctually major infrastructure development is not great. Fully financing such a major project through debt is far from assured and it is likely that an Airport Improvement Fee will be levied on today's passengers, to pay for an 'improvement' they will not enjoy until the next decade. Everybody complains about Air Passenger Duty but have any of you noticed by how much Heathrow's Passenger Service Charge has risen in the last few years? From next week, we will pay £34.49 just for the privilege of standing in long queues or walking next to moving walkways that are closed but with no maintenance workers in sight.

I would like to see APD replaced by a tax that is assessed on aircraft departures and arrivals, which would encourage airlines to use larger aircraft or at least maximize the load factor of each flight.

Sorry for the long post, I hope it hasn't put too many of you to sleep.

It is a difficult one. I was going to same the same, with the Bric countries increasing their influence.

However the olympics and its aftermath can have a positive effect amongst many things :) Or the other way around :(

Very clever. Have you considered following Bryan Gould into politics when you emigrate?

Those suits you wear would make you sound credible too.

The pollution argument is much less relevant now.

By the time a runway is built, 787/A350/A320neo etc will be commonplace.

A 787-9 is over 25% more efficient than an A343. A 77W is 20% more efficient than a 744. An extra runway could in part be used to ensure that aircraft do not have to circle for an hour before landing during busy periods. Therefore the number of flights could be increased by, say, a quarter without increasing pollution from its current level.

I agree - the future is likely to be a more pragmatic use of existing capacity at LHR. I don't see it ever being politically acceptable to build the third runway, and while a new purpose built airport would be great the challenge is finding somewhere to put it.

Have been saying that for years. BA can't bleat too loudly at lack of R3 when it (and some other airlines to be fair) insist on running multiple services per day to some cities with A319 and A320 sized aircraft. Yes it will need a small shift in their business model to do this. But if their is no R3 in prospect for at least 7-10 years and they want to open new destinations, ie China, they either have to:

a) Acquire slots from other airlines (the BD takeover will achieve this).
b) Drop the frequency a bit on some short-haul destinations.
c) Move more pax per slot by using larger aircraft (or a combination of b&c together).