So, Heathrow........

Sve

When I first started going to Australia I had to either to drive down to Manchester or fly down to Heathrow and get a connecting flight. Manchester is a 3 hour drive and an overnight stay and the cost of paying to park the car on top for 3-4 weeks.

Newcastle airport is 15 minutes drive away so it was a lot easier to get a connecting flight to Australia (drop your bags at Newcastle and see them again at the other end) than having to do the drive etc and worked out cheaper.

I can now fly to Australia now direct from Newcastle thanks to Emirates but if I want to go anywhere else in the world I either fly to Dubai and use that as my hub with Emirates or use BA and its partners and use Heathrow as my hub.

Having been to Dubai airport 3 times I dislike the airport even more than Heathrow so my preferred option would be to use Heathrow.

Sonic67

Isn't there therefore a case for expanding Luton? To the north and classed as a London airport.

Trollslayer

Interesting idea, how about including Stansted?

Cliff

Come on John. You either didn't read my post or you are purposely not trying hard enough!
How can every airline fly to your local airport?

Cliff

By the way John... Can suggest Emirates fly to Biggin Hill for me? Also Gulf Air, Qatar and BA just to give me a choice .

johntheexpat

The point being made by my last post is that the huge majority of passengers don't need long haul flights.  They are served very nicely by local airports.  What is the point of creating a mega hub for people flying to Spain or the US Italy Spain or Ireland?
How much of the recent increase in passenger numbers is down to low cost flights who have a business model that revolves around costs and not premium slots at expensive airports?
There may be a case for feeder flights to a hub for Australia but only because so few people visit there.
As the FT article says, Heathrow crushing Gatwick for financial reasons is the most plausible explanation.

Trollslayer

Cliff - something isn't there so it won't work?
Poor logic at  best.

Sve

John, you don't need seem to get it. They are not using Heathrow as a hub to get to holiday destinations in Europe, its a hub for getting to the rest of the world.

Emirates operate one flight per day out of Newcastle and it is always full, its around 1400 per flying in to Dubai to use that as their hub for the rest of the world, it might not seem a lot but its over 70,000 per year. That is money flowing out of the UK.

Most local airports do not flying to far flung places in the world, you might be lucky and get to somewhere in the states but anywhere else and you have to use a hub, would you rather that hub was in the UK or elsewhere?

Cliff

Sorry, don't understand? What's not there.

Cliff

Yes, that is the case and nobody is talking about people flying off on low cost carriers for their hols.
They don't use Heathrow anyway. Far too expensive after Gordon Browns Green tax! Most use out-of-town airports and that will continue. That is a different market altogether and totally separate to the LHR Hub debate.
There is no question Heathrow is creaking at the seams. It is awful. Most foreigners do in fact try to avoid it by going through a nice hub in Europe anyway. But we Brits need a hub to connect and can't avoid it. LHR is not for flying to Malaga, but long haul carriers that don't call at local airports.

If you remember Cameron's success in getting into power was because he promised (bribed) the people around Heathrow that he wouldn't build/ extend if they voted Conservative.

So the can was kicked down the road. But the pressure is building and we can't just leave it in the too difficult tray.

My own opinion is that Heathrow has grown with add on after add on and its a horrible makeshift patchwork. The same Tube doesn't even run to all the terminals. You have to get a different train for Term 4 or Term 5 ! Every brick that is laid is subject to planning battles every time and broken promises. Time to start again and build a new airport away from where people live. Imagine how many new houses could be built there?

Many other countries just get on with new projects beneficial to the country. Why is the UK different and we just get bogged down and do nothing?