So, Heathrow........

johntheexpat

All I am doing really is to raise points and question attitudes because the debate is undoubtedly way more complex than it appears.
Air travel is changing all the time.  You only have to go back a few years and the Airbus A380 was going to change everything.  Now its fallen massively out of favour with a real possiblity that the production line will be mothballed.
Who would have guessed?
Will the internet reduce the need for eye to eye contact?  Will 3D printers reduce the need for urgent packages to be taken to faraway places?
Is  one UK hub that seriously damages other airports good for competition and consumers?
Will Dubai buckle under the competition or will they just keep throwing money at their hub until the UK accepts defeat after spending tens of billions in a futile battle with almost unlimited petro-dollars?

Why not create an environment in which both Heathrow and Gatwick can modernise and provide a 21st century travel experience rather than set one against the other with a definite winner and a definite loser?

The report may be out.  The debate hasn't even started.  But I think it will be stifled by vested interests and political interference.

Sve

The reason the A380 has falling out of favour, its too big, costs too much and a lot of airports cannot accommodate it.

Skype or what is fine to keep in touch, but I like to see my family that lives on the other side of the world and the net will never replace that.

There is not the room for 2 hubs in the south of the UK.

Cliff

The idea of Gatwick and Heathrow both being hubs was tried in the 1980's. To provide the connection (hubs remember) they provided a helicopter between the two. So you could arrive at Gatwick from, say from Africa or Houston and then fly to Heathrow and pick up your flight home to  where ever. Anyway to cut a long story short,  they were expensive and eventually cancelled.
Airlink (helicopter shuttle service) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Later they also tried buses on the M25 Nuff said.

blackrod

In an ideal world we would have room to create a brand new fancy airport with good road and rail links. That is just not possible though. Boris Island would be hideously expensive and awful to get to for anyone outside of central London. Gatwick has the room for expansion but is in the wrong place. Heathrow is crowded and for some inexplicable reason has really poor rail connections, but it is in a ok'ish position for the rest of the country to get to by road.
Is there not somewhere slightly north of London with links to the M40 and M1 and direct links to Euston and another rail hub?

IronGiant

Aylesbury looks good

domtheone

Depressing isn't it.

IIRC, Terminal 5 took 10 years to build (discussing to build stage).

Pathetic.

By the time we get a new airport/runway built, the rest of the world will be building spaceports

Boris Island (or Aylesbury) is the only sensible, long term option.

Cliff

One thing we can be certain of is that the cost of any new airport project is not certain!

The Heathrow plan involves demolishing the village of Harmondsworth and many surrounding homes.
Heathrow third runway backing leaves village fearing for its future | Environment | The Guardian

This in itself will cause delays because of legal blocks. Who wouldn't protest if it was their house? We can expect the bill, just for lawyers, protests, more public enquiries, to go up and up.
Who knows when they will be able to lay the first brick.
And Heathrow will still be poorly connected.

Now Boris Island is relatively clear of villages and people. Yes, there is a wild life issue but that is the choice we have to make. We can't stand still. Secondly, any new international airport to serve the whole of Britain has to be well connected. New rail lines will be part of the plan, so it is accessible to anyone outside London.

I would also suggest that the cost estimate and the timetable is far more certain for Boris Island than Heathrow- which may never get off the ground anyway!

tapzilla2k

There is also the removal of a WWII ship packed with explosives to be solved (it's constantly monitored). That would delay construction work on Boris Island for quite some time. I'd rather save our wildlife than build an Island out in the Thames Estuary to placate a minority of people (I know how loud commercial airliners and RAF planes are, there's a lot more air traffic over Oxford since the closure of RAF airbases, everything tends to go towards Brize Norton and on the commercial side of things Oxford London Airport has also increased the number of planes flying overhead along with commerical passenger jets flying overhead on the way to bigger airports or on long haul flights). We've done enough damage to the Environment in the UK as it is. You also have to factor in North Sea storm surges (rare but deadly events) into the design of any airport located in the Thames Estuary.

The case for Boris Island is about as certain as the rest of the options. Once you add on all the extra costs for an airport in the Thames Estuary it could reach an eye watering level, which could outweigh the Economic benefits for quite a while.

johntheexpat

One point against Boris island is that air travel is expected to double in the next twenty years.  It would take that long to plan, finance and build the airport.  By that time, ways round bottlenecks and the like have been found and it could well be that Boris Island gets hugely under-utilised.  In my book, the best thing for Heathrow and Gatwick is not to get them at each others throats, but to enable them to improve rapidly to cope with the real and current increase in air travel.  Work now to improve the efficiency and productivity of each, so that they can both benefit from the increased passenger numbers.  That way we have competition and World class airports.

Sonic67

Which is it?