Heathrow Airports Limited are only interested in Heathrow Airports Limited… They won’t necessarily be promoting what’s best for the UK or best for air traffic… Really, the best solution for the long term is to rip up LHR and start again somewhere else (e.g. Isle of Grain / Boris Island). The real estate value of the land on which Heathrow currently stands will go a huge way to paying for a new airport. However, I recognise that the political will is unlikely to be there to “bulldoze” plans for a new airport through and as a result such a project will get bogged down in huge amounts of largely politically motivated inquiries… There’s anothe problem with sticking with Heathrow anyway which I believe NATS is concerned about – UK airspace in the south east is full for much of the day, and adding a lot more traffic at Heathrow won’t help and it’ll likely mean more airborne holding, further away from the London TMA. And more airborne holding means more delays, more fuel burned, more pollution…

Having said that – and as I’ve said before – there are what I think are viable solutions:

1. Route the High Speed 2 rail line directly under Heathrow and put a station there (forget about Old Oak Common – no one going to or coming from the north will want to double back there)

2. Provide airline checkin at the HS2 stations in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle. Provide secured “checked baggage” facilities on the HS2 trains, with checked baggage transferred from the HS2 station to aeroplanes without the passenger needing to lug it around again (it works for Frankfurt-Cologne where the trains have LH flight numbers – why not the UK?)

3. Make airlines offer pro-rated faring between train and air, and vice-versa, for domestic connections (much as domestic flight add-ons don’t cost the full rate now)

4. When HS2 is completed, ban all flights between Heathrow and Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle – and when HS2 gets to Glasgow and Edinburgh, same for those too. Just over one hour Heathrow to Manchester or Leeds by train would be better than air, two and a quarter hours to Newcastle very competitive with air. Even Heathrow to Edinburgh in just over three hours is fairly competitive with domestic air when the air check-in / transfer time, and the distance and time for travel from/to airport and city centres is taken into account

5. Re-use the domestic slots for more international services

If further capacity is still needed…

6. Kick the RAF out of Northolt

7. Build an airside-only terminal at Northolt – there isn’t space for all the landside infrastructure needed, such as parking, etc, and the ground transportation links to Northolt aren’t good – check-in, baggage drop and reclaim, security would remain at Heathrow. Trains would have segregated secure compartments / carriages for checked baggage checked at Heathrow or being reclaimed at Heathrow, maybe even take baggage ULDs directly

8. Build an “airside only” (i.e. beyond secturity) high-speed “maglev” style train between each terminal at Heathow and the new terminal at Northolt – a five minute frequency, ten minute journey wouldn’t take any longer than the transfer between the existing Heathrow terminals – Northolt’s terminal could be called the Heathrow North terminal, or something similar

9. Move some short-haul services to the new Northolt facility