New runway at Heathrow, now!

It needs to be open by 0600 local because those aircraft already in the air depend on bothrunways being open to accept arriving aircraft from 0600 to 0700. If only one runway was open after 0600 then the inbound delay would rapidly climb past 30 minutes which would lead to cancellations and diversions out.

They’ve been relaying and repositioning Guernsey’s runway overnight for a couple of years. Of course Heathrow is OK as it does have another runway. In Guernsey’s case some delayed flight had to be cancelled as the RW closed at 21:00. They had to close the whole airport of four sets of two days at critical times.

Also rebuilding aprons has caused special arrangements having to be made, changing frequently as work progressed.

Good job but not quite as risky as it would be at any single runway airport which made the comment about aircraft already on the way needed to use it a little odd as there is an alternate runway, a nuisance though it may be.

Not putting the story down, or not meaning to…it is a big job and as a good example of excellent planning, it is good news, it’s just that everything LHR does is clever and major news and anywhere else is not very newsworthy.

Thanks for the heads up will be looking forward to watching this.:D

I just saw this on BBC Breakfast…it was really interesting.

Also, there is a week-long series called “Airport Live” that starts on BBC2 @ 20:00 from Monday (17th).

It will provide “the most complete exploration of Heathrow’s grounds and skies and will feature a mix of live and pre-recorded footage that will explain how an airport works. BBC Two will go behind the scenes airside; into the heart of the air traffic control tower; onto the tarmac as a plane is turned around for departure; and into the hub of engineering to watch a service on a plane.:cool:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/airport-live.html