Plans for LHR third runway scrapped.

What would be the result of installing an extra runway at each of Heathrow , Gatwick and Stansted in terms of airline traffic? Would more carriers just migrate to Heathrow?Would they move to more frequent smaller aircraft? have the Government abandoned any attempt to design an airport system for the London Region ?

Is that a problem at the moment? Surely with another runway and more traffic in the area there’d be more aircraft to fit in the skies over London?

Better average separation between aircraft.

Longshot… What kind of lines are you thinking along for it being safer just out of interest?

LHR ‘Third’ Runway… never say never

You can be sure the site plans for a runway north of the A4 haven’t been scrapped(they’re 60+ years old :)), it’s just the new government is against the runway project, which could change later.
I’d like to know if the airline professionals would find Heathrow safer with an extra runway (also would safety at Gatwick and Stansted be improved if they had a 2nd runway).

Wouldn’t de-congestion of an important business tool such as LHR be beneficial to UK in the not so long run? Even if it requires initial investment?

I doubt not extending facilities such as LHR will help in anyway with the British deficit.

I totally agree with the new Government’s decision to scrap the third runway at LHR!

The last time I checked, this country had a £163bn deficit hanging over our heads…scrapping the third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow has saved an estimated £9bn, so we are already starting to make progress on reducing this!

But they wouldn’t be paid for from taxes. Heathrow is owned by Ferrovial, a Spanish company, & Ferrovial would pay for construction.

I totally agree with the new Government’s decision to scrap the third runway at LHR!

The last time I checked, this country had a £163bn deficit hanging over our heads…scrapping the third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow has saved an estimated £9bn, so we are already starting to make progress on reducing this!

I wasn’t aware the Government was paying for the runway. :rolleyes:

I totally agree with the new Government’s decision to scrap the third runway at LHR!

The last time I checked, this country had a £163bn deficit hanging over our heads…scrapping the third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow has saved an estimated £9bn, so we are already starting to make progress on reducing this!

How can not building the 3rd runway help reduce the deficit? If it’s £163bn now and they decide not to build it (which they have) then the deficit is still £163bn.

Scrapping the plans doesn’t really reduce that deficit though. Whether the runway goes ahead or not it doesn’t change that £163bn.

I wonder how the extra revenue that new runway and the resultant increase in traffic would compare to the initial outlay of building it.

I totally agree with the new Government’s decision to scrap the third runway at LHR!

The last time I checked, this country had a £163bn deficit hanging over our heads…scrapping the third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow has saved an estimated £9bn, so we are already starting to make progress on reducing this!

So what is next then?

What about the governments other idea on air travel, i.e. taxing seats rather than passengers?

Interesting points ! It could be argued that a increase in the number of operators i.e CDG is actually diluting the economic benefits to the U.K as you have more airlines competing for not a vastly increasing number of destinations.
Whilst the economic powerhouse of London is always quoted for the expansion of Heathrow – the reality is that we are increasingly seeing business people either working from home or making the use of technology advances that decrease the need to travel at all. In my village for instance we have a number of people from large businesses that would travel from the most convienient airport not just Heathrow.
The argument will always be that because it’s close to London it has to be the place for expansion -in reality in the case of Concorde -the need for business travel was on the slide then and will continue to . There is no clear reasoning behind business class traveller being a growth industry – indeed look at the fortunes of BA in the last decade and compare that to low cost carriers and the reasoning has to be that businesses are becoming more cost savvy and not always picking expensive business class. A number of friends who travel for business are telling me that either the company jet is now parked or that Ryanair/Easyjet is a firm option for business travel.
On the other point of people complaining about the airport next door after they move there . I think people are missing the point -the people moved there on the basis that they understood what was there. Greatly increase the number of flights and demolish your house and it’s somewhat outside of the
terms of what they bought ! A bit like me asking my neighbour if he would mind me demolishing his house to turn it into a tennis court and then if he says no I flatten his house anyway!!!
Interestingly I guess no one who describes the people as Nimby’s is actually in the position themselves of standing to loose their houses!!

All of this puts us in the position where we are not getting a third runway -so the country will either go into a terminal decline from a business point of view
or the people will fly from Stansted-Birmingham etc instead !!

Be interesting to see !!!

The number of flights into Heathrow is directly controlled by Heathrow itself.

The above is the only quote I shall tackle directly, the rest of my comment will take in views (including many more of David’s) without directly quoting them.

In the case of the above quote, it is not true, the limit on movements at LHR is not set by the Airport, but by the Government. The Airport is capable of handling a significant number of additional movements through mixed-mode, and I’m fairly certain, given the chance, BAA would leap at the opportunity of realising the full capacity of the Airport in it’s current state.

So what is the likely impact of no third runway at LHR, well it’s simple, it will cause serious damage to the UK economy. Whether we like it or not, the UK economy is driven by the powerhouse that is London, just as is the case in other nations where one city (understandably) dominates. What I notice from this thread is that nobody has mentioned that the third runway is not about ‘the now’, it’s not about the current economy, but about the future and the way in which London can hold it’s own on a world stage. We undertook a significant piece of work for the City of London Corporation a couple of years ago, which looked at the importance of Airports within London, and involved contact with around 3000 major firms in the City. The results were that major business’ felt that they needed relatively high frequency to a select number of cities around the world. The problem is, that select number of cities is growing. So currently it is important for them to be able to access New York, Dubai, Hong Kong etc etc easily, but they recognise that their needs to be able to get to India and China among others are growing. This doesn’t mean that the frequency requirements to NYC will reduce, just that the ability to connect to more points at a similar service level is increasing, and therefore a way must be found to accomodate this. Importantly, firms told us that the inability to make such connections will impact on the way they trade within the UK, with some suggesting that whilst they would grow in the UK with enough air transport links, that growth is likely to be placed in one of the new powerhouse cities (such as Dubai) from which world connections are easily possible.

Why not just reduce frequency and use larger aircraft then? Well again it’s not so simple. We are seeing the introduction of larger aircraft, and LHR is always going to be one of the top destinations for A380s in the world. However, the business’ need frequency also, replacing two 777s with an A380 is not necessarily an option. Business convenience dictates that if you’re sat in a meeting which overruns, and you miss your flight, you want to be able to get the next one, this is why airlines can charge such a high premium for their business class products – flexibility. Again this is something the sectors in London rely heavily on.

So why not grow regional airports? Well because you can’t force an airline to operate a service, and LHR doesn’t necessarily compete with MAN or BHX, it competes for services with CDG, AMS and FRA. An aircraft is an expensive resource, and so airlines aim to use each one they can afford on the routes which will provide them with the greatest returns. LHR is currently attractive because London (I’ll talk about the wider London system below) has a very strong financial and business services sector, and these industries (even now) can afford to pay a lot for their seats. Therefore LHR is close to the top of many airlines’ wish list because they can fill the front end of their aircraft with more valuable passengers (at least in terms of volume) than they can from any other airport in Europe. The overall passenger numbers are not what is important here, because the back-end passengers are roughly of the same value from all the major European airports. Therefore if an airline cannot get into LHR it then looks at where it can use its aircraft for the next-best return, and then the answer becomes either CDG/AMS/FRA/ZRH. They rarely look at MAN because the front end yield is so low. If the ability of the other European airports to handle the new wave of China/India/Brazil and other important new destinations grows, and they continue to increase capabilities to the traditional business markets, then suddenly you have a position in which they have stronger global connections in a modern world economy, and it looks more attractive to base businesses there, or at least direct all of your growth to one of these points. We’re already seeing signs of this. At LHR, there are around 90 airlines, at CDG this is 111 and growing, FRA is only 4 behind CDG.

The London system is complicated too, and again the demand for LHR is driven by the yield of front-end passengers. You must remember that Stansted was rebuilt in the 1980s as an overflow for LHR, and was designed on the basis that it would handle long haul services, yet 30 years later, where are the long haul servcies, and indeed what services would be there now without RYR/EZY? Airlines want to be at LHR because West London and the home counties on that side of the city are where the wealthiest travellers live, many of whom have their airfares paid for by work when they travel on business, but start or end their journeys at home. Therefore if you got an airline into LGW, STN or a new estuary airport, those highest-yielding travellers would still use only the services from LHR. Therefore the average yield on the services from the other airports is too low, and probably below those which can be achieved at CDG/FRA/AMS and therefore the airlines take their services to one of those airports instead (are you seeing a circularity here yet?). So they never grow at London unless it’s at LHR, and that only supports the growth of non-UK economies.

Is rail a viable alternative? Well there is an opportunity for some relief in the shortest of sectors, but realistically, no. Furthermore, many of the ‘NIMBYs’ whose houses would be removed for a third runway, benefit economically from LHR because of its influence over the London economy in which they presumably work and presumably where they attract a higher than UK average salary. Furthermore MANY of those affected by overflying aircraft work at the Airport.

Sorry for such a long post, I still feel I haven’t tackled half of the comments made by others, but I’m sure you can see my thinking.

Develop the regionals, sure. But Heathrow’s purpose is as a hub. Never mind building a ‘new heathrow’ on Boris Island, it would still cost hundreds of millions to build up other London airports to the size of Heathrow.

What does Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt, Schipol, LAX, JFK, Dubai, Incheon have in common? They all have at least two, in most cases more, runways dropping people off and passing people through. Leave LHR as it is and people may become increasing frustrated on travel there in it’s congested state. My opinion anyway.

And on the people and their houses front……well, a lot of them did choose to move next to a major airport. And it’s not as if they won’t be relocated….

Will it? :confused:

Of course it will.

In this era of globe-girdling instant communication and data-transfer, all financial transactions are carried out either by air-mail or by face-to-face meeting. 😎

I have to agree on the point of using under-utilised local airports, living near Manston I can immediatly see the advantage of using it, but i know people that live on the edge of london that prefer it, the whole of kent is a pretty large catchment area!

Road links are currently being improved further, high speed rail links to london are already in service, the terminal is shabby by modern standards, but i’ve been in much worse, and you get to fill like a customer there, rather than one of 10’s of thousands of ant travelling thru heathrow. From the carpark to the check-ins and then thru central search into departures is only a couple of hundred metres at most, just a really pleasant way to fly. People always go back to EUJET and planestation and say its been proved it can’t work, but the current owners are a massive company, and despite there resources, are investing slowly, rather than throwing millions of borrowed pounds in. Daily flights to Edinburugh with flybe starting in a few weeks, their second year of operations from KIA, weekly flights to jersey, charter flights and a freight operation thats tripled at least in the last couple of years.

When the big airport operators realise that they can’t keep expanding a handful of airports, then places like Manston, Lydd, southend to name a few will start to have a fighting chance.

Will it? :confused:

With the cancel of the third runway on LHR, London’s place as the world’s financial centre will soon be replace by Paris, Tokyo, or even Shanghai.