IF it is a good idea to invest in more London airport capacity, is it more cost-effective to expand Heathrow or to expand in {Gatwick, Stansted, Luton}? (That’s a real question, not a rhetorical one.]

Nowhere is it written that a large metropolitan area must have just one monster airport, rather than several more moderate-size ones spread around.

NYC has 3 major airports: JFK, Laguardia, Newark.

SF Bay Area has 3: SFO, Oakland, San Jose.

Los Angeles has a bunch, which is *really* important, because if one is traveling from somewhere in LA to SFO, it can easily take longer to drive to LAX than to fly from there to SFO

Gives me the willys.

“We can argue the economics all day, but I once again simply state, “Do it” and take the hit. Due to all the interdependencies in a transportation services system the true effect will be unknown until experienced, perhaps the residents of London will be better off, either way the UK will have to live with the decision.”

I think that probably sums up the crux of our odds on this issue.

I think that the hit will be worth it all things considered. I may well be wrong, but what concerns me, and what motivated the post is the prevailing thinking that economic hits can never be considered whilst environmental sacrifices can.

This will increase the number of planes taking off and landing at major destinations like London, as feeder hubs will not be consolidating passenger loads from markets, they will be flying in direct. This will increase the frequency of trips but reduce the passengers handled, as more frequest schedules will be offered in the medium and large markets as well.

The hub model was developed not as a leap-frogging system based on range, but on the realization that every airport cannot directly service every other airport, the traffic by aircraft count would be too dense.

We can argue the economics all day, but I once again simply state, “Do it” and take the hit. Due to all the interdependencies in a transportation services system the true effect will be unknown until experienced, perhaps the residents of London will be better off, either way the UK will have to live with the decision.

My understanding is that revenue generated from hub-traffic is minor in consideration of

a) the fact that up to 2million residents of London stand to be further affected by expansion at heathrow

b) Only a portion of the revenue is received by the UK directly

c) Heathrow will never compete with hubs with far greater capacity due to more sensible locations such Charles de Gaule and Schiphole.

Regarding the A350 & B787 - these aircraft will cause flights to be more geographically distributed and therefore undermine the whole hub & spoke model in the first place.

I would love to greatly expand on all of this, and make my comments far more cordial in nature, but I’m under some time pressure today. Would love to continue this in the pub..

If anything it will increase traffic as you will not have feeder flights consolidating at hubs.

The sales pitch on these models are fuel efficency and range. When dealing with Intercontinental Distances the range is of no use.

This is a solution for flights with lower passenger counts from smaller markets and to allow for increased frequency to International destinations from medium and large markets.

Also my destination is never France, it is usually Central or Eastern Europe, I usually have an 1-2 hours flight after London. Like I said it makes no difference if I arrive through Frankfurt or Paris to me.

So I think from a economic “wake-up call” perspective I think that Heathrow should not expand and the UK should remove it from the gateway hubs list.

I think the countries with the most ambitious “Green Dreams” need to feel a lot more pain so they can understand what us “denier” folks have been telling them. Especially when it makes no substantive difference to their GHG emissions in the end.

However, in terms of transferring to rail, Paris is 2.5 hours from by London by train (to the city center, not Charles de Gaulle on the outskirts). I forget the distance to Brussels, but with the right investments it is unlikely that your journey will be significantly lengthened.

There are some further perspectives on the Heathrow fiasco in The Economist this week: http://web.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10924139

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/aviation/atf/airtrafficforecastsfortheuni281
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/aviation/atf/airtrafficforecastsfortheuni281?page=10#a1031

Peak Oil may or may not already be here, but if not, it’s coming soon.
It’ possible that the traffic predictions depending on $25 oil might not be right.

[I’ve done my time in Heathrow. When we come to UK these days, we use Manchester.]

It Appears I messed up the link above

Heathrow can simply withdrawl itself from that group and take the loss associated.

The answer is simple, grow your airport to handle the capacity or simply have the capacity sent somewhere else and give up the economic input to the country.

I personally fly BA because I like to stop over in London for a pint and some fish and chips, but I can simply fly through Paris or Frankfurt in the future. The UK is seldom my final destination, but I overnight there often leaving a few hundred Pounds behind each time, but if you do not want my money or the millions of others like me that travel through each year, no problem.

I am also not transferring to a train to cross central Europe adding 12-20 hours to my travels after flying for 9 Hours to reah the UK.

Again people look at this the wrong way, it is not all the UK people travelling on short haul flights congesting the airport, it is mostly the International Hub Traffic.

Here is an Interesting Report from BMI to put that in perspective
20:20 BMI