The Moylan Report: A New Airport for London

VK….. Boris is “trying to shift public consciousness towards a long term solution”. …….An excellent report, produced by super-brain Daniel Moylan, which you can read here:

Sorry, but this is old news. None of the key findings differ from what has been being said for over a decade, Indeed the T5 enquiry went through this in detail. It is not the public that the Mayor needs to convince it is his own Tory party. Their myopic stance on this issue as well as that of the the 3rd runway is what the real problem is.
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The country needs a major new hub connected to the whole of the UK and western Europe by high speed rail. Glasgow, Edinburgh Manchester and Birmingham as well as central London need to be no more than 2 hours away.

It is hard to see this government making such an investment and indeed, I would have grave concerns if they did, whilst they continue to cut school budgets and capital investment in them.

Neither am I convinced by the argument that is now universally used to justify obscene rates of pay and frighten the masses. If Frankfurt Amsterdam, Paris and Madrid are really that attractive they would have left already. Each has its attractions but something is keeping them here and it is ceratinly not the weather or that dump known locally as Heathrow.

And it’s not the government’s responsibility to build new airports; just the planning side is the government’s responsibility.

The Conservatives said no to LHR’s third runway for no more that vote winning reasons. Like other pledges this one will be quickly overturned as a compelling ‘reason’ is announced. Boris has probably had his orders to start the ball rolling. O and by the way I support the third runway.

Northolt – NW London has a 5500 foot runway, which I believe is longer than London City.

It is within 30 minutes of Heathrow, by car on a good day and has plenty of space for terminals. Its owned by the tax payer,

The roads can be adapted to take the additional traffic, there is a control tower and all the usual services an airport needs (except its not a shopping centre).

If that is deemed unsuitable, close it down, sell the land for housing and use the profit to fund an airport that will be used to its full potential in an area where the locals will not object.

It just seems ridiculous to have an under utilised airport already in situ and not using it to its fullest potential, all 5500′.

Commerical traffic already uses Northolt (Biz jets and turboprops), Customs and Immigration is available. VVIP Governement/Royal flights that dont need the red carpet PR treatment use Northolt instead of Heathrow.

Robin Hood airport was also an RAF airport (Finningley).

By “small Private Aircraft” I presume you mean General Aviation, which encompasses all types of corporate business aircraft from a small Cessna jet to a big Boeing BBJ.

For years General Aviation would think of Heathrow not only in terms of a good arrival point from a flight connections point of view but also from a status point of view. A corporate jet arriving into Heathrow sounded better than arriving into Biggin Hill.

The truth is that Heathrow has 2 challenges for general aviation, one being the granting of a slot time, which are very difficult to obtain and the second being the cost of an arrival, parking, and ancillary services etc, which are one of the highest in the world. Northolt is ideally positioned for a Heathrow “arrival”. With good ground connections, the time it takes to drive from Northolt to T 1,2, 3 and 5 at Heathrow is comparative to driving from T4 to T1. Yes it’s probably twice the distance but with a clear road, the transfer can be done in 20 minutes. It takes a lot longer than 20 minutes using the flight connections airside to transfer between terminals at Heathrow. Central London transfers can be just as quick.

I accept that Northolt is positioned within a residential area, but Northolt is a working airport and could easily be adapted to take much, if not all of the General Aviation traffic away from Heathrow and perhaps some of the smaller airline ops, who could fund the move by selling their Heathrow slot(s). The key would be ground links between Heathrow and Northolt and central London. (there is a tube station next to the north side of the airport.

I have on many occasions flown into Northolt from the USA on “small” business jets as well as Luton. The costs of helicopter transfers into Heathrow from Luton for example were cheaper than aircraft landing and associated parking/services costs at Heathrow.

Good afternoon Nigel

My disucssion is more about an overflow to LHR not a replacement. Quite clearly the big Airlines would find it impossbile to have flights in and out of both Heathrow and Northolt, from a logisitc point – impossible. However, I see a zero business reason for allowing General Aviation into LHR when a far better business argument would be for GA to use Northolt. Positioning a helicopter shuttle at Northolt would be far cheaper and probably a quicker way into Heathrow for Mr. Busy Executive than landing, taxying, ground handling etc at Heathrow.

If BA can run a 318 from London City to NYC, I am sure that some airlines could make better use of 5500′ of Northolt runway than 9000’+ at Heathrow, to certain desitnations.

When I have discussed this in the past with politicians, there appears a sudden blindness as to what and where Northolt actually is.

The big plus about Northolt is that it is up and running. With more specialist approaches being designed for aircraft with the navigational capabilities (and GA is at the forefront of the latest avionics) approach and departures could be designed to have less of an impact on the locals and avoid any potential issues with landing / departing Heathrow traffic.

Just a thought…………………..

Edited version, 319 to 318.