[DisgustedofSwieqi]

I may have got the wrong end of the stick, but it looks like the best use of Luton is to dump it into the sea and then build an airport on it.

[Age_of_Reason]

I sense a desire to get the people of Luton out of their Beds…..

[transtraxman]

A new report has been published about expansion at New York airports.
You can find it here.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/01/28/us-newyork-airports-idUKTRE70R7FV20110128

The arguments and phraseology are well familiar to us all with regard to London.

[O.C.D.P]

Might be worth giving the below a go, you never know someone may pay attention.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/3143

[RichHI1]

Interesting views. One thing we should bear in mind is weather. The UK is notorious for closing its transport infrastructure at the slightest sign of bad weather whilst O’hare and Domodedovo continue operating.
Kent and Essex get proportionately more snow in the winter and the “golden triangle” is susceptible to fog (as anyone who drives the M1 will recall.)
As a cynic I am afraid I too think that Boris has been told to prepare for the climb down on extra runways as the backlash and vote loss from the nimbys in building a new airport will be bigger.

[LuganoPirate]

I go back to my suggestion placing a new airport in the N. Sea. No Nimby’s there (apart from the fish, but we’ve eaten those), no snow over the sea. Windy yes, but planes can cope with that, witness landing in LCY after flying over Kent at 1,500′! Massive infrastructure project creating 1,000’s of jobs which can be paid for by developing LHR/LGW/AMS into housing, offices etc.

[craigwatson]

actually Lugano, it does snow over the sea, and over the sea the weather would be worse than over land, as winds slow as they meet a landmass

[transtraxman]

A piece of news published by BREAKING TRAVEL NEWS yesterday concerning the growth of traffic through London Luton airport

http://www.breakingtravelnews.com/news/article/over-1-million-passengers-pass-through-londons-fastest-growing-airport-in-j/

[LuganoPirate]

You’re right Craig, it does snow at sea, just doesn’t settle (unless the sea is frozen over). I should have thought of that. Though I suppose if you built a 50 km2 island the snow would settle on that.

If it were ever built, it would be at least 50 years before the first planes landed and I could imagine technology would have advanced to such a state by then that the wind would not be a problem.

Not sure about wind speed effect on large jets. I just remember trying to land a 172 at Rotterdam some years ago with a 70kph wind!

[RichHI1]

Bring back flying boats? 🙂

[VintageKrug]

BA to roster the Beast of Baikhal on its Southampton-Cherbourg route:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUTWWsh6iGA

Eight engines, like something out of Thunderbirds!

[craigwatson]

you have lots of options if building from scratch, so what about an equivalent to underfloor heating. You could have steam pipes that run under the runways, taxiways, and ramps. Im not sure what the costs of this would be, but I think it would be economically feasible as it would only need to be operating during periods of bad weather.

Just a thought.

[p___lon]

The biggest problem is not runway capacity, which the government focuses on, its runway capacity in one place. Heathrow is the hub airport for Britain, and will continue to be. If they choose not to increase capacity there, it won’t move, it will simply wither and die. Do you want connections to Asia? Go to AMS or FRA. London simply will not work with multiple airports. The great synergy of a hub is that all the airlines serve it (not counting LCCs) and it allows for some crossover traffic.

The minute that slots became available at LHR, any airline that could abandoned both LGW and STN. For London to continue to have a large number of point-to-point services, it needs an expanded Heathrow, with vastly improved High Speed Links (which will be coming). Sadly, it doesn’t work in reverse. If you could be at BHX in less than an hour it wouldn’t pull traffic from LHR, it would begin to compete with LTN, STN, & LGW for the leisure market. Business people, and those making long haul journeys with or without onward connections will continue to go to the ‘hub’ airport.

You either expand LHR, or build a new airport from scratch somewhere else. But good luck finding somewhere around London to build it. STN got its additional runway shot down, and LGW has a gentleman’s agreement not to expand for the near future, even then it could only add 1 more runway. Plus, if the new ‘hub’ airport moved out of the boundaries of Greater London, the councils where LHR used to be would lose out. There are thousands of support businesses which are in or around LHR, not to mention scores of people who work in and around the airport that live nearby. If you move the airport, you will move them as well.

Always an interesting debate, but it all comes down to the Government (whomever they may be) to make a decision that will be seen as unpopular, but will help the UK in the long term.

[transtraxman]

I am astounded at the suggestions still being put forward to solve the problems of lack of runways in the South East of England.

The distance from Heathrow to Northolt is 10 kms.(in amongst a residencial area as is LHR) while Biggin Hill (partly surrounded by residencial areas) to Heathrow is 38 kms. and to Gatwick is 25 kms.
The only feasible usage of old airfields is the disused Redhill aerodrome at 8kms from Gatwick. However, all the measurements given are “as the crow flies” so do not necessarily mean final lengths. It becomes obvious,in these examples that it is much less obtrusive and consequently less expensive to build a third runway at Heathrow as originally planned and a second parallel runway at Gatwick as still planned.

Let us, at last, get down from our high horses and become more practical. “Pie in the sky” or “Boris islands in the estuary” are just not on.

As finance has already been talked about for the constructon of the said runways we can see that the obsolete and useless minor aerodromes could be sold off for development to pay for the construction of the extensions at the major airports.

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