please empty your brain below
Truth is, if we're going to expand an airport, only Heathrow makes sense.

No point building at Gatwick, that means we have two big-ish airports and no proper hubs.

No point building in Kent, that means we have a big empty space with lots of infrastructure running to it south west of London.

Building at Heathrow - lots already there, everyone is used to it, big hub is good for the economy.

Kirk | 17.12.13 - 8:22 a.m. | #

Can someone please explain why we 'need' to fly around so much?

Sarah | Homepage | 17.12.13 - 8:27 a.m. | #

How about some visits to the sites of London's old aerodromes DG? My mum still talks about her childhood facination with the autogiros at the London Air Park in Feltham. Concidentally this was during holidays spent with an uncle born in Heathrow High Street.

Waterhouse | 17.12.13 - 8:37 a.m. | #

I can't see why only Heathrow makes sense. It's the wrong side of London, so on most days inbound flights have to approach over the city. And I can't see what the huge benefit to the UK (as opposed to the people who run Heathrow, its shops, bars etc) of a big interchange airport is anyway, since those interchanging will never come ground-side. I'd expand Stansted, which is to the east and won't take as long as Boris Island, and if Paris, Amsterdam or Frankfurt want to fight over who's going to be Europe's hub, let 'em.

Baldassaro | 17.12.13 - 8:37 a.m. | #

Maybe the answer is to restrict demand by raising prices in the same way that train operating companies do. A tax on aviation fuel for a start, but that would mean international agreement, which would never happen. Oh just expand Heathrow.

Running Correspondent | 17.12.13 - 8:56 a.m. | #

As I type the planes overhead seem rather louder than usual-an aural two fingers if you will.

37% of Heathrow's passengers in 2012 were transfers. I believe the large increase in the number of these passengers was actively encouraged by the airport over the past 15 or so years. They may benefit Heathrow Airport but not London (much).

I'm more interested though in the amount of freight/cargo which not many talk about when this subject comes up. Heathrow handled 1.46 million metric tonnes last year compared to Gatwick's puny 88,000. What does that mean in number of planes I wonder?

HoosierSands | Homepage | 17.12.13 - 9:08 a.m. | #

Conveniently, a 747 freighter has a payload of 146 tonnes - so assuming it all goes through dedicated freight aircraft, and all are full - equates to 10,000 planes (or around 27 a day)

Novaelius | 17.12.13 - 9:21 a.m. | #

5,000 planes - assuming they were all full both on arrival and on departure, and there was no transfer traffic.

timbo | 17.12.13 - 9:37 a.m. | #

Rubbish, interchange traffic does benefit London, It means London has flights to cities that could not be sustained with just domestic demand.

Having a major hub is important as the bigger the hub the more international business is attracted to it.

If we want London to be the most attractive it can be to trade then we need a good hub.

The Best site for a new four runway airport is to the North West of London, as it avoids overflying London but still maintains good communications to the rest of the country.

We almost did have this solution in the 60's with the Cublington proposals near Leighton Buzzard but Nimbys put paid to that and so began the idea of an airport in the Thames estuary.

The idea of an Eastern estaury airport keeps resurfacing because no bugger lives there, but any proposals that avoid planes over East London, mean an airport deep down river and involve some serious earth moving.

This brings to the reason it's never been built and that is the vast cost of it all, plus the fact an estury site will have the worst number of fog days and bee on the wrong side of London to be accessible for where the demand is coming from.

But we are never going to build a new large airport to the Northwest of London so we should look at what we can do with what we have.

My favoured solution would be a third runway at Heathrow (north west option) and an extra runway at Gatwick. (if we have the worlds busiest single runway airport maybe we should add another one).

Rational Plan | 17.12.13 - 10:04 a.m. | #

Nice summary of Heathrow dg.
When in London I live near Heathrow, in the london Borough of Hounslow. I support Heathrow airports expansion, I think extending the exiting runways is the best solution. As long as people want to fly and airlines offer such cheap fares we will have to put up with airports. I am back in Spain now and I came here by land even though trains and ferries take about 2 days and are far more expensive than flying.
Spain has just signed an agreement with France and High Speed trains can now run direct from Paris to Barcelona in about 6 hours, from Barcelona there are High Speed trains to Alicante, but the fares can cost hundreds of pounds whereas budget airlines will fly you to London to Alicante for around 50 pounds. Bring train fares down and put air fares up, that will reduce people flying so much and be much greener.

John | 17.12.13 - 10:52 a.m. | #

A fascinating summary of Heathrow's past, DG. Thank you. I won't dip my toes into the controversial waters of Heathrow's future...

Stilted Banter | 17.12.13 - 11:44 a.m. | #

I recall reading in the Evening Standard, in about 1998/99, about the demolition of some houses which had remained standing within the perimeter of Heathrow Airport. I think the headline was something like "Heathrow's last houses demolished". Does anyone have more info on this?

langdon | 17.12.13 - 1:06 p.m. | #

Thats a lovely summary, 90% of which was new to me and interesting, thanks.

Ian | 17.12.13 - 1:44 p.m. | #

then again...if HS2 gets the green-light then perhaps expanding a airport in the midlands will suffice.

E | 17.12.13 - 3:03 p.m. | #

I browsed to the OS map fragment you included, and I really wished there was a little yellow stick man I could drop next to where General Roy started his line. Was that point chosen because it was next to the inn?

martxw | 17.12.13 - 6:35 p.m. | #

@Langdon,
I remember those house within Heathrow. As I remember they were a row of terraced houses/cottages. In my televison servicing days I think I made a call there.
John

John | 17.12.13 - 7:49 p.m. | #

It's got to be Gatwick, hasn't it?

Meanwhile, if you want a lot more background on the village of Heathrow, check out the "Plough and Harrow pub" link in today's post.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 17.12.13 - 8:18 p.m. | #

"It's got to be Gatwick hasn't it?" No DG! If the answer is we need an airport to act as a hub, I favour redeveloping Leicester Airport. Plenty of land around the current runway for all the expansion you need. Not too far from London but accessible for many travellers from the North, South, East and West of the UK. With good current motorway communications for road arriving and departing passengers (and maybe we'll get a long overdue proper southern bypass around the southern edge of Leicester and even connecting across to the A1/A14/M11 corridor) and with a few nifty rail spurs, we could have trains integrating properly into the station such as we see in Zurich or other European airports. Labour to run the airport – a huge labour pool available in nearby Leicester and Birmingham with easy commutable motorway travel to work together with other nearby towns. Why, with a rail connection via Peterborough, even we in the back waters of East Anglia could travel via Leicester instead of having to travel down to Heathrow and/or across and through London to Gatwick (and I’ve been held up many at time trying to cross the Thames at the Dartford river crossing!). I suggested to my daughter for a geography project to promote Leicester as the new London airport and she and a friend put forward a very convincing argument! But maybe Leicester’s too far from Boris’ control and he’ll feel left out – and of course you London lot with your Oyster cards will have to buy proper rail tickets! But for me, it’s time to play fantasy airport locations and Leicester’s for me!

Happy Harry (in the UK) | 17.12.13 - 9:07 p.m. | #

In the UK there is a huge north/south divide, caused by the siting of infrastructure and jobs

On any flight from London airports, there are many people who have had to travel many miles and many hours to be on the plane.

There is huge unemployment in the north.

There is much more space up north. The population density (and resulting traffic congestion) is much less.

Is it only me who thinks that any new airport should be built up north?

If it's mainly a hub it doesn't matter where it is built! Jobs and infrastruture (and £££££) will follow it, reducing the north/south divide.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 17.12.13 - 9:26 p.m. | #

There's plenty of airport capacity elsewhere in the UK, indeed regional airports have been shutting down, thanks to faster trains (!) and high aviation taxes.

Any airline can fly long haul to Birmingham or Manchester if they choose to now, there's nothing to stop them. Indeed, Manchester even gained a 2nd runway fairly recently and has plenty of spare space. That Manchester has relatively few long haul flights is because they don't make enough money.

Mikey C | 17.12.13 - 10:05 p.m. | #

...and if we think long-term (difficult for some, esp. politicians?) we'll, if we carry on as we are, need a extra runway at Heathrow, a extra runway at Gatwick AND a airport east of London by 2050 OR we can all have a flight allowance of say two return flights a year and maybe save the planet and our health.

E | 17.12.13 - 10:25 p.m. | #

"There's plenty of airport capacity elsewhere in the UK, indeed regional airports have been shutting down"

If that is the case (and I have no idea if it is), surely politicians are solving the wrong problem? Just for a change...

Blue Witch | Homepage | 18.12.13 - 7:19 a.m. | #

Expand regional airports and connect them with proper rail infrastructure (why is Teesside airport once of the five least used stations in the UK ???). Why does every country in crowded north-west Europe 'need' its own hub airport ?

Paul | 18.12.13 - 10:43 a.m. | #

Everyone wants a global hub, because it attracts lots of international businesses. If you want lots of high paying jobs, then you want to be a centre of global trade.

Rational Plan | 18.12.13 - 12:13 p.m. | #

All the rivers and the wet around Heathrow... no wonder if gets fog-bound so often. They don't need more capacity but more resilience. I like the Leicester idea, and I'm with Imperial on the distributed hub model. HS1 should run up to Stansted, and over to Gatwick (there's a suitable line nearby already), HS2 should run up the East Coast to Scotland. A ring of two runway airports, including a new one at Ashford, connected by high speed rail, except Heathrow, which could connect to Gatwick via HSR and via cross-rail to Stansted. Resilience for the UK and northern Europe.

Audrey | 18.12.13 - 12:22 p.m. | #

A few additional facts. London is the biggest origin and destination point in the world. In other words lots of people want to travel to and from there.

50% of all air travelers are going to Central London, most of the rest are going to Suburban London and the surrounding home counties, with the strongest demand coming from the Western side.

Any talk of diverting passengers to Northern or Midland airports is farcical 75% of more of your passengers dont want to go there.

Rational Plan | 18.12.13 - 12:22 p.m. | #

Yeah, no-one likes getting diverted to Glasgow or Newcastle or Liverpool because of fog or snow at Heathrow.

Audrey | 18.12.13 - 12:24 p.m. | #

Yeah, no-one likes getting diverted to Glasgow or Newcastle or Liverpool because of fog or snow at Heathrow.

Audrey | 18.12.13 - 12:24 p.m. | #

Mikey C, RationalPlan - Can we have some sources for all these 'statistics', please?

Blue Witch | Homepage | 18.12.13 - 5:42 p.m. | #

@Novaelius

"Conveniently, a 747 freighter has a payload of 146 tonnes - so assuming it all goes through dedicated freight aircraft, and all are full - equates to 10,000 planes (or around 27 a day)"

Actually, 94% of cargo handled at Heathrow travels in the belly holds of passenger aircraft. Indeed on certain routes, the cargo in the hold is what makes it viable to fly passengers.

So the number of all-cargo movements at Heathrow is pretty small in the great scheme of things.

John | 21.12.13 - 4:14 p.m. | #

Great story and links :)

Some may find various early 'bits' about Heathrow of interest;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36844288@N00/sets/72157623593418361/with/4278152893/

I do recall once seeing the plans for the rebuild of Fairlop tube station when the adjacent Plain next to the station was considered as a possible airport site.

Moquette | 22.12.13 - 1:11 p.m. | #

Blimey, yes, London's main airport was indeed pencilled in for Fairlop before WW2 came along...

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=1938-02-16a.1874.6

diamond geezer | Homepage | 22.12.13 - 1:19 p.m. | #











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