UK airport expansion: third runway at Heathrow receives government approval.

Adebesi said:
I know absolutely nothing about the practicalities and politics of Luton expansion but surely Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire can bury their centuries old animosity and come to some kind of arrangement?
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Mate, the Luton-Watford rivalry is one of the most fierce on the planet.

 
Dracula said:
As i stated on last page a new heathrow runway will add another roughly 800 aircraft per day into the sky of the london area which is already full.

Most london airports including Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Northolt and London City all have departure routes that conflict with that of Heathrows.

For example. Most heathrow northbound departures go to about 6,000 ft initially. Thats the highest you can go until you enter the airways system. Luton eastbounds initially go south then east and have to stay at 4,000 (below heathrow outbounds) before climbing to 5,000 where they stay below stansted outbounds.

London city northbounds have to stay at 3,000ft until clear of Luton eastbounds then climb over luton inbounds.

luton westbounds have to stay at 5 below heathrow inbounds and outbounds.

Northolt westbounds have to go under Heathrow outbounds and inbounds and they actually STOP Luton outbounds until they are clear of west london.

Heathrow has 4 'stacks' which are holding areas for inbounds. 2 per runway, one north and one south of said runway. These holds are full, all the time.

Another runway means another 1 or 2 holds. Where do they go? What town are they going to sit over? Holds are usually about 20 miles away from said airport.

The London Terminal control area is full. The traffic levels where we are at the moment are expected to increase up to about 30% by 2020. Thats without a new runway.

Having new departure and inbound routes and holds will force other airports' routes to be moved (which they need to do already to be fair). This will mean departure routes and holding patterns over towns where there are none at the moment. This means massive public consultation covering the entire london Terminal control area which spreads from bristol to cambridge and oxford to east essex. Whos going to pay for that?

Then of course you've got gatwick and stansted planning second runways (planning regardless of heathrow decision).
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Wow, as robo said, laymen have no idea how bad it is. Testament to the systems in place and you guys that they aren't banging into each other now and then.


Dracula said:
What? Are you mad? Thats the ENTIRE issue for luton.

That airport moves more passengers/aircraft per sq ft than any airport in Europe.

The airfield perimeter on the north side is luton, cant go there.

To the west is luton and dunstable, cant go there.

Literally a foot South and east of the airfield perimeter is Hertfordshire. The airport and all the money it earns goes to bedfordshire who own the lease on the airport. So hertfordshire gets all the noise and none of the income. At both ends of the runway there is a significant drop (they built the thing on a hill).

They literally cant expand anywhere, although they would love to. Which is a shame because the catchment area and travel links are v good and going to get better with the expansion (benefit of an airport still owned by the council it gets good rd links considering).

And what do you mean by expanded to be international? Its the 5th busiest airport in UK and 99%of their flights are international. I assume you mean trans atlantic? Well that is down to their runway length and as said incredibly small size geographically, just cant park the big ones
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Christ, had no idea about the council coining it in. Barring the big ones, I'd always seen crappy airports like Kent or Newquay as vanity projects by the council- not sure how much those tiny regional ones make- the running costs must be very high.
 
Jippy said:
Wow, as robo said, laymen have no idea how bad it is. Testament to the systems in place and you guys that they aren't banging into each other now and then.



Christ, had no idea about the council coining it in. Barring the big ones, I'd always seen crappy airports like Kent or Newquay as vanity projects by the council- not sure how much those tiny regional ones make- the running costs must be very high.
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Well, Luton specifically lease out the operation of the airport to a private company. London Luton Aiport Limited (owned by Spanish and french). LLAL get a 30 year lease to operate the airport and it has regular breaks in lease to get extensions. Its this private company that puts the money in to develop and run the airport so there are no running costs to the council. The council do get money (i think around £5) for every passenger that uses the airport. They may get annual charges on top of that but its certainly a good little earner, last year i think luton had 11m passengers, theyre expanding to be able to accept 18m in two or three years.
 
Dracula said:
What? Are you mad? Thats the ENTIRE issue for luton.

That airport moves more passengers/aircraft per sq ft than any airport in Europe.

The airfield perimeter on the north side is luton, cant go there.

To the west is luton and dunstable, cant go there.

Literally a foot South and east of the airfield perimeter is Hertfordshire. The airport and all the money it earns goes to bedfordshire who own the lease on the airport. So hertfordshire gets all the noise and none of the income. At both ends of the runway there is a significant drop (they built the thing on a hill).

They literally cant expand anywhere, although they would love to. Which is a shame because the catchment area and travel links are v good and going to get better with the expansion (benefit of an airport still owned by the council it gets good rd links considering).

And what do you mean by expanded to be international? Its the 5th busiest airport in UK and 99%of their flights are international. I assume you mean trans atlantic? Well that is down to their runway length and as said incredibly small size geographically, just cant park the big ones
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Since I live in Luton let me correct some points. Luton is actually west of the airport but north there is a fairly built up area so agreed can't go there.

Dunstable is actually west of Luton so completely irrelevant.

And to your patronising point about being an international airport, with application of a bit of common sense you should have understood it as departures that go further than just Europe or countries very close to Europe. Although there are a few flights nowadays that go to NYC. But what I mean is,flights which serve further destinations and host mainstream airlines in addition to the budget ones, bit like Gatwick. Not trains Atlantic, which is only to places over the Atlantic.

Regarding all the stuff about county boundaries I do not know so will take your word on it. But if a county boundary and some hills (we aren't talking mountains here) aren't able to be worked around I would be surprised given the level of work needed to expand Heathrow.

Regarding runway length I would presume expansion of the airport would mean a new runway and infrastructure designed to cope with the bigger planes.

And for the record I am not pro Heathrow or pro Gatwick or pro anything. Or against anything. I'm just curious as to the fact that there are other options which may or may not work which I don't think have actually been explored.

I obviously don't have the logistical knowledge of airports as you do so I of course could be wrong.
 
rpitroda said:
Since I live in Luton let me correct some points. Luton is actually west of the airport but north there is a fairly built up area so agreed can't go there.

Dunstable is actually west of Luton so completely irrelevant.

And to your patronising point about being an international airport, with application of a bit of common sense you should have understood it as departures that go further than just Europe or countries very close to Europe. Although there are a few flights nowadays that go to NYC. But what I mean is,flights which serve further destinations and host mainstream airlines in addition to the budget ones, bit like Gatwick. Not trains Atlantic, which is only to places over the Atlantic.

Regarding all the stuff about county boundaries I do not know so will take your word on it. But if a county boundary and some hills (we aren't talking mountains here) aren't able to be worked around I would be surprised given the level of work needed to expand Heathrow.

Regarding runway length I would presume expansion of the airport would mean a new runway and infrastructure designed to cope with the bigger planes.

And for the record I am not pro Heathrow or pro Gatwick or pro anything. Or against anything. I'm just curious as to the fact that there are other options which may or may not work which I don't think have actually been explored.

I obviously don't have the logistical knowledge of airports as you do so I of course could be wrong.
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It wasn't patronising it genuinly seemed strange you stated that it wasnt an international airport, which it clearly is but assuming you meant transatlantic which was correct but i gave you the reason for that which wad due to limited space. But you now say you didnt mean transatlantic, which leads me to question what you meant?

I know dunstable is west of luton i live 10 miles from there, that was my point, expansion geographically to the west (i.e new runway/terminal) affects two large towns, not to mention dunstable downs airspace. Not going to happen.

And extension of the runway accross 'some hills' is actually a major job which the airport would benefot little from...because of the other points i mentioned.

Buying the land to the south (in herts) isn't insurmountable wherr they could build a second terminal and a linger runway but whilst heathrow and gatwick are there the demand isnt there for luton to justify the expense
 
Dracula said:
It wasn't patronising it genuinly seemed strange you stated that it wasnt an international airport, which it clearly is but assuming you meant transatlantic which was correct but i gave you the reason for that which wad due to limited space. But you now say you didnt mean transatlantic, which leads me to question what you meant?

I know dunstable is west of luton i live 10 miles from there, that was my point, expansion geographically to the west (i.e new runway/terminal) affects two large towns, not to mention dunstable downs airspace. Not going to happen.

And extension of the runway accross 'some hills' is actually a major job which the airport would benefot little from...because of the other points i mentioned.

Buying the land to the south (in herts) isn't insurmountable wherr they could build a second terminal and a linger runway but whilst heathrow and gatwick are there the demand isnt there for luton to justify the expense
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I mean flights to flight to global destinations - transatlantic is what it says it is - over the Atlantic. What I also am including is flifhtd to say Hong Kong which are not transatlantic.

And obviously i am not proposing digging up a hill to build an extension. But I'm fairly confident that there is scope in that area to build a runway where it's flat and a terminal on the hills. I don't know the geography of the area and whether it's hills and hills for miles and miles. Maybe it is not possible to extend there.

And regarding demand yes, that could be a valid business case to not expand it. However geographically Luton is very well placed because it's very accessible to people from the north. And if there were flights into and out of Luton with major airlines and a good cost then I'm not sure that people wouldn't use Luton.

Anyway it ain't happening so it is a mute point.
 
rcoobc said:
Jesus, I didnt realise that the "Britains skys are full" wasn't empty rhetoric. I have a lot of questions, but they'll have to wait for another time
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Jippy said:
Wow, as robo said, laymen have no idea how bad it is. Testament to the systems in place and you guys that they aren't banging into each other now and then.



Christ, had no idea about the council coining it in. Barring the big ones, I'd always seen crappy airports like Kent or Newquay as vanity projects by the council- not sure how much those tiny regional ones make- the running costs must be very high.
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Here's a video to give an example what im talkimg about. Bear in mind all the 'colours' happen at the same time, and they all have to stay either 1000ft vertically or 5 miles horizontally separated (3 miles in certain circumstances)

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/...raffic-build-up-over-24-hours-video-animation
 
Why "hubs" might not matter so much in future anyway

 
Dracula said:
It wasn't patronising it genuinly seemed strange you stated that it wasnt an international airport, which it clearly is but assuming you meant transatlantic which was correct but i gave you the reason for that which wad due to limited space. But you now say you didnt mean transatlantic, which leads me to question what you meant?

I know dunstable is west of luton i live 10 miles from there, that was my point, expansion geographically to the west (i.e new runway/terminal) affects two large towns, not to mention dunstable downs airspace. Not going to happen.

And extension of the runway accross 'some hills' is actually a major job which the airport would benefot little from...because of the other points i mentioned.

Buying the land to the south (in herts) isn't insurmountable wherr they could build a second terminal and a linger runway but whilst heathrow and gatwick are there the demand isnt there for luton to justify the expense
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If the runway was uphill it could help slow a landing plane. It'll be like a ramp for those taking off too. We could have a breakthrough on our hands here.
 
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