Thames Estuary airport

[doodab]

Are you sure they have the capacity? My local airport (Bristol) is expanding rapidly, but people in the South West still have to travel for many, many hours to get to London for a lot of flights. I often choose instead to fly from Bristol to somewhere close to where I want to get and then travel on foreign transport rather than enduring expensive UK public transport to get to London. Although mostly I just go to local airport destinations, which handily is increasing all the time.

The lack of choice of flights is more to do with choices made by the airlines, as they tend not to bother with routes that don't have sufficient demand to be profitable. If the demand were there then in most cases I think the capacity is there for the extra flights.

[Troll]

I don't like flying but was impressed how good Birmingham airport is - not as good as Terminal 5 but gives very nice impression. Plenty of capacity here, main problem is that apparently airplanes charged London like rate to land so they prefer to go to Manchester airport instead.

With HS2 stop at Birmingham Air it will be just 40 mins to London city center.

Centre you Ruskie American wannabe!

[Arturo Bassick]

The lack of choice of flights is more to do with choices made by the airlines, as they tend not to bother with routes that don't have sufficient demand to be profitable. If the demand were there then in most cases I think the capacity is there for the extra flights.

There is lots of demand in the provinces. It is amazing how many people have to first commute to London to then fly on to somewhere else in the world.
There are lots of reasons for this, but lack of demand is not one of them. Another London airport will only serve to exacerbate the problem.
It is about time that the rest of the UK was considered when proposing things like this.

[eek]

There is lots of demand in the provinces. It is amazing how many people have to first commute to London to then fly on to somewhere else in the world.
There are lots of reasons for this, but lack of demand is not one of them. Another London airport will only serve to exacerbate the problem.
It is about time that the rest of the UK was considered when proposing things like this.

A bigger london airport would solve that problem as the Heathrow flights that have disappeared from local airports into london due to lack of landing slots would reappear.

Boris Island is a vote winner for an awful lot of reasons.

[TimberWolf]

The lack of choice of flights is more to do with choices made by the airlines, as they tend not to bother with routes that don't have sufficient demand to be profitable. If the demand were there then in most cases I think the capacity is there for the extra flights.

Bristol and Birmingham airports, the only two I specifically searched on, are planning expansion.

And a government white paper says:

Appendix

The following 30 airports that have either been identified in the White Paper for significant development, or are forecast to have a minimum of 20,000 air transport movements in 2030.

Aberdeen
Leeds Bradford
Belfast City
Liverpool John Lennon
Belfast International
London City
Birmingham
London Gatwick
Blackpool
London Heathrow
Bournemouth
London Luton
Bristol International
London Stansted
Cardiff
Manchester
Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield
Newcastle
Edinburgh
Newquay
Exeter
Norwich
Glasgow
Nottingham East Midlands
Glasgow Prestwick
Plymouth City
Humberside
Southampton
Inverness
Teesside

[ARCHIVED CONTENT] Guidance on the Preparation of Airport Master Plans

unfortunately they group high demand with future significant development. Looks like the demand is there outside London too though.

[doodab]

There is lots of demand in the provinces. It is amazing how many people have to first commute to London to then fly on to somewhere else in the world.
There are lots of reasons for this, but lack of demand is not one of them. Another London airport will only serve to exacerbate the problem.
It is about time that the rest of the UK was considered when proposing things like this.

"The provinces" cover rather a large area. One new airport isn't going to cover it all. You need to look at demand in individual catchment areas.

If you look at say Bristol, Liverpool and Newcastle airport, they handle 60-70000 flights / year each. Between the 3 of them that amounts to about 3/4 of the number of flights from Gatwick (~240,000) and considerably less than half the number of flights from Heathrow (~450,000). It seems these airports could handle more flights fairly easily if the airlines wanted to fly there. So why don't the airlines fly there? What makes you think that building a new bigger airport will encourage them to do so?

In the meantime London will still need more capacity because Heathrow & Gatwick are at breaking point.

Outside of London the biggest airports are Manchester (~160,000 flights) and Edinburgh (~100,000 flight)

[TimberWolf]

In the meantime London will still need more capacity because Heathrow & Gatwick are at breaking point.

All those passengers can be London bound surely? Perhaps London airports are busy because that's where the investment has been.

[doodab]

Bristol and Birmingham airports, the only two I specifically searched on, are planning expansion.

And a government white paper says:

[ARCHIVED CONTENT] Guidance on the Preparation of Airport Master Plans

unfortunately they group high demand with future significant development. Looks like the demand is there outside London too though.

forecast to have a minimum of 20,000 air transport movements in 2030.

covers most of the airports on that list.

The fact is that such increased demand as there is can be met by expanding the existing facilities (mainly terminal / passenger handling capacity rather than new runways) so there is no need for a whole new airport.

Heathrow however is running flat out, and further expansion will require a 3rd runway and better transport links (the M4 is already notorious for delays and the tube overburdened) as well as a new terminal. If you are going to build all of those things at once, there is no sensible reason not to build them somewhere else.

[BrilloPad]

Hopefully they can pay for the new airport by selling off Heathrow for housing.

[Arturo Bassick]

"The provinces" cover rather a large area. One new airport isn't going to cover it all. You need to look at demand in individual catchment areas.

If you look at say Bristol, Liverpool and Newcastle airport, they handle 60-70000 flights / year each. Between the 3 of them that amounts to about 3/4 of the number of flights from Gatwick (~240,000) and considerably less than half the number of flights from Heathrow (~450,000). It seems these airports could handle more flights fairly easily if the airlines wanted to fly there. So why don't the airlines fly there? What makes you think that building a new bigger airport will encourage them to do so?

In the meantime London will still need more capacity because Heathrow & Gatwick are at breaking point.

Outside of London the biggest airports are Manchester (~160,000 flights) and Edinburgh (~100,000 flight)

I am not saying build new in the provinces, I am saying redistribute some of the London traffic to the "under used" provincial ones and upgrade transport links to London if that is what is needed.
For example: Make all transatlantic flights go from Manchester, or all European flights go from Birmingham or make it a % based system 50% London 25% Manc etc.

That way you do not need a new airport in London and the provinces get a better share of the traffic.