Thames Estuary airport

[Arturo Bassick]

I'm sure if it were worth it, airlines would do it now.

It's not as if all the current provincial airport slots are full up, or priced out of the market.

They dont do it now because they only want to maintain one hub. They usually own (or have interest in) said hub and make extra money from through traffic.
Most people would prefer direct flights (I know I would).
It used to be the case that London airports were subsidised, but not sure if that is still the case I have a tiny bell ringing saying "free port status" somewhere too.

[doodab]

I am NOT proposing a single airport. I am suggesting that some of the slots from London COULD be redistributed amongst all the provincial airports, thus reducing pressure on London and utilising the spare capacity available in the provinces.
I am sure you are right when you say that the majority of flights are taken by Londoners, but there will be a significant minority of folk who live elsewhere who could be better served outside London.
If it takes between 1-1.5 hours to get to the airport surely it does not matter whether that airport is in London or Luton. If the main UK airports were more central to the UK it would reduce many journey times from 3+ hours.

This already happens to some extent.

BAA uses a detailed model to derive medium and long-term traffic forecasts for its London airports. The complexity and diversity of the airline traffic landing at and taking off from airports in the South-East, and the large number of major international airports, mean that this process is complicated. It consists of the following steps:
• forecasting unconstrained passenger air traffic demand for London;
• allocating demand to airports;
• modelling capacity constraints at Heathrow and Gatwick; and
• allocating excess demand to other airports.

So basically, when forecasting airport capacity requirements BAA etc start by looking at unconstrained forecasts of demand based on where people actually want to fly. They then factor in the tens of millions of people who won't be able to go through Heathrow or Gatwick because of capacity constraints.

There is only so much you can do before you simply have to build a bigger airport.

[doodab]

I'm sure if it were worth it, airlines would do it now.

It's not as if all the current provincial airport slots are full up, or priced out of the market.

One of the arab state airlines uses Manchester as a hub IIRC

[swamp]

A good airport needs decent road links, which the Estuary Airport will never have. Heathrow OTOH is in a great location.

[eek]

A good airport needs decent road links, which the Estuary Airport will never have. Heathrow OTOH is in a great location.

It already has the M2 and M20 with the M26 M25 link. There are also plans for another bridge over the Thames outside the M25.

Heathrow is a great location if you live locally and don't mind the noise and the pollution. otherwise it couldn't be in a worse location if you tried.

[MrMark]

'Boris Island' airport plan grounded over Johnson's briefing to Telegraph | Politics | guardian.co.uk

Oh dear. The bird is dead.

[DimPrawn]

Does this mean we won't have to suffer those intolerable Essex roughs at proper airports any more? Jolly good idea then.

[Doggy Styles]

They dont do it now because they only want to maintain one hub. They usually own (or have interest in) said hub and make extra money from through traffic.
Most people would prefer direct flights (I know I would).
It used to be the case that London airports were subsidised, but not sure if that is still the case I have a tiny bell ringing saying "free port status" somewhere too.

Isn't that up to the airlines though?