Reply to: Thames Estuary airport

[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?

[DimPrawn]

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

[MrMark]

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

Oh dear. The bird is dead.

[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.

[swamp]

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

[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

[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.

[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.

[Doggy Styles]

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.

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.

[eek]

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.

It won't work. What people want is an airport hub to which you fly from regional airport before departing to your destination. Why do you think KLM fly to and from everywhere in the UK. People fly to Amsterdam for 8am spend 2-3 hours waiting for their connection and end up in Denmark, Germany, Ukraine...

To do that you require a lot of runways in a single place. Boris Island is the only answer clearly confirmed by Ken being totally against it.

[Arturo Bassick]

It rather depends on the sense in which one is using quaint.



Quaint | Define Quaint at Dictionary.com

In this case it's "quaint" as you talk about "the provinces" as if they are a place that could be served by a single airport.

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.

[doodab]

doodab: There is nothing quaint about the correct use of the word provinces.
I have extracted an excerpt from a dictionary for your edification.

It rather depends on the sense in which one is using quaint.

2. odd, peculiar, or inappropriate: a quaint sense of duty

Quaint | Define Quaint at Dictionary.com

In this case it's "quaint" as you talk about "the provinces" as if they are a place that could be served by a single airport.

[Arturo Bassick]

doodab: There is nothing quaint about the correct use of the word provinces.
I have extracted an excerpt from a dictionary for your edification.

the provinces,
a.
the parts of a country outside of the capital or the largest cities.
b.
(in England) all parts of the country outside of London.

[doodab]

Where are you obtaining your numbers?

UK Airport Statistics: 2010 - annual | Aviation Intelligence | Regulatory Policy has some useful stuff about airports.

[doodab]

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.

But it isn't what's 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.

The reason ~40% of the airline passengers in the UK pass through Heathrow and Gatwick is because London and the south east is home to about 18 of the 52 million people in England and around 14-15 million foreign tourists a year visit London. Heathrow is also BA's hub so it has to cope with the transfer traffic.

If you move that traffic to Manchester then Manchester will need a new runway, you'll inconvenience a sizeable majority of the 70,000,000 people a year that currently use Heathrow because they are actually travelling to and from London & the southeast, and those people from "the provinces" as you so quaintly call it who travel to London at the moment will have to travel to Manchester instead, so aside from roughly quadrupling the capacity of the west coast main line you will need to improve transport links to everywhere else as well or you'll actually make life worse for them.

Meanwhile Gatwick will still be oversubscribed.