Airport expansions

[pug1]

And, once again, Heathrow is not at capacity.

Not by any metric other than air traffic movement capacity at specific times of day that are particularly profitable to private companies operating air services.

The Civil Aviation Authority knows this, the former National Air Traffic Services (now NATS Holdings) knows this, British Airways knows this and, if we’re being absolutely honest, Virgin Atlantic knows this.

And, especially with the Seoul noose round their neck, they know that their only chance of survival as a distinct entity is to offload or transfer their slots well before there’s any possibility of a third runway, and retreat to Gatwick, where the Holidays operation stands a vague chance of maintaining viability.

Even Alaska Airlines knew that the Virgin America brand was pointless and, at some point, Delta will put the KoolAid down, too.

And increased domestic connectivity as some kind of justification for the third runway is a completely specious lobbying position.

However, it’s also very difficult for any government to ignore the short term allure of Qatari concrete being poured all over Hounslow, and the jobs it’ll temporarily bring.

So, at the highest level, no-one tells the truth.

The argument that Heathrow is ‘not at capacity’ except at ‘specific times of day’ completely misses how global aviation hubs actually function. Airlines do not build international transfer networks around the random, low-demand times of day that happen to be left over. A viable hub relies on tightly coordinated waves of arriving and departing flights so that a passenger from Leeds Bradford can realistically connect to a flight to Tokyo or New York without a ten-hour layover. When those specific peak hours are entirely full, the hub network effectively stops functioning for new routes.

Also, using corporate speculation about Virgin Atlantic's fleet placement or their Seoul route to dismiss national infrastructure policy is a massive deflection. It does not matter which airline logo is painted on the side of the plane. If Virgin Atlantic retreats to Gatwick or Delta adjusts its strategy, those highly prized Heathrow slots will simply be snatched up by other massive global carriers looking to expand their international networks. None of that corporate musical chairs does a single thing to open up affordable, dedicated capacity for domestic regional flights.

Dismissing regional connectivity as mere lobbying ignores the literal framework of the government's updated National Policy Statement. The legal guarantees, ring-fenced slots, and 50% domestic passenger charge discounts are not marketing slogans; they are binding regulatory requirements designed specifically to fix a broken market. Pointing to the allure of foreign investment might make for good forum cynicism, but it completely ignores the reality that if we do not expand the UK's only genuine hub, British regional passengers will just continue to be forced to connect through Amsterdam, Frankfurt, or Paris instead.

 

[AlastairFraser]

It is completely unrealistic to consider closing Heathrow and replacing it with a new airport much further away from Central London. Alternatives such as Cublington and Foulness were evaluated over 50 years ago and deemed impractical and unaffordable even then

However, the British aviation industry and foreign travel in general has grown significantly since then, so there is much more of a case for a proper new hub airport than there was in the 60s and 70s.
The unfortunate part is that politicians don't have the will to build generationally significant new infrastructure in the same way.

IMO, the main priority should be developing Heathrow's capability to handle large aircraft serving major intercontinental routes and providing links to major European cities to encourage its function as a hub airport. Domestic routes are of minor importance and not really needed other than to Belfast and Scotland, given Great Britain's compactness.

You're entitled to your view. Don't forget that Gatwick's expansion means it is also capable of some of these roles.

 

[Peter Sarf]

If there was to be an alternative to Heathrow (or any airport) expansion, then how about a new airport somewhere on HS2 (probably between Birmingham and London) - just to reduce the amount of domestic flights needed. Go on - someone suggest in the Chilterns !.

Realistically if the UK struggles so much to build a high speed rail line due to objections then an airport with things using it that wont go in a tunnel is not worth exploring at all !.

 

[AlastairFraser]

If there was to be an alternative to Heathrow (or any airport) expansion, then how about a new airport somewhere on HS2 (probably between Birmingham and London) - just to reduce the amount of domestic flights needed. Go on - someone suggest in the Chilterns !.

Realistically if the UK struggles so much to build a high speed rail line due to objections then an airport with things using it that wont go in a tunnel is not worth exploring at all !.

A national airport next to a new administrative capital somewhere in the East Mids on a brownfield site wouldn't be a terrible idea, but it would need to be somewhere 1) closer but not super close to the North Sea, to reduce nuisance noise issues with residential areas and 2) somewhere that doesn't disrupt the RAF's access to airspace.
So Lincolnshire is out, and large chunks of Yorks are too.
But I still think that any new hub airport in the UK has to be somewhere in the South East because of London's massive economic impact, and most likely Kent or Essex.

 

[gabrielhj07]

A national airport next to a new administrative capital somewhere in the East Mids on a brownfield site wouldn't be a terrible idea, but it would need to be somewhere 1) closer but not super close to the North Sea, to reduce nuisance noise issues with residential areas and 2) somewhere that doesn't disrupt the RAF's access to airspace.
So Lincolnshire is out, and large chunks of Yorks are too.

I'm afraid this is pie in the sky stuff. We have to work with what we've got, and that is LHR as the destination of choice for the world's airlines. Building a new 'mega-hub' in Lincs/the Thames estuary/Oban/HS2 adjacent won't work because that's not where airlines want to go.

 

[Wolfie]

I'm afraid this is pie in the sky stuff. We have to work with what we've got, and that is LHR as the destination of choice for the world's airlines. Building a new 'mega-hub' in Lincs/the Thames estuary/Oban/HS2 adjacent won't work because that's not where airlines want to go.

I don't imagine that airlines wanted to move in Hong Kong, Paris or other places either but guess what.....

 

[gabrielhj07]

I don't imagine that airlines wanted to move in Hong Kong, Paris or other places either but guess what.....

What are we supposed to learn from comparing Heathrow to Kai Tak?

 

[AlastairFraser]

I'm afraid this is pie in the sky stuff. We have to work with what we've got, and that is LHR as the destination of choice for the world's airlines. Building a new 'mega-hub' in Lincs/the Thames estuary/Oban/HS2 adjacent won't work because that's not where airlines want to go.

Is LHR really the airlines' preference, or do they just want an airport that serves as a London hub?

 

[Peter Sarf]

Is LHR really the airlines' preference, or do they just want an airport that serves as a London hub?

Well. If all the airlines want is a London hub (which I think is reasonable) then how far from London can it be before its not attractive ?.

I suspect Maplin sands or Foulness is too far ?.
If they are not then I suspect the amount of work required to provide connections to London and build up all the support industries for the airport would be prohibitive.

Lincolnshire would be a dead loss.

Another example of a hub for a city that has moved is Bangkok Don Muang airport which got replaced by Suvarnabhumi airport. They are 20 miles apart (32 km). More importantly they are roughly the same distance from the centre of Bankkok so the new airport is not really in some remove area.

Heathrow is 16 miles from central London.
Suvarnabhumi is 20 miles from central Bangkok.
Hong Kong airport is 21 miles from the centre.

Maplin sands is 45-50 miles from London.
Foulness is 56 miles from London.

So the two nearest alternatives are more than twice as far from London as most newer airports. They really do not have any infrastructure nearby. No towns which people could live in to work at them. People and service industries would have to re-locate.

It may be that the proximity of Heathrow to London, all its transport links and lots of housing around is what makes Heathrow attractive !.

Edited 13:25 to tidy grammar and spelling ( I must have been rushing before).

 

[gabrielhj07]

Is LHR really the airlines' preference, or do they just want an airport that serves as a London hub?

If all of LHR's foreign carriers wanted to serve Stansted then they would.

 

[signed]

The issue with a new site isn’t infrastructure it’s people

---

There is a perfectly good airport much closer to Paris than CDG, nobody apart from regionals, French overseas and diasporas flights uses it.
AF has closed its base there and not even most low-cost carriers fly there.

Around CDG, there are much more businesses on both airport grounds, the exhibition hall, La-Plaine-Saint-Denis… It’s also much closer to La Défense CBD

Around Orly you have the slow burgeoning of the Plateau de Saclay research field but it’s nothing compared to the business close to CDG

The fact it’s closer hasn’t changed anything, people with money want to get to CDG. ORY is a holiday population airport.

---

On top of that, good luck convincing people to leave Zone 6 with the salaries that go with it, being in Greater London, to worse conditions 50sth miles away. And that’s not counting the cost of building housing for those people from 0, people can’t get housed already, so I can’t imagine building thousands of units/houses being in the cards of anyone.

 

[sh24]

80,000 people work at LHR, so on top of a huge airport a town the size of Reading to accommodate them + families would need to be built.

Never, ever happening.

London is where the money is, and that's where the demand is. Some fields in Lincolnshire aren't going to be attractive.

 

[pug1]

80,000 people work at LHR, so on top of a huge airport a town the size of Reading to accommodate them + families would need to be built.

Never, ever happening.

London is where the money is, and that's where the demand is. Some fields in Lincolnshire aren't going to be attractive.

Exactly, as has been said above there are other London airports that the worlds major airlines could fly into but they don’t want to.

People need to stop acting like the tail wags the dog. Airlines operate to razor thin margins and they are best placed to determine where they want to fly to. Hong Kong example is a poor one, Kai Tak was terrible. LHR is the right location but it needs to expand a bit to enable it to absorb more capacity.

 

[Bald Rick]

I don't imagine that airlines wanted to move in Hong Kong

They very much did at Hong Kong!

 

[Magdalia]

If there was to be an alternative to Heathrow (or any airport) expansion, then how about a new airport somewhere on HS2 (probably between Birmingham and London) - just to reduce the amount of domestic flights needed. Go on - someone suggest in the Chilterns !.

Lord Roskill did, in 1971!

The Roskill Commission recommended site was Cublington, which is between Leighton Buzzard and Aylesbury. It would have been close to both HS2 and East West Rail.

But the Heath Government chose Maplin instead, which was later cancelled by the Wilson Government.

 

[pug1]

Lord Roskill did, in 1971!

The Roskill Commission recommended site was Cublington, which is between Leighton Buzzard and Aylesbury. It would have been close to both HS2 and East West Rail.

But the Heath Government chose Maplin instead, which was later cancelled by the Wilson Government.

There was pressure from the 1940’s to create a national airport framework. I think tying in with the motorway building phase there were several proposals including building an airport on Burtonwood to serve both Manchester and Liverpool, one in the area of Ferrybridge for Yorkshire (although Thorne Moor was also considered), and of course numerous super airport proposals for London.

Ultimately though what happened was the central government selected a few airports deemed of strategic importance, the rest were left to regional corporations who, they believed, knew their markets well. It’s why you ended up with an airport at Yeadon.

 

[AlastairFraser]

If all of LHR's foreign carriers wanted to serve Stansted then they would.

I'm not talking about a secondary airport, I'm talking about Heathrow's location apparently being its key advantage. I'm not entirely convinced.

Well. If all the airlines want is a London hub (which I think is reasonable) then how far from London can it be before its not attractive ?.

I suspect Maplin sands or Foulness is too far ?.
If they are not then I suspect the amount of work required to provide connections to London and build up all the support industries for the airport would be prohibitive.

With modern HSR, not necessarily. Times change. What was unviable 30 years ago is now possible.

Another example of a hub for a city that has moved is Bangkok Don Muang airport which got replaced by Suvarnabhumi airport. They are 20 miles apart (32 km). More importantly they are roughly the same distance from the centre of Bankkok so the new airport is not really in some remove area.

In a country like Thailand with a lower population density and plenty of low cost agricultural land, that is not so difficult. The UK is a different story.

It may be that the proximity of Heathrow to London, all its transport links and lots of housing around is what makes Heathrow attractive !.

Heathrow certainly benefits from the proximity of the M25 and the established rail/Tube links, but that doesn't mean those links are irreplaceable. I'm not convinced the proximity of housing is a huge part of its success.

The issue with a new site isn’t infrastructure it’s people

---

There is a perfectly good airport much closer to Paris than CDG, nobody apart from regionals, French overseas and diasporas flights uses it.
AF has closed its base there and not even most low-cost carriers fly there.

Around CDG, there are much more businesses on both airport grounds, the exhibition hall, La-Plaine-Saint-Denis… It’s also much closer to La Défense CBD

Around Orly you have the slow burgeoning of the Plateau de Saclay research field but it’s nothing compared to the business close to CDG

The fact it’s closer hasn’t changed anything, people with money want to get to CDG. ORY is a holiday population airport.

---

On top of that, good luck convincing people to leave Zone 6 with the salaries that go with it, being in Greater London, to worse conditions 50sth miles away. And that’s not counting the cost of building housing for those people from 0, people can’t get housed already, so I can’t imagine building thousands of units/houses being in the cards of anyone.

The difference with CDG is that it was built with room for expansion, and today it has 4 runways of significant length. Heathrow will never have that flexibility, you need to destroy several villages to get 3 runways alone.

80,000 people work at LHR, so on top of a huge airport a town the size of Reading to accommodate them + families would need to be built.

Never, ever happening.

London is where the money is, and that's where the demand is. Some fields in Lincolnshire aren't going to be attractive.

Kent or Essex sites could easily be close enough to London to serve London.

People need to stop acting like the tail wags the dog. Airlines operate to razor thin margins and they are best placed to determine where they want to fly to.

Herein lies the key question: Should we permit multinational airlines, whose only motive is profit, to decide our airports policy for our capital city, or should we provide them a hub airport at a location where there is a space for expansion and they work to build passenger numbers there?

 

[pug1]

I'm not talking about a secondary airport, I'm talking about Heathrow's location apparently being its key advantage. I'm not entirely convinced.

With modern HSR, not necessarily. Times change. What was unviable 30 years ago is now possible.

In a country like Thailand with a lower population density and plenty of low cost agricultural land, that is not so difficult. The UK is a different story.

Heathrow certainly benefits from the proximity of the M25 and the established rail/Tube links, but that doesn't mean those links are irreplaceable. I'm not convinced the proximity of housing is a huge part of its success.

The difference with CDG is that it was built with room for expansion, and today it has 4 runways of significant length. Heathrow will never have that flexibility, you need to destroy several villages to get 3 runways alone.

Kent or Essex sites could easily be close enough to London to serve London.

Herein lies the key question: Should we permit multinational airlines, whose only motive is profit, to decide our airports policy for our capital city, or should we provide them a hub airport at a location where there is a space for expansion and they work to build passenger numbers there?

Well yes, if they don’t make profit they don’t fly. I don’t think you understand the importance of this network as part of the supply chain, I’m not just talking cheap passenger seats here!

Ultimately a new airport is never happening so it’s pointless discussing it.

 

[sh24]

Herein lies the key question: Should we permit multinational airlines, whose only motive is profit, to decide our airports policy for our capital city, or should we provide them a hub airport at a location where there is a space for expansion and they work to build passenger numbers there?

That isn't how it works. Airlines want to fly where the demand is. The demand is London and the immediate surroundings. If there isn't demand in the area, they won't fly there. Moving LHR to somewhere else risks losing connectivity and desirability as a place to do business and the whole of the UK suffers as tax revenues drop.

Kent and Essex are the wrong side of London for a a large catchments area to the N,W and S of London. And you've still got to find homes for 200,000 people while simultaneously dealing with the fallout of 80,000 others losing their jobs.

It's beyond pie in the sky territory.

 

[signed]

The difference with CDG is that it was built with room for expansion, and today it has 4 runways of significant length. Heathrow will never have that flexibility, you need to destroy several villages to get 3 runways alone.

There may be ample capacity movement wise, but CDG's terminals are way undersized and badly designed for the amount of passengers it sees.

I can't imagine the hell it will be with the increasing passenger numbers, and there is very little that can be done to expand the terminals, especially when politics killed the much needed Terminal 4 project.

Heathrow certainly benefits from the proximity of the M25 and the established rail/Tube links, but that doesn't mean those links are irreplaceable. I'm not convinced the proximity of housing is a huge part of its success.

It is

Look at every medium size, and up, airport and how much housing and businesses are congregating around them.

With modern HSR, not necessarily. Times change. What was unviable 30 years ago is now possible.

Road proximity is much more important than rail. At most airports, the large majority of people use taxis or rentals direct to their destinations.
People even pay 32500 JPY (£150) to go from Narita to Tokyo, where it is a financial nonsense.

We can see it with the cheaper to operate Gatwick/Stansted, only see flights to bucket and spade, or the random Middle Eastern airline flight. People don't want to fly to/from there, unless it's cheap.

Tokyo Narita is the best example on how closer to the airport means a lot, even with < 1h rail transit to Tokyo. It had the most flights for decades, but a lot of airlines have moved some (most) flights to Haneda, rather than Narita, in the last 10-15 years.

Heathrow is 20min from the city center and has a direct rail service to the CBD, it's a golden location

 

[gabrielhj07]

I'm not talking about a secondary airport, I'm talking about Heathrow's location apparently being its key advantage. I'm not entirely convinced.

Heathrow's location doesn't really matter, if that's where the airlines want to fly to.

Herein lies the key question: Should we permit multinational airlines, whose only motive is profit, to decide our airports policy for our capital city, or should we provide them a hub airport at a location where there is a space for expansion and they work to build passenger numbers there?

If you're operating an airport in a commercial environment then your success will be determined by airline traffic, obviously. Those airlines want to fly to LHR, for whatever reason. Building capacity at Gatwick/Stansted/elsewhere is not going to address that demand.

 

[Tetchytyke]

If you're operating an airport in a commercial environment then your success will be determined by airline traffic, obviously. Those airlines want to fly to LHR, for whatever reason. Building capacity at Gatwick/Stansted/elsewhere is not going to address that demand.

Airlines absolutely want to fly to Heathrow. They consider there to be kudos and prestige in flying to Heathrow and they also consider that Gatwick and Stansted offer less kudos and less prestige.

This is the reason why Heathrow wants to expand. Heathrow knows demand from airlines exceeds capacity. Heathrow can make more money if it expands.

But the flip side of this is that the extra demand for Heathrow is likely to come from airlines who currently can't get Heathrow slots (or as many as they want) and are therefore "relegated" to Gatwick or Stansted. It is, at least in my opinion, highly unlikely airlines will add extra flights to London: they will simply move their existing flights from Gatwick to Heathrow. I'm sure Heathrow's dubious foreign ownership would love to steal all Gatwick's customers. That's business.

None of this means that London (as opposed to Heathrow) needs more airport capacity though. It has plenty. Use what exists first.

 

[pug1]

Airlines absolutely want to fly to Heathrow. They consider there to be kudos and prestige in flying to Heathrow and they also consider that Gatwick and Stansted offer less kudos and less prestige.

This is the reason why Heathrow wants to expand. Heathrow knows demand from airlines exceeds capacity. Heathrow can make more money if it expands.

But the flip side of this is that the extra demand for Heathrow is likely to come from airlines who currently can't get Heathrow slots (or as many as they want) and are therefore "relegated" to Gatwick or Stansted. It is, at least in my opinion, highly unlikely airlines will add extra flights to London: they will simply move their existing flights from Gatwick to Heathrow. I'm sure Heathrow's dubious foreign ownership would love to steal all Gatwick's customers. That's business.

None of this means that London (as opposed to Heathrow) needs more airport capacity though. It has plenty. Use what exists first.

Completely wrong. Aviation is an ecosystem of distinct markets. Gatwick and Stansted are not hubs, they are primarily leisure oriented airports and as such do not operate in the same market. To simply suggest that opening a new runway at Heathrow would just result in airlines moving from STN and LGW is patently incorrect. The competition is CDG, MUC, AMS etc, not other London airports.

LGW is owned by Vinci. Vinci are French.

 

[signed]

Airlines absolutely want to fly to Heathrow. They consider there to be kudos and prestige in flying to Heathrow and they also consider that Gatwick and Stansted offer less kudos and less prestige.

This is the reason why Heathrow wants to expand. Heathrow knows demand from airlines exceeds capacity. Heathrow can make more money if it expands.

But the flip side of this is that the extra demand for Heathrow is likely to come from airlines who currently can't get Heathrow slots (or as many as they want) and are therefore "relegated" to Gatwick or Stansted. It is, at least in my opinion, highly unlikely airlines will add extra flights to London: they will simply move their existing flights from Gatwick to Heathrow. I'm sure Heathrow's dubious foreign ownership would love to steal all Gatwick's customers. That's business.

None of this means that London (as opposed to Heathrow) needs more airport capacity though. It has plenty. Use what exists first.

Different markets, you wouldn't see Jet2 or TUI start serving Heathrow and you wouldn't see the clawback of BA Gatwick leisure flights to Heathrow, they serve different market and there is no reason, expansion or not, for airlines to move leisure flights to Heathrow. The same why the leisure market of Orly hasn't moved to CDG.

It's more the smaller international long-haul airlines that would benefit from Heathrow slots and/or more long and thin routes from BA/Virgin or the likes of WestJet.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Aviation is an ecosystem of distinct markets. Gatwick and Stansted are not hubs, they are primarily leisure oriented airports and as such do not operate in the same market. To simply suggest that opening a new runway at Heathrow would just result in airlines moving from STN and LGW is patently incorrect. The competition is CDG, MUC, AMS etc, not other London airports.

There is only one airline which operates through Heathrow as a hub, and that is British Airways. So let's talk about them.

BA have 52% of all the slots at Heathrow. If we're being charitable and include the other IAG airlines and their OneWorld alliance partners, they get up to 60% of all slots at Heathrow. So even then, at least 40% of everything through Heathrow is non-hub traffic.

But BA also have a significant presence at Gatwick, they're still the second biggest airline there behind EasyJet.

So we expand Heathrow. What do we think BA will do? Do we think they will buy loads of new aircraft and fly loads of extra flights from Heathrow, in addition to their existing Gatwick flights? Or do we think that BA might decide to simply consolidate their operations and move their Gatwick flights to Heathrow? Maybe they'd do neither, given their use of a different AOC for most of their Gatwick flights.

What about the other airlines? Virgin tried a domestic network and it failed. EasyJet don't operate a hub model, they are solely point-to-point. The rest are non-UK airlines who wouldn't be able to use Heathrow as a hub, even if they wanted to, without setting up a UK operation and getting a separate UK AOC. And would they want to do that? Lufthansa already have a hub in Frankfurt, Emirates already have a hub in Dubai.

As for other European airports being the competition, really? Amsterdam Schiphol has many things going for it, but it isn't particularly convenient for London. Same with Frankfurt or Paris CDG. Likewise, Heathrow isn't particularly convenient for Munich or Madrid.

So that leaves us with UK regional connectivity, e.g. people in Leeds or Bristol flying via Heathrow instead of via Amsterdam or Paris. BA don't really much care about it and haven't done since the mid 90s, Virgin tried it and lost a load of money, and Loganair only fly to Heathrow because they are paid to by the IOM government and by the NI Assembly.

The talk of Heathrow as a hub is a bit of a red herring for these reasons. But, even if it isn't, what tangible financial benefit does a passenger flying from Munich to New York via Heathrow add to the UK? Even at WH Smith prices, someone buying a KitKat and a bottle of Fanta whilst they're connecting between two flights isn't going to add much value.

It's more the smaller international long-haul airlines that would benefit for Heathrow slots and/or more long and thin routez.

Yes, that's my point. The smaller non-UK long-haul airlines would dearly love to have more slots at Heathrow. But they're not going to fly more often to London- as you say, it's a long and thin route- they're just going to move their existing flights from Gatwick to Heathrow. I'm thinking of the likes of Air Transat, WestJet, or Norse in this.

 

[Peter Sarf]

I'm not talking about a secondary airport, I'm talking about Heathrow's location apparently being its key advantage. I'm not entirely convinced.

I think Heathrows location is its key advantage. Added to the fact it has established supply industries around it. There is 80 years of evolving to undo there and re-do else where.

With modern HSR, not necessarily. Times change. What was unviable 30 years ago is now possible.

It is still not viable to cart all the things made by the supply industries across London to a hub in the middle of nowhere. The supply industries I am talking about are things like catering - there are factories close to Heathrow that make the pre packed meals that go on the flights. To move that you need even more space and housing for the families of the people who work in those factories. It is significant.

In a country like Thailand with a lower population density and plenty of low cost agricultural land, that is not so difficult. The UK is a different story.

So if it was so easy in Thailand and yet they did not do it then why would the UK do it with a lot less sparsely populated areas to choose from ?.

You are answering a point about Suvarnabhumi. Is is not built in some sparsely populated green field site a very long way from Bangkok. But Thailand does have a very low population density apart from Bangkok and some other major cities far away - yet the Thais chose a site near Bangkok, twenty miles away whereas Heathrow is already 16 miles away. That is despite your assertion that very underdeveloped ares are where a replacement for Heathrow should be built - the Thais had more chance of doing that than we in the UK do and yet they chose a site near Bangkok. Suvarnabhumi was built on an area of marsh land that was conveniently close to Bangkok and is really witin greater Bangkok. So it is a bearable distance for support workers from Don Muang area who probably have less choice than the equivalent UK workers.

Heathrow certainly benefits from the proximity of the M25 and the established rail/Tube links, but that doesn't mean those links are irreplaceable. I'm not convinced the proximity of housing is a huge part of its success.

Compare Heathrow to Gatwick. Gatwick is less popular because it is further away from London and the M25. Gatwick does have a good catchment area as regards holiday makers flying out of the UK to typical European destinations, but not convenient enough for business travel or much long haul. Same goes for Stanstead and Luton.

Where could you find a replacement for Heathrow that is more attractive than Gatwick, Stanstead or Luton ?.

What is so special about Heathrow - answer is its proximity to London AND the fact that it has an established support infrastructure around it.

The difference with CDG is that it was built with room for expansion, and today it has 4 runways of significant length. Heathrow will never have that flexibility, you need to destroy several villages to get 3 runways alone.

I am afraid that (flattening a village) the cost, I don't like it, but let us not side step the issue with red herring alternatives.

My aspiration is better capacity at Heathrow and then as quickly as possible try to reduce demand by getting connecting domestic flights onto to High Speed rail.

Alternative is an established airport in Europe and connecting flights into regional airports within the UK. So more flights in general and less business for the UK.

Kent or Essex sites could easily be close enough to London to serve London.

You are answering a point that 80,000 people work at Heathrow. They are not going to commute from near Heathrow to somewhere remote from London - not even near but across London. Those 80,000 people have families so VERY ROUGHLY 275,000 people will need homes, schools, hospitals etc. (that is 80,000 workers + 80,000 partners + 80,000 x 1.4 kids). It is not just about air travellers and their convenience it is also about the huge amount of peripheral industries and people required to support Heathrow.

Herein lies the key question: Should we permit multinational airlines, whose only motive is profit, to decide our airports policy for our capital city, or should we provide them a hub airport at a location where there is a space for expansion and they work to build passenger numbers there?

If you try to influence business too much it will walk away.

 

[signed]

Yes, that's my point. The smaller non-UK long-haul airlines would dearly love to have more slots at Heathrow. But they're not going to fly more often to London- as you say, it's a long and thin route- they're just going to move their existing flights from Gatwick to Heathrow.

If those cater to leisure travellers, they will not move to Heathrow.

BA won't move, that's a given,
I struggle to see how airlines like Eurowings, SunExpress, Condor or the various other small leisure carriers would even think about operating to Heathrow.
I doubt that even national airlines like Turkmenistan or Uganda can make it work with the much higher operating cost. Bar maybe for 1 flagship flight, but even then, it's a lot of expense for a flagship flight.
And of course the European low cost carriers won't even touch LHR with a 10 foot pole.

I don't even see the likes of Emirates, Qatar or Singapore merging at LHR, those airlines have to cater to all markets, Emirates even flies daily to Stansted.

LHR is for business travellers, LGW/STN is leisure/low-cost travel, SEN and LTN are for firmly low-cost travelers. Those are the market divisions.

 

[Tetchytyke]

If those cater to leisure travellers, they will not move to Heathrow.

I struggle to see how airlines like Eurowings, SunExpress, Condor or the various other small leisure carriers would even think about operating to Heathrow.
I doubt that even national airlines like Turkmenistan or Uganda can make it work with the much higher operating cost.

The fees that Heathrow charge for passenger movements aren't actually very different to the charges at Gatwick.

The breakdown Loganair provide when you book with them, especially when you book an Avios redemption, is interesting, the airport fees are actually higher for them at City than at Heathrow.

The real cost that excludes the smaller national airlines or the likes of Air Transat or Norse is the cost of acquiring a slot pair at Heathrow. They're the ones who complain the most about Heathrow needing more capacity and it's because they want the kudos of flying to Heathrow but without the cost of it.

I'd agree about the leisure airlines not moving from Gatwick. Likewise, the likes of Wizz and Ryanair wouldn't touch Heathrow with a bargepole.

It's all why I remain very sceptical that Heathrow actually needs to be expanded. I understand why Heathrow's foreign shareholders would like to expand it, but that's not the same thing at all.

 

[signed]

The UK isn't Turkiye where the powers can just decrete that the airport's gonna be moved a very long way out. And even then, I don't know whether any airlines moved flights from SAW (the low cost airport on the Asian side) to IST (the new flagship airport)

 

[pug1]

There is only one airline which operates through Heathrow as a hub, and that is British Airways. So let's talk about them.

BA have 52% of all the slots at Heathrow. If we're being charitable and include the other IAG airlines and their OneWorld alliance partners, they get up to 60% of all slots at Heathrow. So even then, at least 40% of everything through Heathrow is non-hub traffic.

But BA also have a significant presence at Gatwick, they're still the second biggest airline there behind EasyJet.

So we expand Heathrow. What do we think BA will do? Do we think they will buy loads of new aircraft and fly loads of extra flights from Heathrow, in addition to their existing Gatwick flights? Or do we think that BA might decide to simply consolidate their operations and move their Gatwick flights to Heathrow? Maybe they'd do neither, given their use of a different AOC for most of their Gatwick flights.

What about the other airlines? Virgin tried a domestic network and it failed. EasyJet don't operate a hub model, they are solely point-to-point. The rest are non-UK airlines who wouldn't be able to use Heathrow as a hub, even if they wanted to, without setting up a UK operation and getting a separate UK AOC. And would they want to do that? Lufthansa already have a hub in Frankfurt, Emirates already have a hub in Dubai.

As for other European airports being the competition, really? Amsterdam Schiphol has many things going for it, but it isn't particularly convenient for London. Same with Frankfurt or Paris CDG. Likewise, Heathrow isn't particularly convenient for Munich or Madrid.

So that leaves us with UK regional connectivity, e.g. people in Leeds or Bristol flying via Heathrow instead of via Amsterdam or Paris. BA don't really much care about it and haven't done since the mid 90s, Virgin tried it and lost a load of money, and Loganair only fly to Heathrow because they are paid to by the IOM government and by the NI Assembly.

The talk of Heathrow as a hub is a bit of a red herring for these reasons. But, even if it isn't, what tangible financial benefit does a passenger flying from Munich to New York via Heathrow add to the UK? Even at WH Smith prices, someone buying a KitKat and a bottle of Fanta whilst they're connecting between two flights isn't going to add much value.


Yes, that's my point. The smaller non-UK long-haul airlines would dearly love to have more slots at Heathrow. But they're not going to fly more often to London- as you say, it's a long and thin route- they're just going to move their existing flights from Gatwick to Heathrow. I'm thinking of the likes of Air Transat, WestJet, or Norse in this.

You are throwing around industry jargon like ‘AOCs’ to sound informed, but your reply completely misunderstands global aviation economics. Your points fail under basic scrutiny because you are treating airlines as isolated entities rather than parts of massive global networks, and you are ignoring how flights are actually funded.

First, claiming ‘only BA uses Heathrow as a hub’ completely ignores global alliances like Star Alliance and SkyTeam, which control the remaining slots. Lufthansa does not need a UK AOC to use Heathrow as a hub; its alliance partners feed passengers into its network. These airlines explicitly coordinate schedules to swap millions of transfer passengers between flights. Heathrow acts as a multi-airline global hub ecosystem, not a single-airline fortress.

Second, dismissing transit passengers as ‘only worth the price of a KitKat at WH Smith’ is economically illiterate. Long-haul routes to niche global markets are incredibly expensive. Local London demand often only fills half the plane. The transit passengers you are dismissing are what fill the remaining seats, making the entire route financially viable. Without those connecting passengers, the route gets cancelled entirely, and local British businesses lose direct global connectivity.

Third, you completely ignored cargo, which is Heathrow's secret financial engine. Heathrow is actually the UK's largest port by value, handling roughly £300 billion worth of goods per year, which is over a quarter of all UK trade. Roughly 90% of this cargo is carried in the ‘belly hold’ underneath passenger seats. This high-value cargo revenue subsidises the flight so local passengers pay less. Gatwick and Stansted’s short-haul leisure jets physically do not have the belly space or the global network to move this trade.

Finally, you misidentified the competition. You mock Paris CDG and Amsterdam Schiphol because they ‘aren't convenient for Londoners’. They aren't trying to be. They are competing for global traffic and UK regional traffic. Because Heathrow is full, a business traveller from Leeds or Newcastle who wants to go to Tokyo will bypass London entirely and use KLM to fly via Amsterdam. Amsterdam connects to 24 UK regional airports, while Heathrow connects to only a fraction because it has no spare slots. The UK is actively bleeding global trade and regional economic connectivity to Europe because Heathrow cannot expand.