"Jake" wrote in message
...


"Bill" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 29 Aug 2012 15:54:51 +0100, "JohnT"
wrote:


"tim....." wrote in message
...
"Bill" wrote in message
...

Any one got any ideas or alternatives to either a third Heathrow
runway (Gawd help us all, a bigger and even less efficient Heathrow)
or 'Boris Island' in the Thames Estuary, which would cost as much as
our nuclear deterrent replacement...

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I think that we should build a second runway at Gatwick.

It will affect a tiny fraction of the people that the extra runway at
LHR
will affect and already has better rail connections and serves a more
populous non London catchment than STN.

I agree with Simon Jenkins from what someone posted on a different group
this morning:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...willy-politics

That is, we do not need extra runways to create a bigger hub. If the
aim
of the extra runway is to create growth then that growth is not helped
one
tiny little bit by people in-lining airside. if (however) London
business
does need more runway capacity for origination and terminating
passengers
that does not need to be at LHR and LGW is just as good IMHO


But a second runway at Gatwick is not possible until 2019 at the earliest:

"The construction of any new runway at Gatwick is ruled out before August
2019 by a legal agreement between BAA and West Sussex County Council. The
agreement applies to whoever owns Gatwick, and could only be overturned by
legislation which would need to be passed by both Houses of Parliament.
The
House of Lords might well refuse to pass such a Bill.
The legal agreement merely reflects the physical constraints of the site.
They will remain when the agreement expires."

I am aware that BAA no longer own LGW, but that does not in any way affect
the legal agreement.

I'm prone to 'Boris Island' myself, although I notice the 'third
runway at Heathrow' rhetoric has changed somewhat in the past week.

They started out talking about more flights to the Far East, and that
changed to 'More flights to China' when someone mentioned that about
10% of flights to India has stopped flying in the past two years...

My opinion is that what we need are more long haul scheduled flights
flying from provincial airports.

Why are there no scheduled flights to India from Leed/Bradford or
Manchester or Birmingham? Both have significant Indian populations.

It's a lot cheaper to fly with KLM from LBA-AMS and take advantage of the
range of non UK APD flights available from Schiphol than it is to make your
way from there to Heathrow/Gatwick.

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So the solution to encourage airlines to operate more LH flights from
regional airports (which I think most people can see might be a viable
alternative to a new runway in the SE) is to make APD dependent upon
departure airport.

tim