LHR 3rd runway - news just in...

[Rugrat]

well there's the whole problem in the first place, the hub model suits a few major airlines and major airports, but it doesn't make a lot of sense itself. they say they need more capacity for international business flights, but use up slots on tourist charters. they argue they need to respond to demand for flights to China, but at the same time these flights need in bound passengers from other places to fill the plane. Theres no reason for Gatwick not to expand into a "hub" of its own if they want, but Heathrow and BA dont want that.

Hubs suit every major airline its how they transport people from A to B to C .... like it or not (and I'm no fan of air travel) it's a necessary pert of business. If you look at destinations served by Heathrow trying to replicate at Gatwick would be a nightmare and would only serve as some sort of overflow so would be uneconomic for airlines (they get economy of scale at Heathrow). Heathrow does need more outbound capacity and its inbound routes serve that and can also be expanded. Gatwick really has neither (not much demand for flights in from Tenerife and Malaga to transfer on to Shanghai)

There are no tourist charters operating from Heathrow

I'm not for or against either, in fact there may be an argument for expanding both. But for me, the key point is that Heathrow is hub and business whilst Gatwick is point to point and leisure and trying to change that either won't work or the cost of doing so will be eye wateringly prohibitive

 

[yxee]

Just a quick example of why Heathrow expansion would help.

Amongst the cheapest flights from Manchester to Boston are via:

Zurich
Istanbul (?!)
Amsterdam
Charles de Gaulle

Why on earth is Heathrow not on that list? For any business travel from the "northern powerhouse" to the USA, you've got to spend the first 4 hours burning jet fuel travelling eastwards.

 

[beorhthelm]

There are no tourist charters operating from Heathrow

maybe not charters, but there is tourist routes to the likes of Orlando and Tenerife. my issue isn't with Heathrow either, and i understand the role of hubs as part of air travel. but the arguments made suggest its the only model. they say they cant fly to business destinations because there isn't enough slots (when there's tourist destinations), and that they must base flights from a hub to those destinations - so point to point from Heathrow. its self-contradicting. if there's demand for the route from London, you don't need the people coming in from A, you fly B to C. if there isn't the demand then why does the hub have to be here? only serves BA and Heathrow really, and a few executives who don't want to lose a couple of hours with a transfer. I don't fly long distance but colleges that do say they are usually glad of the break changing planes on route to Bangalore, Toyko or Syndey.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

There are no tourist charters operating from Heathrow

I'm not for or against either, in fact there may be an argument for expanding both. But for me, the key point is that Heathrow is hub and business whilst Gatwick is point to point and leisure and trying to change that either won't work or the cost of doing so will be eye wateringly prohibitive

Why won't it work? And why will it be so expensive? Surely other major european airports have a mix which works? Schiphol comes to mind.

 

[Bozza]

maybe not charters, but there is tourist routes to the likes of Orlando and Tenerife.

I'm almost certain there aren't - particularly to Orlando.

I've been to Orlando a large number of times and I've never seen a direct LHR flight listed in the numerous searches I have done. You either fly direct from LGW or indirect from LHR, the latter generally with a US carrier, stopping in one of their hubs. The closest you'll get is direct to Miami from LHR.

Can you show me a direct LHR - MCO flight anywhere.

 

[beorhthelm]

I'm almost certain there aren't - particularly to Orlando.

ok, replace Orlando with Miami.

 

[West Hoathly Seagull]

Another factor, which I think has been forgotten about, is that the majority of potential First and Business Class passengers, and these are the ones whom the airlines focus on, live in an axis stretching from Surrey, via the wealthy parts of London, to Berkshie, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, and most of these are within an hour's drive of Heathrow. Look at a BA widebody plane. There will be about 10 First Class seats, 60-70 Business Class and another 20 or so Premium Economy. Then do the maths. 10 x £10,000, 60-70 x £3000, and 300 x £500. The cheap deals are really only to sell seats - the airlines are far more interested in bankers and businessmen than friends and relatives and students. I think it was someone like David Learmount who pointed this out.

On the airport itself, I'm sorry the Heathrow hub option didn't get recommended, as it seemed far less damaging to the nearby communities. Perhaps one of the engineers on here can tell me it isn't practical.

 

[Rugrat]

maybe not charters, but there is tourist routes to the likes of Orlando and Tenerife. my issue isn't with Heathrow either, and i understand the role of hubs as part of air travel. but the arguments made suggest its the only model. they say they cant fly to business destinations because there isn't enough slots (when there's tourist destinations), and that they must base flights from a hub to those destinations - so point to point from Heathrow. its self-contradicting. if there's demand for the route from London, you don't need the people coming in from A, you fly B to C. if there isn't the demand then why does the hub have to be here? only serves BA and Heathrow really, and a few executives who don't want to lose a couple of hours with a transfer. I don't fly long distance but colleges that do say they are usually glad of the break changing planes on route to Bangalore, Toyko or Syndey.

Fairly sure you can't fly to Orlando and Tenerife is the North airport (not the touristy one) but I admit it's semantics. Yes there are point to point flights to tourist destinations but very few and taking them all out would not release much capacity. Plus BA (and yes it is BA) need to lay on some for their frequent flyers who also go on holiday.

Of course Heathrow serves gazillions of leisure travellers every year but the simple economics of the full service airline business is that it's the business traveller that makes the money for the airlines, and even though we might not like it you can hardly blame the airlines for wanting to protect that. Also by making business travel more efficient (more flights, more connections) our economy benefits ... it all comes back to money for sure and sod the environmental and human impact (thankfully I'm not making the decision!

Why won't it work? And why will it be so expensive? Surely other major european airports have a mix which works? Schiphol comes to mind.

Schipol has 5 runways I believe and a ton more capacity + Amsterdam isn't the uber major business centre that London is. Paris and Frankfurt both have loads more capacity too.

Trying to network Gatwick will mean trying to replicate most (if not all the inbound/outbound routes) and then the airlines wanting to fly them. For instance, before someone like a Singapore or Japan would fly in there they would want a good connecting network to other major European cities and (depending on where from) to the US. The economics wouldn't stack up ... 8 people wanting to fly to Munich wouldn't warrant putting on a flight. Where Heathrow wins is that scores of planes are landing early morning from long haul destinations and so the connecting flights get away largely full.

Emirates and Qatar will fly direct into Gatwick because they don't give a monkeys about making money I guess, Virgin are still there I think because they can't get slots at Heathrow and a sense of loyalty

But it's not all about hub it's just one factor. If it were me I would expand both ... not because I am not concerned about the environment, I am, but because that capacity at Heathrow will soon get used up and with the worlds obsession with flying another runway will be needed somewhere soon after. In that respect I think both can get what they want and happily co exist as airports with a different focus

 

[chucky1973]

Emailed to me from GAL this morning.

I thought you would be interested to read Gatwick’s full and detailed response to the Airports Commission Final Report, published today. Our response points out key errors, omissions, and flaws in the methods and workings used, calling into question the conclusions of the report.

The Airports Commission’s findings on the economic benefits of each scheme are based on flawed traffic forecasts that underplay Gatwick’s growth and overplay that of Heathrow. Furthermore, the Airports Commission has been forced to introduce extensive restrictions on Heathrow, such as the ban on night flights, which would significantly undermine the airport’s growth potential. The impact of these restrictions has not even been factored in to the economic forecasts.

A copy of our full press release is below, but we would welcome the opportunity to discuss further with you the unravelling of the Airports Commission’s Heathrow recommendation.





Airports Commission’s findings simply don’t add up

• Airports Commission’s findings are inconsistent and flawed
• Traffic forecasts don’t even take into account its own night flight ban
• Gatwick today has published a full, detailed, and thorough response

Gatwick Airport today published a full and detailed response to the Airports Commission Final Report pointing out key errors, omissions, and flaws as Sir Howard Davies’s recommendation for Heathrow expansion continues to unravel.

Just one of the key flaws in the report surrounds Sir Howard’s proposed ban on night flights at Heathrow. This would inevitably mean fewer services if applied, but this was not factored in to the Airports Commission’s own traffic forecasts for Heathrow.

The restrictions would impact on the number of long haul flights to and from growth markets in the Far East – the issue at the heart of the decision to recommend Heathrow – further calling into question the robustness of the Commission’s analysis.

Gatwick CEO Stewart Wingate said:

“We expected a well-considered examination of all options, but instead the final report contains so many omissions and basic errors that its reliability as the basis of aviation policy must be called into question. The findings of this report simply do not add up.

“Britain is in danger of losing out once again if we repeat mistakes of the past – Heathrow has failed time and again and the Airports Commission report and the conditions placed on expansion have not solved the huge obstacles confronting it.

“In recent weeks, it has become abundantly clear that Heathrow won’t meet these conditions, nor will they pay for the £6 billion in surface access improvements needed, and Heathrow’s airlines have shown they don’t want to pay for the runway. The recommendation for Heathrow is unravelling by the day.

“I remain confident that when all the risks and benefits are properly considered, Gatwick will still represent the best option for UK airport expansion.”

The Commission used its traffic forecasts to calculate the potential economic benefits each airport would deliver and Gatwick’s response lists several fundamental assumptions that dramatically underplay traffic at Gatwick and overplay predictions for Heathrow, including:

• expecting Gatwick to reach 40 million passengers in 2024 whereas the airport will reach that number this year
• estimating that Gatwick will generate only two million passengers in the first year of operating with a second runway; in reality Gatwick grew by 2.7 million passengers last year with a single runway
• predicting that, after five years with a second runway, Gatwick will have an additional eight million passengers – less than it assumes Heathrow would have after one year with a third
• between 2025 –2030 Heathrow is assumed to grow by 36 million passengers compared to only 9 million at Gatwick.

In addition to drawing attention to the Commission’s flawed traffic forecasts, Gatwick’s full response highlights a range of other flaws in the Commission’s analysis, including:

Economic benefits: the Commission’s own economic analysis, following Treasury guidelines, shows that the economic value of each scheme is virtually the same. The Commission, however, emphasises and widely quotes the conclusions of PwC analysis, despite the Commission’s own expert panel urging caution about attaching significant weight to these results, stating that care is required in assessing its “robustness and reliability”.

Costs: Heathrow’s costs are multiples of those for Gatwick and yet the Commission assumes airport charges will go up by the same amount for both - from £20 to £31 for Heathrow and £9 to £20 for Gatwick. The Commission also disregards Gatwick’s commitment to enter into a binding obligation to cap charges at less than £15.

Financing: between 2023 and 2025, Heathrow’s plan requires as much as £6.76 billion to be spent each year on average, an average spend of more than £560 million per month. T5 construction only achieved a maximum spend of £85 million per month. Neither Heathrow nor the Commission present any evidence as to how the expenditure for this unprecedented scale of construction could be managed in practical terms and could actually be delivered.

Deliverability: the Commission confirms that there are no overriding environmental or other reasons to believe that Gatwick’s second runway could not be delivered by 2025. In contrast, while the Commission has outlined a massive quantum of work proposed for Heathrow in general terms, it has not adequately considered the detail, the considerable risks, or the cumulative impact and interdependency of the challenges involved, so is unable to say with any confidence that the work is actually deliverable by the 2026 – the date assumed by the Commission.

For example, the Commission’s assessment of the complex challenges of construction at Heathrow does not accurately portray the scale of construction impacts many of which are outside the control of the promoter and therefore pose serious impediments to obtaining planning consent. The risks to cost and programme are considerable due to the scale, complexity and cumulative effects of construction. Constructions risks arise from:

• putting the M25 into a tunnel and widening it
• diverting the A4 and widening the M4
• constructing the Southern rail link
• constructing Terminal Six while maintaining access to T5
• managing the impact over an extended period on M4, M25 and local roads
• delivering a solution for the potentially toxic landfill on the site and moving and rebuilding the existing Energy from Waste plant, and
• implementing a Congestion Charging scheme, the implications of which are not known.

Air quality: the Commission’s analysis of air quality issues at Heathrow does not withstand scrutiny as its conclusions are based on an incorrect interpretation of the law. Its analysis is also incomplete and inconsistent in several material ways and relies upon a notional Air Quality Plan that is yet undrafted and so cannot at present be assessed. The Commission’s analysis confirms Gatwick’s assessment that Gatwick’s new runway can be delivered without exceeding the legally binding air quality limits.

Noise: the Commission concludes that a three runway Heathrow will have a lower noise impact than a two runway Heathrow today. It also largely ignores the fact that Gatwick’s noise impacts would be an order of magnitude lower than Heathrow’s and has avoided meaningful assessment of Heathrow communities newly affected by noise.

 

[West Hoathly Seagull]

Chucky, as someone involved in the business, perhaps you can tell me why the Heathrow Hub option was rejected by the Airports Commission. As I said earlier in the thread, I thought that seemed the most practical option, but then I'm not and never have been an engineer, so there may be reasons it isn't practical, but I don't have time to read the Commission's report.

My major concern over Gatwick getting a new runway is the lack of extra infrastructure they propose for the surrounding area. Already Sharpthorne and West Hoathly are used as a rat run for traffic going to Gatwick from Uckfield, Tunbridge Wells and Crowborough, as otherwise it is stuck with trying to get through East Grinstead. This involves it going through villages on narrow roads, which are unsuited to this. As far as I know, there are no plans to improve the roads, and you then have the issue of how extra traffic will come from London. All you have is the A23, which is again gridlocked north of the M23 and the Brighton Line, which anyone who was commuting last night knows can be brought to a halt just by two stupid idiots trespassing on the track.