On Tue, 2 Sep 2014 12:01:02 +0100
"Robin" wrote:
Logic actually favours no expansion at all. The much quoted hub
airport
will do nothing for UK Plc other than put more money into the pockets
of
the airport owners and will be an enviromental disaster wherever its
located. But of course as soon as someone says this you get the usual
vested interests shouting them down saying they're anti business and
banging on about "growth".

So all those other countries/cities[1] which have developed 4-runway[2]
airports are stupid?

How many airports does each of those cities have? As a reference point
London has:

Heathrow
Gatwick
Luton
Stansted
City
Southend

And people honestly believe we need even more capacity. Its a ****ing joke.

As if a constant increase in GDP is all
that makes a pleasant country to live in.

Could luck campaiging for votes on a manifesto of "let's stand still and
let the rest of the world get richer". You might be happy with the
prospect of the same per capita GDP (PPP) as, say, the average African
has currently but I doubt many others would.

Do you understand what GDP is? Its simply the amount of money moving around the
system, its not an absolute measure of wealth, health or prosperity. If you
want a high GDP you simply get people buying disposable crap they don't need
which is why politicians love it when retail does well.

--
Spud

In message , at 16:04:23 on Tue, 2 Sep
2014, d remarked:
How many airports does each of those cities have? As a reference point

London has:



Heathrow

Gatwick

Luton

Stansted

City

Southend

You forgot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Oxford_Airport
--
Roland Perry

On Tue, 2 Sep 2014 17:13:21 +0100
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:04:23 on Tue, 2 Sep
2014, d remarked:
How many airports does each of those cities have? As a reference point

London has:



Heathrow

Gatwick

Luton

Stansted

City

Southend

You forgot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Oxford_Airport

Thats more an airfield than a proper airport - I doubt an airbus could even
taxi on it , much less land. But if you want to include that then we shouldn't
forget about Biggin Hill.

--
Spud

In message , at 16:42:53 on Tue, 2 Sep
2014, d remarked:
London has:







Heathrow



Gatwick



Luton



Stansted



City



Southend



You forgot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Oxford_Airport



Thats more an airfield than a proper airport - I doubt an airbus could even

taxi on it , much less land. But if you want to include that then we shouldn't

forget about Biggin Hill.


I'm including places which market themselves with "London" in the name.

One of life's big ironies a few years back was a Which? report slagging
off foreign airports that falsely claimed to be close to well known
cities. In the same issue they gave "London Stansted" a ringing
endorsement, despite being further from its eponymous city than any of
the foreign airports they were complaining about.
--
Roland Perry

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 2 Sep 2014 10:22:49 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message
,
at 02:36:55 on Tue, 2 Sep 2014, Recliner
remarked:
Having lived through the "Third airport" debacle, where unless I'm very
much mistaken the result was expanding the biggest existing shortlisted
airport (and rejecting otherwise preferred but more expensive builds),
I
wouldn't be surprised to see Gatwick being chosen for the "next new
runway".

By that logic, surely Heathrow would be chosen?

Lots of local opposition, and much more expensive.

True, but also much, much more demand for it. Apart from Gatwick
airport itself, not many people are demanding a second runway there.
Pretty much the entire business community and airline industry want
Heathrow to expand.

That's because they've all bought into the fiction that it will mean there
is space for daily flights to Ulan Bator (insert list of other out of the
way places that only 3 people a week want to travel to) thus increasing the
trade that we do with um, Mongolia.

But IMHO the extra capacity wont be used this way. It'll be used to
increase the number of flights a day to NYC from 30 to 60 to no-ones benefit
except BA/AA/Etc

tim

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 2 Sep 2014 13:14:48 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 13:07:29 on
Tue, 2 Sep 2014, Recliner remarked:
Basically, BA puts as many flights into Heathrow as will fit, with the
overflow left in Gatwick. As long haul is more profitable, it's
largely in Heathrow, apart from beach flights. Virgin does exactly the
same.

Exactly - and it's those beach flights which are the ones least likely
to be benefiting from a hub effect.

True, but the demand is for more hub flights,

Is it?

there are plenty of people saying that it is point to point leisure that is
going to see the biggest increase in demand

On 02/09/2014 18:05, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:42:53 on Tue, 2 Sep
2014, d remarked:
London has:







Heathrow



Gatwick



Luton



Stansted



City



Southend



You forgot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Oxford_Airport



Thats more an airfield than a proper airport - I doubt an airbus could
even

taxi on it , much less land. But if you want to include that then we
shouldn't

forget about Biggin Hill.


I'm including places which market themselves with "London" in the name.

London Ashford.

One of life's big ironies a few years back was a Which? report slagging
off foreign airports that falsely claimed to be close to well known
cities. In the same issue they gave "London Stansted" a ringing
endorsement, despite being further from its eponymous city than any of
the foreign airports they were complaining about.

To a certain extent, distance is less important than transport links.

A distant airport with a fast and easy-to-use train to the city centre
every 30 min, perhaps even a mainline connection to anywhere in the
country, is less of an issue than a edge-of-town airport with a solitary
bus which leaves just before you can reach the stop (and which requires
trawling badly-implemented local authority websites to discover how to
buy, activate, charge-up and use an [insert name of sea creature]-card),
or one where passengers act as a kind of welfare state for the friends
and relations of the taxi drivers.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

"tim....." wrote:
"Recliner" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 2 Sep 2014 13:14:48 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 13:07:29 on
Tue, 2 Sep 2014, Recliner remarked:
Basically, BA puts as many flights into Heathrow as will fit, with the
overflow left in Gatwick. As long haul is more profitable, it's
largely in Heathrow, apart from beach flights. Virgin does exactly the
same.

Exactly - and it's those beach flights which are the ones least likely
to be benefiting from a hub effect.

True, but the demand is for more hub flights,

Is it?

there are plenty of people saying that it is point to point leisure that
is going to see the biggest increase in demand

People can predict whatever they like, but the price of Heathrow slots
demonstrates very clearly where the tangible demand lies.

Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at 10:33:56 on Tue, 2 Sep 2014, Recliner remarked:

What it needs to do is shift some of the non-hub flights away from Heathrow.

The airlines operating those flights obviously thought it worthwhile to pay
for expensive slot pairs at Heathrow, instead of the much cheaper ones at
Gatwick or the even cheaper ones at Stansted.

But with limited capacity they need to make decisions about which are the
mist valuable flights to continue from Heathrow.

Gatwick actually lost *all* of its US airlines to Heathrow.

Yes, but back in the day every US electronic component company thought
they had to be in Bath Road, Slough.

These are recent decisions.

The fact is that the demand is overwhelmingly at Heathrow, while
Gatwick says it has 25% spare capacity.

But if the cost (political etc) of expanding Heathrow is too high...

That's why the decision has been out off till just after the election. If
they were going to choose Gatwick, they could have done so at any time.

In message , at
19:33:48 on Tue, 2 Sep 2014, Arthur Figgis
remarked:
One of life's big ironies a few years back was a Which? report slagging
off foreign airports that falsely claimed to be close to well known
cities. In the same issue they gave "London Stansted" a ringing
endorsement, despite being further from its eponymous city than any of
the foreign airports they were complaining about.

To a certain extent, distance is less important than transport links.

A distant airport with a fast and easy-to-use train to the city centre
every 30 min, perhaps even a mainline connection to anywhere in the
country, is less of an issue than a edge-of-town airport with a
solitary bus...

Stansted is OK southbound to London, as long as you take the timings
with a pinch of salt (the advertised time is only as far as Tottenham
Hale, which in some respects one can't deny is "London").

Anywhere else and it's a joke. And don't forget they just decided to cut
the last two trains to London in the evening.

--
Roland Perry