Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 18:13:17
on Tue, 2 Sep 2014, remarked:

The time to Gatwick from central London is as good as that to Heathrow,
especially if you don't pay the extortionate fares on Heathrow Express.

Just being on the tube map helps a lot, psychologically, to make people
want to choose Heathrow.

Yes, that's definitely a factor, as is having local London bus services.
Extending Oyster to Gatwick may help, of course.

A lot of people across London can get directly and inexpensively to
Heathrow by bus, HC or Tube without changing, which is much less true of
London's other airports.

On Tue, 02 Sep 2014 19:50:36 -0500
Recliner wrote:
wrote:
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.

I know you don't understand the value of a hub airport, but the demand is

Go on, tell us then. Just how exactly does a hub airport help UK plc when
most of the passengers will be passing through on to elsewhere and will
probably just spend a few quid in duty free? I'm not interested in the airports
making extra money since most of them are foreign owned.

--
Spud

On Tue, 02 Sep 2014 19:50:36 -0500
Recliner wrote:
wrote:
On Tue, 02 Sep 2014 11:44:10 +0100
Recliner wrote:
On Tue, 02 Sep 2014 10:41:33 GMT, d wrote:

On Tue, 02 Sep 2014 10:44:46 +0100
Recliner wrote:
On Tue, 2 Sep 2014 10:22:49 +0100, Roland Perry
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.

Which "entire business community" would this be then? Give some examples.


http://www.theguardian.com/business/...ick-airport-ex
ansion

The CBI is a private political lobbying organisation that represents a small
fraction of businesses in this country.

Got a proper example?

Perhaps the Royal Company of Self-Employed Contract Programmers Who Don't
Fly Very Often has a view?

That'll be a no then.

--
Spud

In message , at 19:06:31
on Tue, 2 Sep 2014, remarked:

Many Heathrow passengers come from locations other than Central London. I
live in West London, and Heathrow is far more convenient than any other
airport. Gatwick is only good for people near Victoria or Thameslink
stations.

Not so. Gatwick is as convenient to get to and from as Heathrow for us in
Cambridge.

And Birmingham even more convenient (by road anyway, it probably ties
with Gatwick or Heathrow by train from Ely, except at unsocial hours
when the train services deteriorate).
--
Roland Perry

In article
,
(Recliner) wrote:

wrote:

Not so. Gatwick is as convenient to get to and from as Heathrow for
us in Cambridge.

But presumably Stansted is far better than either?

Might be if they had the flights. We've generally not found the destinations
we want to be served from Stansted.

Isn't Heathrow quicker to access than Gatwick today? Of course, after the
Thameslink project is finally complete, Gatwick should be more convenient,
though Heathrow will be quicker, via a change to Crossrail at Farringdon.

The connections to Gatwick are already good, if you ignore the ludicrous
connection allowances to walk across the road at King's Cross. I've had it
allow more for that leg than either Cambridge-King's Cross and St
Pancras-Gatwick. There are 4 trains an hour on that route now, FFS!

I must admit I'm surprised by how relatively unpopular Gatwick is compared
to Heathrow, given that it's located in a prosperous area between London
and Brighton, and has both good rail and road links. Heathrow isn't a
better airport to fly through, so it must be the magnetic attraction of a
hub airport.

Can't disagree with what you say about Gatwick. I'm not sure what that
attraction of a hub airport is to people flying from London, though.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message

, at 19:36:13 on Tue, 2 Sep 2014, Recliner
remarked:

Gatwick is as convenient to get to and from as Heathrow for us in
Cambridge.

But presumably Stansted is far better than either?

Yes, but with very limited destinations. Almost nothing outside Europe.
And even then, the last two European trips booked by household members
used different airports (in particular Gatwick for one on account of
route availability). And of course Stansted is famously no good for the
USA, although during the short periods when that continent was
available, we did use it.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 09:00:07 on Wed, 3 Sep
2014, d remarked:
Just how exactly does a hub airport help UK plc when
most of the
passengers will be passing through on to elsewhere and will
probably
just spend a few quid in duty free?

It helps because they don't just buy a few duty-frees, they buy a whole
onward flight, with all the infrastructure and staffing which that
implies.
--
Roland Perry

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
19:06:31 on Tue, 2 Sep 2014, remarked:

Many Heathrow passengers come from locations other than Central London.
I live in West London, and Heathrow is far more convenient than any
other airport. Gatwick is only good for people near Victoria or
Thameslink stations.

Not so. Gatwick is as convenient to get to and from as Heathrow for us in
Cambridge.

And Birmingham even more convenient (by road anyway, it probably ties
with Gatwick or Heathrow by train from Ely, except at unsocial hours
when the train services deteriorate).

Rail access to Birmingham airport from Cambridge is much worse and I would
never drive to any airport because of the parking charges.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 04:08:12
on Wed, 3 Sep 2014, remarked:
I must admit I'm surprised by how relatively unpopular Gatwick is compared
to Heathrow, given that it's located in a prosperous area between London
and Brighton, and has both good rail and road links. Heathrow isn't a
better airport to fly through, so it must be the magnetic attraction of a
hub airport.

Can't disagree with what you say about Gatwick. I'm not sure what that
attraction of a hub airport is to people flying from London, though.

One obvious attraction is that transit passengers (using it as a hub)
make a wider range of destinations viable than would be the case if
there were only point-to-point passengers.

--
Roland Perry

In message , at 04:38:40
on Wed, 3 Sep 2014, remarked:
Gatwick is as convenient to get to and from as Heathrow for us in
Cambridge.

And Birmingham even more convenient (by road anyway, it probably ties
with Gatwick or Heathrow by train from Ely, except at unsocial hours
when the train services deteriorate).

Rail access to Birmingham airport from Cambridge is much worse

It's not "much" worse, most of the day. I know that the Journey Planners
add a pessimistic connection time at Kings Cross, but the headline
figures are identical from Ely (not everyone lives in Cambridge, you
know!) For all I know the connection times at New Street have similar
pessimisms built in.

and I would never drive to any airport because of the parking charges.

I often give people lifts to airports, but agree that parking there for
more than a couple of hours is something to try to avoid. Although if a
client is paying (and even £100 parking can be trivial on top of a week
in Australia) then it's probably not worth losing much sleep over it.
--
Roland Perry