Hot Air Over London’s Airports
Sir Howard Davies and his Airports Commission has reported about what it feels are ideas to expand London’s airports.
What he is proposing ignores a few facts.
I don’t think that any extra runway at Heathrow is possible, as the people who live in West London, would not vote for any MP, who supports it and therefore in their view make their lives worse. This of course ignores the fact that most people in the area, moved there after Heathrow was opened and they have had plenty of time to move away.In fact, they’re probably some of the most opinionated and selfish Nimbys in the country.
The major airlines, such as British Airways and Virgin want Heathrow to be expanded as this is much more convenient and probably more profitable for them. After all, say if Gatwick were to be expanded, then they would have to have two operations in different places.
Everything, I’ve read about the report, makes little mention of technology that will become available in the next few years.
Aircraft will certainly get more efficient and hopefully quieter, which should ease disturbance.
But some of the bugger changes will occur in how the aircraft are controlled, so they will be able to fly paths, that are much more precise and therefore become less noticeable to those on the ground. Such things as stacks of aircraft over London waiting to land at Heathrow will disappear.
The Commission does state that patterns of air travel will change because of low cost airlines and more point-to-point flying.
And this brings me to the last fact that he ignored.
Generally, it’s passengers who choose which flights they use. And the methods they choose are sometimes bizarre to say the least.
I choose my flights very much on the departure time of the flight and the availability of gluten-free food at the terminal.
Others may only fly with an airline on their favourite loyalty program.
So one factor that will change our behaviour and ease pressure on busy airports, is convenient alternatives. We already get that. Scots who want to fly to say the States, often travel to Manchester Airport, as the flights are cheaper, than at Glasgow or Edinburgh. This loads the trains from Glasgow to Manchester Airport so much, that extra trains are being purchased for the route. Other Scots, who may need to fly to say London to get an onward flight, often take a quick hop to Schipol instead. The big airlines at Heathrow, want this stopped and hence they are in favour of an expansion there.
So one thing that will take the pressure of the airports in London is better facilities and more flights at other airports. We probably need to open up regional airports more to foreign carriers, but then the big boys like their monopolies.
I can never understand why there isn’t a regular service from Stansted to the New York area. Airlines have tried but all seem to fail. Is the marketing of the big airlines and Heathrow to blame?
Crossrail and Thameslink will be game changers in how passengers choose to use the London airports. Millions of people will now be better connected to either one or both of the airports, so if the flights are available at the convenient one, they’ll use them.
Personally, I used to hate Gatwick, as this post from 2011 indicates. But after a change of ownership and better train links from East London, I quite like the place. Gatwick will get better, as the South Terminal gets rebuilt and restaurants are improved. Stansted is now rather a dump and you would only fly from there for cheap flights or unusual destinations.
So even the most stubborn of individuals can be made to change their minds!
Of the options the Airports Commission lays out, only two are viable.
An airport in the Thames Estuary will never be built, as it is just too costly and new technology and the other airports in the South East will expand enough to take the increase of demand.
A new runway at Heathrow will never be built, as the Nimbys and politics will stop that happening.
So we are left with a new runway at Gatwick. I may not agree with how it is built, but the big factor is that the locals are not as opposed to the idea as they are at Heathrow.
But the idea I like is the extending of the northern runway at Heathrow. It was an innovative idea thought up by a pilot and put forward by Arup, who are not noted for bad ideas.
Although it would require a lot of thought over how it would be operated, It has the great advantage that it could probably be built with not too much disruption to either operations at the airport or the traffic on the M25. You could start by building a tunnel parallel to and west of the western section of the M25, which would be opened before you actually started work on the airport. Remember that with Crossrail and other tunnels, we’re the world’s best tunnel builders.
I’ve looked at a detailed map of the area and if the problems of air traffic and organisation of the aircraft can be solved, I think that much of the noise intrusion could probably be contained within the current airport boundary.
But I have this sneaking suspicion that no new runways will be built or extended and in twenty years time or so, we’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.
Passengers will just choose their airports with more care and airports will be competing with us with better and better facilities and more point-to-point flights.
We Need A Duty-Free By-Pass At Airports
Oslo Airport had one of the largest duty free areas I’ve seen in a long time. It was very crowded too, with passengers trailing cases and carrying overflowing baskets.
I found it difficult to walk through and it was a completely wasted few minutes, that I could have spent much better.
It’s all totally pointless, as if duty-free was banned on flights and passengers bought their duty free as they arrived in a country, airlines wouldn’t waste fuel flying all that useless junk around the skies.
I wonder how much duty free contributes to global warming?
The EU should make it the law, that every airport has a by-pass for those, who don’t want to buy any duty-free.
And was there anything to eat that was gluten-free in the airport? I didn’t see anything that was!
An Impressive Argument For A Thames Estuary Airport
I’ve just read this article in Airport World, which makes an impressive argument for a new four-runway London Airport in the Thames Estuary.
It just strengthens my belief that before we decide on the route of HS2, we must first decide what we are doing to create more runway capacity in the South East.
Putting The Cart Before The Horse
The Standard is reporting tonight, that Lord Mandelson has changed his mind over the building of HS2. Here’s a flavour.
In an extraordinary public U-turn, he confessed the costings were “almost entirely speculative” when Gordon Brown’s Cabinet backed the idea.
Ministers wanted a “bold commitment to modernisation” after the financial crash, he said, and ignored the potential risks of what now looked like “an expensive mistake”.
But then as Gordon Brown didn’t have the financial acumen to run a whelk stall, what do you expect?
I’ve always been slightly cynical about HS2 and feel if it ever gets built, it won’t be as is now envisaged.
But one thought struck me, as I read the article and it gave rise to the title of this post.
My background is in Project Management, which is all about getting things build the right way and in the correct order. Judging by all the arguments about how Heathrow Airport will link in to HS2, it struck me as strange that we are deciding the route of HS2 before we decide if we’re going to build a new airport for London.
Look at any option, with the possible exception of a third runway at Heathrow and we’ll have to revamp the railways around London, to create links to the North.
Strangely in a few years time, when the Midland Main Line is electrified, Sheffield will have the best links to a London airport, of any northern city. I suspect they’ll be running trains from Sheffield to Brighton, which of course will stop at Gatwick.
That just shows how well politicians plan transport networks.
They haven’t really done anything to solve the North-South problems we currently have and what will happen to construction methods in the near future.
HS2 is initially planned to go from London to Birmingham, but that route has one high speed 200 kph line and a convenient slower one. As I found last week, when I went to Birmingham, it’s a good service and a lot of the problems are on their way to being solved. I wonder what amount of traffic, an upgraded and electrified Chiltern Main Line could carry, thus delaying the need for HS2 to Birmingham!
But go North from Birmingham to Manchester, Liverpool and ultimately Scotland and there is a real lack of capacity. Admittedly, Virgin’s lengthened trains and a few new ones will help, but that line will probably be the first part of the West Coast Main Line to get totally overloaded.
So perhaps we should build it from North to South as some have proposed.
A very real problem is the cess-pit at the London end of the line; Euston. It was built on the cheap in the 1960s and needs a complete rebuild. Rebuilding Euston and building HS2 at the same time, would be a recipe for disaster.
And then there’s the problem of freight capacity, which is going to get worse, as some idiot decided to build the UK’s largest container port at London Gateway, in a place which is difficult to get to by rail,as most trains will have to fight their way through London. You could argue that the proposal to run freight trains on the old Grand Central Line by a company called Central Railway, should have been built as a freight spine first.
Building this line, would probably have taken a lot of the freight off the West Coast Main Line, so giving us the extra passenger capacity we need, at least as far as Manchester and Liverpool for a few years.
As with many things in Project Management, you don’t let politicians be involved in the design or choose the order you do something!
I always remember the building of the Lewisham Extension of the Docklands Light Railway. The contractors were told it had to link various holes in the ground and cost under a certain amount. The politicians then stood back and it was delivered on time at an acceptable price. Not like the Jubilee Line Extension, which was built at a similar time and suffered endless interference from politicians.
One of my laws of project management states that the more political or board level interference in a project, the later and more costly the project will be. If however those at the top lay down a feasible specification with rigid time and cost limits, the project will more likely be delivered successfully.
Nude Cyclists For Jesus Convention
Every so often a series of amusing letters appears in The Times.
Yesterday, they were talking about people holding up signs to greet relatives at airports. This absolute gem was posted.
As a tender-hearted mother I have driven many miles to collect my sons from far-flung airports at all hours. It is a small compensation to take with me a large greeting sign, often along the lines of “Nude Cyclists for Jesus Convention” or similar. It amuses me.
I can’t see C or most of the mothers I know, ever putting up a sign like that for one of their children.
On the other hand, the letter writer seems to be my kind of lady, as I like to think I don’t do boring either, and C stated many times, that she married me, because she knew life wouldn’t be boring.
Steve Norris Pushes For Crossrail To Stansted
This story from the Cambridge Evening News shows how a lot of good thinking is going into sorting out London’s airport problem.
Extending Crossrail to Stansted would be a simple addition to London’s infrastructure and because of the link at Farringdon station, London’s three main airports would be well-connected.
Around Farringdon Station
Yesterday, I was on a 45 bus going up Farringdon Road, just west of the station and took these pictures.
There does seem to be quite a few sites to develop hotels around the important Central London transport interchange, that Farringdon station will become, as I proposed in my post about London’s Airports.
The Anonymous Widower 