FT: Six decades of London airport cowardice
 

Financial Times
October 19, 2011

Six decades of London airport cowardice

By Michael Skapinker

The British government is considering a new wheeze to ease London’s
aerial gridlock: Heathwick, a 15-minute high-speed rail link between
Heathrow and Gatwick.

How would this help, connecting two airports already bursting with
passengers and planes? Well, the rail link would raise the price of
Gatwick landing slots, forcing low-cost airlines to move to Stansted
airport, which has excess capacity.

Convinced? Me neither. Heathwick is a piece of nonsense. Worse, it is
displacement activity, a substitute for the decisions needed to ensure
London remains a great city.

The current administration is not alone in failing to take them. With
two exceptions, which we will come to, governments have been ducking
the hard choices for half a century.

Heathrow, a one-time military facility, was designated London’s main
airport after the second world war. It soon became clear this was a
mistake. The airport was in the west and the principal aircraft
approach was from the east, so they flew right over the city. In 1958,
Richard Harris, a Conservative MP, said the noise was “becoming
intolerable”.

Still, flight numbers expanded to serve what had become Europe’s
financial capital and one of the world’s premier commercial and
cultural hubs. Heathrow eventually built five terminals, but still has
only two runways, which is why so many aircraft have to sit in a
holding pattern before being called in to land.

Expanding or building airports often provokes resistance, and
opposition to a third runway has been ferocious. The objectors have a
point: they have heard constant promises that every Heathrow expansion
would be its last. It was said after Terminal Four was approved. When
BAA, Heathrow’s owner, won the go-ahead for Terminal Five, it said it
wouldn’t ask for a third runway.

It did ask, and the last Labour government finally agreed. It was an
unpopular move, and a brave one. Airports elsewhere were building new
runways and new facilities. London could either compete or decline.
The Conservatives, desperate to win west London seats, said they would
reverse the decision, which they did, adding that they wouldn’t allow
any new runways at Gatwick or Stansted either.

In a consultation document in March, the government said new runways
were incompatible with the fight against climate change and that
aviation needed a more sustainable future. It is not clear that the
current stacks of delayed, fuel-spewing aircraft contribute to the
fight against climate change. As for a sustainable futu it is the
present overcrowding that is unsustainable.

There is an alternative to a bigger Heathrow – a new airport. Boris
Johnson, London’s mayor, has become the leading tub-thumper for a
Thames Estuary airport, but the idea has been around for as long as
Heathrow has, as an excellent historical survey from the House of
Commons Library shows.

Cliffe, in Kent, was considered and rejected in 1946, 1954, 1967 and
2002. In 1971, Edward Heath’s Tory government decided to build an
airport at Maplin Sands, Essex. That was the other bold post-second
world war decision – and it, too, came to nothing. When Labour came to
power in 1974, it scrapped Maplin on the grounds that London would not
need any more runways until 1990.

There have always been arguments against an eastern airport. It would
need new transport links, there aren’t enough workers in the area (I
once wrote this), the Thames Estuary bird life would be a danger to
air traffic, it would cost too much. But an estuary airport would have
one huge advantage: being able to operate 24 hours a day without
bothering local neighbourhoods.

Mr Johnson commissioned Douglas Oakervee, who oversaw the construction
of Hong Kong’s island airport, to look into something similar for
London. Mr Oakervee’s examination of various options suggests it is
all possible. Careful siting could even avoid the birds, which are a
Heathrow problem too.

There are private-sector companies offering to do it all – and a
natural suspicion that they have underestimated the costs and that the
taxpayer will end up picking up the tab. We can always find a
downside, but what is inescapable is that London can barely serve its
current traffic, let alone the expected increase of future decades.

There are three options: an extra Heathrow runway, a new airport, or
ceding London’s leadership. However it dresses it up, Britain’s
government has opted for the third.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0b7c7...44feab49a.html

FT: Six decades of London airport cowardice
 

On 22/10/11 12:59, sufaud wrote:
Financial Times
October 19, 2011

Six decades of London airport cowardice

By Michael Skapinker

The British government is considering a new wheeze to ease London’s
aerial gridlock: Heathwick, a 15-minute high-speed rail link between
Heathrow and Gatwick.

How would this help, connecting two airports already bursting with
passengers and planes? Well, the rail link would raise the price of
Gatwick landing slots, forcing low-cost airlines to move to Stansted
airport, which has excess capacity.

Convinced? Me neither. Heathwick is a piece of nonsense. Worse, it is
displacement activity, a substitute for the decisions needed to ensure
London remains a great city.

The current administration is not alone in failing to take them. With
two exceptions, which we will come to, governments have been ducking
the hard choices for half a century.

Heathrow, a one-time military facility, was designated London’s main
airport after the second world war. It soon became clear this was a
mistake. The airport was in the west and the principal aircraft
approach was from the east, so they flew right over the city. In 1958,
Richard Harris, a Conservative MP, said the noise was “becoming
intolerable”.

Still, flight numbers expanded to serve what had become Europe’s
financial capital and one of the world’s premier commercial and
cultural hubs. Heathrow eventually built five terminals, but still has
only two runways, which is why so many aircraft have to sit in a
holding pattern before being called in to land.

Expanding or building airports often provokes resistance, and
opposition to a third runway has been ferocious. The objectors have a
point: they have heard constant promises that every Heathrow expansion
would be its last. It was said after Terminal Four was approved. When
BAA, Heathrow’s owner, won the go-ahead for Terminal Five, it said it
wouldn’t ask for a third runway.

It did ask, and the last Labour government finally agreed. It was an
unpopular move, and a brave one. Airports elsewhere were building new
runways and new facilities. London could either compete or decline.
The Conservatives, desperate to win west London seats, said they would
reverse the decision, which they did, adding that they wouldn’t allow
any new runways at Gatwick or Stansted either.

In a consultation document in March, the government said new runways
were incompatible with the fight against climate change and that
aviation needed a more sustainable future. It is not clear that the
current stacks of delayed, fuel-spewing aircraft contribute to the
fight against climate change. As for a sustainable futu it is the
present overcrowding that is unsustainable.

There is an alternative to a bigger Heathrow – a new airport. Boris
Johnson, London’s mayor, has become the leading tub-thumper for a
Thames Estuary airport, but the idea has been around for as long as
Heathrow has, as an excellent historical survey from the House of
Commons Library shows.

Cliffe, in Kent, was considered and rejected in 1946, 1954, 1967 and
2002. In 1971, Edward Heath’s Tory government decided to build an
airport at Maplin Sands, Essex. That was the other bold post-second
world war decision – and it, too, came to nothing. When Labour came to
power in 1974, it scrapped Maplin on the grounds that London would not
need any more runways until 1990.

There have always been arguments against an eastern airport. It would
need new transport links, there aren’t enough workers in the area (I
once wrote this), the Thames Estuary bird life would be a danger to
air traffic, it would cost too much. But an estuary airport would have
one huge advantage: being able to operate 24 hours a day without
bothering local neighbourhoods.

Mr Johnson commissioned Douglas Oakervee, who oversaw the construction
of Hong Kong’s island airport, to look into something similar for
London. Mr Oakervee’s examination of various options suggests it is
all possible. Careful siting could even avoid the birds, which are a
Heathrow problem too.

There are private-sector companies offering to do it all – and a
natural suspicion that they have underestimated the costs and that the
taxpayer will end up picking up the tab. We can always find a
downside, but what is inescapable is that London can barely serve its
current traffic, let alone the expected increase of future decades.

There are three options: an extra Heathrow runway, a new airport, or
ceding London’s leadership. However it dresses it up, Britain’s
government has opted for the third.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0b7c7...44feab49a.html

I've avoided Heathrow for years, it's dirty, squalid, badly run
abomination.

What I don't understand is BA's resistance to flying anywhere outside
the UK from anywhere else.

BA has half a dozen flights to Paris every day, why can't they fly a
couple from one of the bigger provincial airports?

It's the same with long haul flights.

There are sizeable Indian and Pakistani communities living in Birmingham
and Leeds/Bradford but it's impossible to get a direct flight to South
Asia from anywhere but Heathrow on BA, and if you're going to change
you might as well do so in a less stressful environment than Heathrow
and with a cheaper airline than BA.

--
William Black

Free men have open minds
If you want loyalty, buy a dog...