I have been thinking a lot about the second runway problem at Gatwick since writing my last post in what can only be described as sheer anger when West Sussex County Council decided to vote against the runway which was then followed promptly by Crawley Borough Council deciding not to back the Runway.
The Airport Commission was set up as it was decided that runway capacity in the South Of England was not adequate now or moving forward in the future, they came to a few conclusions some of which I do agree with and others I do not. Below I have assessed some options in my own mind and thought I would share my findings and why I think the Government are responsible for some of these problems.
London City Airport - Is a small inner London Airport which can only operate smaller aircraft and is really centered around people shuttling in and out for business and really presents no option for expansion or growth now or in the future.
Stansted Airport - Was assessed by the Airport Commission and was deemed in December 2013 as not needing a new runway before 2050 where as we need additional runway capacity at either Heathrow or Gatwick to be operational by 2030.
Heathrow Airport - Now Heathrow has long been the main airport for London for scheduled serviced flights there are no Charter or Low Cost flights that operate from Heathrow, now based on Terminal 5 and the redevelopment of Terminal 2 there is clearly an area for expansion here and I would assume that its only a matter of time before it does receive a 3rd runway however this would cause major disruption to the M25 which is fairly horrendous at the best of times without having major roadworks to accommodate the runway.
Gatwick Airport - Gatwick has long been the worlds busiest single runway airport and ever since I have been able to remember it has been seen as almost a given that the 2nd runway would happen at some time however the existence of some kind of agreement with residents in 1979 caused some confusion but on the whole made it difficult to build a 2nd runway before 2019, the agreement is probably with the very people who are now opposing the growth of Gatwick. Gatwick is slightly unique in a sense that it is a mixed traffic airport and supports both scheduled, Charter & Low Cost flights.
Boris Island - Now this was a ridiculous idea proposed to build an entirely new airport in the Thames Estuary on reclaimed land much the same as they did in Hong Kong to create a new airport. This was completely the kind of forward thinking that we needed but would be made impossible by the building cost and the fact that in return for this airport the Government would want the land that Heathrow & Gatwick stands on, so who would run this airport as in 2008 the Government forced BAA to sell Gatwick & Stansted among others so now the airports are all in competition with each other you can not have 3 different airport operators trying to operate 1 airport.
Now its worth picking this point up a bit further, the Airport infrastructure in this country used to work as BAA owned Gatwick & Heathrow and they had different business models to suit the locations and services but it was the Government decided this was a monopoly and that they needed to be sold off so they could compete with one another rather than co exist as they had for the last 50 odd years. This was not a bad idea however the problem you now have is 2 businesses that want to expand and could be held back by the very Government that forced them in to this situation in the first place. The reality is that Gatwick is already behind Heathrow in terms of size if a 3rd runway was awarded to them and a 2nd not to Gatwick you will effectively kill Gatwick off as an airport and that means that we could see the death of the airport. The common sense approach here says that Gatwick should get the 2nd runway to fully be able to compete as a business with its biggest rival in Heathrow.
Now along side all these options they have been assessing to improve runway access in the South East of England in the amount of time we have seen the death of an airport in Kent. Manston was always a regional airport but is there no possibility of doing something with this to allow flights to re commence instead of allowing it to be turned into housing. It could even become a cargo only airport like Prestwick in Scotland there has to be a place for Manston somewhere in the new Airport infrastructure.
The biggest problem with all of this is that we are already years behind the rest of the world with our Airports and this delaying is only making it further behind and will continue to be that way even once the construction of this or these runways, look at what Dubai have achieved in the time we have stood still!
The Airport Commission was set up as it was decided that runway capacity in the South Of England was not adequate now or moving forward in the future, they came to a few conclusions some of which I do agree with and others I do not. Below I have assessed some options in my own mind and thought I would share my findings and why I think the Government are responsible for some of these problems.
London City Airport - Is a small inner London Airport which can only operate smaller aircraft and is really centered around people shuttling in and out for business and really presents no option for expansion or growth now or in the future.
Stansted Airport - Was assessed by the Airport Commission and was deemed in December 2013 as not needing a new runway before 2050 where as we need additional runway capacity at either Heathrow or Gatwick to be operational by 2030.
Heathrow Airport - Now Heathrow has long been the main airport for London for scheduled serviced flights there are no Charter or Low Cost flights that operate from Heathrow, now based on Terminal 5 and the redevelopment of Terminal 2 there is clearly an area for expansion here and I would assume that its only a matter of time before it does receive a 3rd runway however this would cause major disruption to the M25 which is fairly horrendous at the best of times without having major roadworks to accommodate the runway.
Gatwick Airport - Gatwick has long been the worlds busiest single runway airport and ever since I have been able to remember it has been seen as almost a given that the 2nd runway would happen at some time however the existence of some kind of agreement with residents in 1979 caused some confusion but on the whole made it difficult to build a 2nd runway before 2019, the agreement is probably with the very people who are now opposing the growth of Gatwick. Gatwick is slightly unique in a sense that it is a mixed traffic airport and supports both scheduled, Charter & Low Cost flights.
Boris Island - Now this was a ridiculous idea proposed to build an entirely new airport in the Thames Estuary on reclaimed land much the same as they did in Hong Kong to create a new airport. This was completely the kind of forward thinking that we needed but would be made impossible by the building cost and the fact that in return for this airport the Government would want the land that Heathrow & Gatwick stands on, so who would run this airport as in 2008 the Government forced BAA to sell Gatwick & Stansted among others so now the airports are all in competition with each other you can not have 3 different airport operators trying to operate 1 airport.
Now its worth picking this point up a bit further, the Airport infrastructure in this country used to work as BAA owned Gatwick & Heathrow and they had different business models to suit the locations and services but it was the Government decided this was a monopoly and that they needed to be sold off so they could compete with one another rather than co exist as they had for the last 50 odd years. This was not a bad idea however the problem you now have is 2 businesses that want to expand and could be held back by the very Government that forced them in to this situation in the first place. The reality is that Gatwick is already behind Heathrow in terms of size if a 3rd runway was awarded to them and a 2nd not to Gatwick you will effectively kill Gatwick off as an airport and that means that we could see the death of the airport. The common sense approach here says that Gatwick should get the 2nd runway to fully be able to compete as a business with its biggest rival in Heathrow.
Now along side all these options they have been assessing to improve runway access in the South East of England in the amount of time we have seen the death of an airport in Kent. Manston was always a regional airport but is there no possibility of doing something with this to allow flights to re commence instead of allowing it to be turned into housing. It could even become a cargo only airport like Prestwick in Scotland there has to be a place for Manston somewhere in the new Airport infrastructure.
The biggest problem with all of this is that we are already years behind the rest of the world with our Airports and this delaying is only making it further behind and will continue to be that way even once the construction of this or these runways, look at what Dubai have achieved in the time we have stood still!
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