London Heathrow Airport | Where are we?

[Music] foreign the expansion of London Heathrow Airport is one of the most controversial issues facing the United Kingdom at present Britain is faced with the Dilemma of needing an increase of capacity in the immediate London area to stimulate growth in the country's economy in the short and long terms while also sticking to its aggressive environmental policies and spreading wealth across the country rather than keeping it locked in London and the southeast the journey so far of the proposed Heathrow expansion has been long confusing and stagnant what is clear is that the British government wishes to expand a London Airport and they favor Heathrow judging from its past so far the future is not yet clear European skies are some of the most densely congested and complicated pieces of airspace in the world with tens of thousands of aircraft passing through each day zoom in closer and you'll find the same story in the Skies over the UK zoom in further and you'll find London airspace this is home to six commercial airports City Heathrow Gatwick Luton South End and Stansted and that's not even including other busy private airports such as big and Hill and farnborough the amount of runways in this one small space stands as a testament to London's position on the world stage as a major business and tourism city as well as a major Transit Hub and these important gateways to the British capital and the rest of the country by extension can arguably limit the growth of the entire nation limited by their own capacities and capabilities of all the main London airports by far the most well-known and important is Heathrow handling some 80.9 million passengers in 2019 the airport's busiest on record London Heathrow ranked as the seventh busiest in the world in terms of passenger numbers sandwiched between Chicago O'Hare 6th and Shanghai pudong 8th with the Airport operating at between 98 and 99 percent of capacity when we compare Chicago and Shanghai to London and Heathrow on a map however it can be seen that both Chicago and Shanghai are larger than Heathrow both have more than two runways sprawling concourses and aprons a comparable passenger capacity but most importantly room to expand should they need to this is something that Heathrow inherently lacks Heathrow Airport is boxed in a small corner of West London that was once upon a time merely Countryside back when it opened in 1946 however times change and the area around Heathrow became more and more densely populated as the population Grew From the late 50s and onwards during the 1980s increased road traffic also led to the construction of the M25 Motorway around London passing Heathrow to the West further limiting its expansion on all sides and making any chance for future expansion difficult our story starts in 2006 when Britain's department for transport published a report outlining potential plans to expand the airport leading to a public consultation in 2007 jumped to 2009 and Gordon Brown's government came out in support of the plans consisting of a 7218 foot long third Runway and accompanying Passenger Terminal to the north of the airport's current site this naturally caused controversy and resistance among many parties both directly and indirectly involved including the towns and Villages north of Heathrow sipson and harmonsworth respectively as well as environmental Charities and political parties such as the Green Party Oxfam Friends of the earth and plain stupid to name a few these all cited the main sources of damage being environmental consisting of noise pollution as well as the obligatory problem of air quality degradation from jet engines furthermore the project received no support from all three mayors of London who have presided over these proposals Ken Livingston Boris Johnson and sadik Khan in 2015 then mayor Boris Johnson stated that in order to stop the Heathrow expansion he would lay in front of bulldozers to help stop the expansion Johnson himself proposed four sites in the Thames Estuary to the east of the city colloquially known by londoners as Boris Island throwing his hat into the ring a potential alternative options to expand Heathrow as mentioned previously instead of having one centralized airport like Madrid or Amsterdam he throws air traffic is distributed over six airports with seemingly an abundance of other sites to choose from other London airports Gatwick Luton and Stansted also submitted proposals for themselves to be expanded in addition to the new proposals elsewhere the options were as follows heathrow's third Runway extending heathrow's Runway 27r expanding Gatwick Airport expanding Luton Airport expanding Stansted Airport and lastly building a new site in the Thames Estuary the front runner in this project is expanding Heathrow to the north this would consist of the aforementioned third Runway situated to the northwest of the current site in addition to a new terminal an aircraft Hangar with an estimated cost of 13.8 billion pounds giving Heathrow an estimated 740 000 annual aircraft movements the new run one way would be displaced further to the West in relation to the current site the benefit this brings is in the form of noise abatement with the runway threshold further away from the more densely populated areas of London this allows for aircraft to be higher up when on approach thereby allowing those living under the flight path to be less affected by noise and carbon emissions in addition this project can already use existing infrastructure in the form of the Great Western Mainline which the airport's rail connections to London Paddington already use Heathrow Terminal 5 would also expect an expansion to the West in the form of t5x but this would all come at a great cost that 13.8 billion would pay for the complete leveling of Two Towns sipson and hammondsworth presently this issue has caused house prices to plummet because of the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the expansion to the extent that people living there are sometimes unable to leave because any price they get for their house will be lower than the average London house price so the choice is either stay and wait for Heathrow to buy the properties or move out of London secondly the new Runway would cause disruption to the M25 Motorway in the short term the plans call for the motorway to be moved 150 meters or 450 feet to the West lowered and placed in a tunnel this would only cause widespread disruption for the motorway as well as West London as a whole then when the airport is open there are concerns that with the increased air traffic the sub subsequently increase road traffic will allow the pressure on the M25 to remain long after the expansion is completed and finally it suggested that any expansion at Heathrow goes against the government's strict climate change policies Health complications linked to carbon emissions are already a risk of living in London and various groups have been campaigning against the Heathrow expansion for exactly these reasons the second option at Heathrow was to extend Runway 27r heathrow's Northern Runway thus allowing Heathrow to use it for dual operations takeoffs and landings at the same time planes would land at the current threshold of 27r While others would take off at the far end where the 09l threshold presently stands toward the west this also allows aircrafts to land further down the runway letting them adhere to noise abatement rules through higher approaches to Runway further away from populated areas potentially giving way to 24-Hour operations at Heathrow this would also allow for another terminal along the length of the new Runway giving capacity for up to 700 000 aircraft movements annually again this is at the cost of London's carbon emission limits as well as moving the M25 into a tunnel however it is the least impactful of the Heathrow option while it would still have to move people out of their homes the area immediately to the west of Heathrow is much less densely populated directly west of 27r is a FedEx sorting office and the Planned Runway would narrowly miss the respective towns of poyle and Colebrook the third option and second favorite was to expand London's second airport Gatwick located 30 miles South of the center of London it's much further away from the center than Heathrow this provides Gatwick with ample space to expand into the lightly populated West Sussex Countryside at a cost of 9.3 billion pounds the expansion would consist of a second Runway to the south of the present site in between the current site and the new proposed Runway would be an entirely new terminal giving Gap with capacity for up to seven hundred thousand annual flight movements equating to roughly 50 million passengers although located close to the town of Crawley the proposed southerly expansion would still have not extended that far thereby sparing Crawley from any Mass demolitions ironically this plan would have allowed Crawley to expand as well as many people who work at Gatwick live in Crawley environmental supporters though argued that any expansion would cause major damage to the local wildlife in addition the area immediately south of Gatwick is a flood plain and the proposed plans did not account for this part of the problems with the Gatwick expansion were a matter of its current use and Airline Prestige currently Gatwick Airport is largely used as a Leisure and low-cost airline airport it does have long-haul services from Emirates British Airways and WestJet among others how however these services are mainly used by passengers specifically visiting or leaving the UK only approximately seven percent of passengers use Gatwick for Transit compared to heathrow's 33 percent in addition many International destinations actively call for a connection to Heathrow over Gatwick thereby automatically making Gatwick a less favorable option the airport could have become a Transit Hub but Heathrow seemed a safer bed gatwick's rail connection is located on the London to Brighton main line with its own dedicated service the Gatwick Express in addition to the local commuter services this is all well and good now but like London Skies the main line is reportedly at capacity and in need of upgrading therefore any expansion to Gatwick would bring unsustainable strain to the rail network the fourth major option was those in the Thames Estuary five sites were proposed two were proposed to be built on 100 reclaimed land out in the estuary itself including the proposed Thames hub airport similar to many airports found in Japan two proposals were never named as they were just proposals just north of Rochester Kent south of the Estuary and one east of South End lastly another project called London Britannia was submitted for the Estuary airports for a site just north of Gillingham and was colloquially known as Boris Island after the man who suggested it the then mayor of London Boris Johnson these sites all had similar qualities and drawbacks with the sights being built far away from population centers they would not be restricted by housing and noise rules allowing for 24-Hour operation as well as room to expand to meet demand and their Maritime or Countryside locations would allow for greater absorption of carbon emissions Boris Johnson even suggested that the Heathrow site itself could be closed when the Estuary site opened freeing up 12 kilometers of well-connected West London for redevelopment how however these sites were largely a pipe dream as they came with their own problems that outweighed any chance of them being considered further the major issue was the cost with a cost ranging from 45 to 100 billion pounds any airport built on any of these sites would be an immensely costly undertaking and one which was largely off-putting for the government and taxpayers alike furthermore noted from airports built on reclaimed land elsewhere in the world were also cited such as subsidence a tenancy for its foundations to sink into the sea a problem that any project here would face due to the sites being built on Boggy Marshland or in the open sea making it vulnerable to anything from sea storms to the tide then there would be the question of accessibility it was suggested that hs1 the High-Speed Rail Link used by services to Kent from London to Saint pancreas as well as the Eurostar could link any site to Central London in as little as 26 minutes however even now in 2022 hs1 is at capacity so would need extensive upgrades to support an airport Rail Link furthermore there was a large disapproval among the local populations many did support some sort of new airport however not in their local areas in what's known as nimbyism NIMBY stands for not in my backyard citing carbon and congestion on local motorways the motorway intended for use would be the M2 which is largely a four-lane Motorway and therefore not suitable to serve London's primary airport close by is the M20 Motorway but this is saturated already with traffic heading to and from the Euro tunnel and cross-channel ferries to France and there therefore would be also unsuitable lastly there was the time scale with suggestions that any airport built in the Estuary would not be fully operational until 2050. other Alternatives including expanding stance that are Luton were also not giving great consideration from the start in September 2012 the new coalition government under David Cameron and Nick Clegg launched the airport's commission to evaluate the options proposed to alleviate pressure from heathrow's two runways the committee only shortlisted three options the two at Heathrow itself and the proposed Gatwick expansion publishing their final report in July 2015 the report recommended that the best option for the UK would be the Northwestern Runway proposal at Heathrow Airport the final conclusion stated that the commission has unanimously concluded that the proposal for a new Northwest Runway at Heathrow Airport in combination with the significant package of measures to address environmental and Community impacts presents the strongest case it delivers more substantial economic and strategic benefits than any other shortlisted option strengthening connectivity for passengers and Freight users and boosting productivity for the UK economy and strikes a fair deal between national and local priorities the commission's terms of reference required to maintain the UK's position as a global hub for Aviation Heathrow expansion is the most likely route achieving that in return for the expansion the committee suggested many compromises in order to compensate for the communities affected these consisted of apprenticeships for local employment at Heathrow and the establishment of a community engagement board in addition the airport would not be allowed to operate 24 hours a day and an independent Aviation noise authority to make sure that the airport remains within a pre-agreed noise envelope the price of the local houses would be compensated to homeowners 25 percent above market value and Heathrow would pay 1 billion pounds into the local economy as Community compensation among other points Heathrow would also have to rule out the possibility of a fourth Runway the findings of the airport's committee were approved in 2016 under Theresa May's government and were approved by parliament in June 2018. approved by Parliament as it was there were notable environmental groups that opposed the ruling and expansion as well as local councils the councils of Richmond upon Thames Hammersmith and Fulham Wandsworth and hillington in conjunction with the mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Greenpeace launched a judicial review Into the case in February 2020 the review found that the approval of the Heathrow expansion was illegal as it failed to adhere to or take into account the British government's commitments to the cop-21 Paris climate agreement in the wake of this overturning of the expansion the project as a whole is currently in a state of limbo as the governments of former mayor and later prime minister Boris Johnson as well as Liz truss and current prime minister Rishi sunak have not appealed its overturning former transport Minister Grant shops stated on the subject that any solution to the Heathrow would have to be industry-led with him citing the government's inactivity on the subject to their Net Zero by 2050 policy this also suggests that the British government presently has no plans to move this project forward anytime soon more recently in 2022 Virgin Atlantic a previous supporter of the airport's expansion cited heathrow's plan to increase their per passenger Landing charges by 120 percent leading to a seemingly monopolistic Nature by the airport in addition the airline CEO Shea Weiss outlined that Heathrow needed to extensively renovate Virgin Atlantic's home at Terminal 3 and hire enough staff in order to avoid delays encountered in recent years essentially telling Heathrow to fix its current problems before it moves ahead with further projects

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Id: gXgQ2aQQnu0

Length: 18min 8sec (1088 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 05 2023