Stansted Expansion

[CDP]

bad company said:

Seight_Returns said:

I have some relatives who live near Stansted who were very involved in the anti-expansion lobby thew last time a 2nd runway was proposed - unashamebly from a NIMBY perspective.

There was a widely beleived rumour amongst the NIMBY's that when Stanstead was re-deveoploed from an abandoned milirary facility into a commercial airport, it was developed to a much larger scale than is currently used including the construction of a second runway and associated taxiways/aprons etc - much of which was immediatly grassed over and never used but with a view to being able to expand the capacity "just" by clearing the turfed over concrete.

Seems a bit far fetched to me, but wondered if there's any truth to it.

I have never heard that one before. I just hope that the NIMBYS do not win.

It would easily be seen on aerial photographs if true.

[Hooli]

CDP said:

bad company said:

I wonder how many Americans for example have heard of Doncaster? I know it's frustrating but it has to be London.

Ryan Air were selling tickets to London Prestwick.

London Prestwick is brilliant.


As to Doncaster. I live there & it makes sense to me, it's right near the A1 & M1 for starters.

[DeadMeat_UK]

CDP said:

bad company said:

Seight_Returns said:

I have some relatives who live near Stansted who were very involved in the anti-expansion lobby thew last time a 2nd runway was proposed - unashamebly from a NIMBY perspective.

There was a widely beleived rumour amongst the NIMBY's that when Stanstead was re-deveoploed from an abandoned milirary facility into a commercial airport, it was developed to a much larger scale than is currently used including the construction of a second runway and associated taxiways/aprons etc - much of which was immediatly grassed over and never used but with a view to being able to expand the capacity "just" by clearing the turfed over concrete.

Seems a bit far fetched to me, but wondered if there's any truth to it.

I have never heard that one before. I just hope that the NIMBYS do not win.

It would easily be seen on aerial photographs if true.

I believe they would have had trouble digging up the village and pub, laying all the tarmac and putting it all back again.

[oyster]

I get the impression that a lot of replies on this thread are from people who only fly once or twice a year for holidays, or perhaps the annual work conference.

When you have to fly 50+ flights a year, you soon realise that it is simply not practical to transfer from a flight arriving in Southend, to one departing from Gatwick.

All talk of half empty planes is also irrelevant. The only seats that need to be full are those up front.

What's needed is a big hub, a very big hub. Boris Island would be perfect - but do we have the ability to pull it off?

[Digga]

oyster said:

When you have to fly 50+ flights a year, you soon realise that it is simply not practical to transfer from a flight arriving in Southend, to one departing from Gatwick.

True. Connections are the mother of all brain haemorrages. Even if you make it, you're never convinced your luggage has.

[DJRC]

Digga said:

oyster said:

When you have to fly 50+ flights a year, you soon realise that it is simply not practical to transfer from a flight arriving in Southend, to one departing from Gatwick.

True. Connections are the mother of all brain haemorrages. Even if you make it, you're never convinced your luggage has.

Try flying in from Italy Even the Swiss cant help you with that one! If I have to do Firenze - Zur - UK on friday evening Im resigned to my luggage arriving at my front door sometime on Saturday.

Luton would instantly become busier/more attractive if they gave it a rail link onto a North-South UK mainline.

[spikeyhead]

DJRC said:

Try flying in from Italy Even the Swiss cant help you with that one! If I have to do Firenze - Zur - UK on friday evening Im resigned to my luggage arriving at my front door sometime on Saturday.

Luton would instantly become busier/more attractive if they gave it a rail link onto a North-South UK mainline.

Trains south are excellent, 22 mins into St Pancras, and onwards to Brighton, though there can be a bit of a wait for the bus to get from terminal to train station.

Heading north it's a pain. Kettering, Leicester, Doncastor.

[pushthebutton]

Murph7355 said:

The SE (and arguably the UK) is too small/densely populated for any 24hr hub airport not to be a problem. Aircraft don't get high enough, quickly enough not to be a nuisance to literally millions of people in this region, be it Heathrow, Stansted, Gatwick or wherever. Nimbyism is indeed a cursed thing. Until it's your own back yard impacted

I half get the Seattle <> Bangalore argument. Though am far from convinced by it. Too many variables - how much Seattle and/or Bangalore business would leave these shores? Is there genuinely not enough business originating here to warrant flights to these locations (bearing in mind all the off shoring that continues)? Even if the quantity were reduced? Etc.

Should we not be focussing the resources on making foreign nations want to come here almost irrespective of whether we have a "24hr hub" airport? ie ensuring enough people from Seattle or Bangalore have sufficient reason to come here that a route is viable even without the additional transit traffic?

Can alternative potential hub sites in mainland Europe cope with the extra capacity that we are allegedly offering them up on a plate? Being similarly positioned countries in terms of their societies, will they really have no issue with additional capacity there?

If there's genuinely need for a super sized 24hr hub, it *must* consider all the social issues associated with it. But first we need to be sure of the need. It would be a massive mistake to build this thing in the expectation/hope it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

It's not really about the business leaving these shores. Using Seattle to Bangalore as an example; it is too long to be a direct flight. There are passengers who want to travel between these two destinations. They exist now! It is a West to East flight and a proven route. So, the question is, where do the travellers stop off on this journey? Frankfurt (4 runways)? Amsterdam Schipol (6 runways)? Berlin Tegel (2 parallel runways)? Berlin Templehof (2 parallel runways) Munich (2 parallel planning 3)? Paris CDG (4 runways). You get the point, but I can list so many more just in Western Europe. The airports above can already handle the transit passengers and/or are putting plans in place. I don't think that I have to talk too much about the affordability, efficiency, reliability and coverage of the German and French train/transit systems compared to the UK. I have friends and colleagues from each country who fill me in on that one.

Whether we expand our airports or not there will be people wanting to fly routes like the above example and they will invariably have to stop off somewhere. With the development of the BRIC nations this is where the estimated tripling of World air travel is predicted by 2030. These transit passengers will create jobs for whichever country they decide to transit through. It will bring revenue through airport duty, ATC duty, ground handling, terminal handling, sales in the terminal, local hotels for night stops, local restaurants and our own national airlines if we can convince them to fly here.

Transit passengers are a business in themselves and will generate subtantial revenue for whomever attracts their business. If we want that business then we have to attract them. It really is that simple, otherwise it will go to another Western European airport. Airports who have already made and are continuing to make significant infrastructure investments to compete for the business.

If you question whether there is any money in transit passengers then I'd point you back to the Emirati carriers who are building an entire economy on it and the Western European countries who are well ahead of us in development terms.

We have a couple of things on our side. London is an attractive stop over for transit passengers. I believe it's a bigger draw than other comparable European cities. Secondly, we are the last stop before the pond for East to West flights and the first stop the other way. If we can cope with the capacity and make a UK hub airport attractive then we have a good chance of capturing this revenue stream. If not it will be lost and I don't believe it will be possible to make up the lost ground in the future. I guess similar comparisons could be made to the UK automotive industry 30(?) years ago.

One thing is for sure (again) and it's that doing nothing is not an option. I'd like to see LHRs 3rd Runway go in whilst we discuss how best to plan for the future capacity issues.

Sorry for the length of the post...

[pushthebutton]

Steameh said:

My local airport (Doncaster, which is about 3 miles away) has a frikkin huge runway (nearly 3km) but no one flies in to it, the only destination choices are some offered by Thomson and Poland.

Ah Doncaster, the 'Airfield of Dreams'; they built it, but nobody came. IIRC, it had a potential catchment area of 11 million. Thomson certainly did Longhaul from there, but made no money and they have gradually reduced their fleet size over the years. It appears that people prefer to drive to Manchester, but I'm not sure why, it could be a perception thing?

As somebody else said, Longhaul transatlantic flight rely on filling the premium cabins to make a profit and that is a lot easier to do at the London airports.

[del 203]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Keep it ooop North Essex pls




Southend is doing more than enough holiday flights now thank you !!!

[smartphone hater]

Stansted only has one "a"

[GavinPearson]

Personally I would like to see both Birmingham & Stansted expanded.

It would result in far less burden on Heathrow and to a degree Gatwick which are a total nightmare to get to if you are travelling from anywhere north of St Albans.

[StevieBee]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

This is starting to happen. Traffic at at Southend is set to increase considerably over the next few years and would be more if were not for a church at one end of the runway and a supermarket at the other so these will generally be short to mid haul Euro and UK flights.

I'm not sure what the current status is but I believe that these smaller airports are owned independently meaning that their landing fees (what they charge airlines to land there) is a lot more competitive. This in turn offers consumers a bit of a choice. Someone booking a holiday in Ipswich (by which I mean, they live in Ipswich. Nice enough town but not exactly Nice!) can choose to go from say Norwich which offers slightly more convenience or Southend which is slight cheaper.

Trouble is, this is not enough.

Download the FlightRadarPro 24 app and have a look how many planes are over the south east at any point.

[CDP]

GavinPearson said:

Personally I would like to see both Birmingham & Stansted expanded.

It would result in far less burden on Heathrow and to a degree Gatwick which are a total nightmare to get to if you are travelling from anywhere north of St Albans.

That's why I prefer the idea of Upper Heyford. Close to London, Oxford and Birmingham. Next to the route for the high speed rail link and an existing line; it's even got a branch going right into the base. Next to the M40. Also on the national aviation fuel pipeline and has only very recently gone out of service for long range American bombers. Develop this and sell off Heathrow for housing.

Luton is probably easier for most of the population (not me) than Stanstead too.

[Murph7355]

oyster said:

...
All talk of half empty planes is also irrelevant. The only seats that need to be full are those up front.
...

If planes aren't flying at capacity but the front cabins are full (I don't have the figures to know), is the sensible solution to

a) build a massive 24hr airport with 4+ runways or
b) reconfigure the aircraft capacity we already have to fully utilise it in the most profitable way.

?

I guess whatever report is done into this will detail all aspects of the financials involved in such a super hub and all the linked infrastructure upgrades that would be needed. One would hope it will be independent, though personally I doubt it.

And as I mentioned before, NIMBYism is a curse. Until it is YOUR backyard being impacted

[smartphone hater]

CDP said:

That's why I prefer the idea of Upper Heyford. Close to London, Oxford and Birmingham. Next to the route for the high speed rail link and an existing line; it's even got a branch going right into the base. Next to the M40. Also on the national aviation fuel pipeline and has only very recently gone out of service for long range American bombers. Develop this and sell off Heathrow for housing.

Luton is probably easier for most of the population (not me) than Stanstead too.

Stansted

[Murph7355]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Agreed.

I guess that's why the 24hr gambit is being played.

Doesn't explain the need for more runways and centralising them all though. Quite the opposite.

Another thing that would be interesting is to compare airspace efficiency, passenger per flight, flight densities etc etc of all the "competitor" hubs.

If it's all studied properly I have no real issue with the outcome either way (I lived in Richmond for 6yrs). But I do have an issue with undertaking something like a "superhub" effectively on a whim.

[furtive]

I live close to the airport too and it's inevitable that it will expand. Anyone that thinks it won't happen eventually are delusional. With Heathrow being rejected, Stansted is the only viable option.

Interesting news about Crossrail being extended to the airport today adds weight to that opinion:

http://www.hertsandessexobserver.co.uk/News/Uttles...

Linking the airport up to both the City and Stratford International high speed rail services makes perfect sense

[Murph7355]

furtive said:

...

Linking the airport up to both the City and Stratford International high speed rail services makes perfect sense

Doesn't it already have fast links to The City (LivSt)?

Heathrow was only kyboshed because of local protest and political support from the likes of Goldsmith. If nothing else, Heathrow proved that nothing is certain until the thing's operational.

Hopefully sensible analysis will be undertaken and a sensible move can be taken rather than knee jerk with something so impactful.

[rxtx]

Liverpool St isn't open 24 hours, and when there are problems on that line there's no link at all. If Stansted were to expand it'd need more than one line, the trains can be pretty busy at it is.