AIBU to have no sympathy for Heathrow runway debates

[NotForSale]

As the population increases surely another runway is needed to fulfil demand?
The biggest/ only argument I've seen against another runway is noise pollution. Is it just me or is that a 1st world problem? There's people who live in slums/ Calais camps/ overcrowding/ damp/ desperate poverty and quite frankly a bit of extra noise is the least of their worries.

I knew there'd be a technical reason that I hadn't thought of!

Bojo it is not a given that demand for flights will increase post-Brexit, for reasons pp mentions.

With regard to China, the demand predicted so far has signally failed to materialise. BA has recently dropped its Heathrow-Chengdu route because of lack of demand.

As has already been mentioned, even leaving aside the horrendous noise issues, air pollution and its attendant consequences for climate change and health (40,000 premature deaths pa in the UK, 9,500 of those in London) mean that we should be taking the lead on promoting a reduction in flights, and encouraging more video conferencing for business instead.

Being stuck on a motorway on the way to the airport is not a worry for the type of business the expansion is about.

They are after a hub, and interconnecting flights, so basically people changing at an airport, what they will need is shops and restaurants where whoever is waiting for a connection will spend some money. It can be anywhere. London and the UK are irrelevant.
It's all a money making machine, from the shops and from landing fees paid by the airlines, for the owner of BAA who were bought by Ferrovial, a Spanish company.

The transport link to Heathrow will still need to be improved, because it's hellish as is now, at a colossal cost to the tax payer, for the benefit of a Spanish owners of Ferrovial.

People going to Gatwick, which is a lot of holiday traffic will still be stuck in traffic jams or at the mercy of Southern.

Quite - it's about a hub - so why not beef up an existing airport outside London, and bring much needed work to that area? Both Birmingham and Manchester could fill that role. Birmingham already has good rail and road connections. You could re-brand it as London (Birmingham), if necessary .

Manchester and Birmingham aren't owned by BAA.
Maybe BAA are better at lobbying?

Yes, it is a hub they are after. All the profits will go overseas, very little tax will be paid here, we'll pay £17 billion minimum to upgrade the infrastructure from our taxes, and be left with the pollution and noise. What's not to love?

Manchester and Birmingham aren't owned by BAA.

I had forgotten that, but that explains it. Wasn't Manchester owned by the Local Authority?

Chardonnay has it. I was about to say the same. BAA have been awesome at lobbying for this. Between them, they and Gatwick have managed to completely frame the debate with little impartial challenge, such that the ordinary bod on the street - as we have seen on this thread - has completely swallowed whole the idea that we need another runway and it has to be in the SE. When actually, the case for a new runway, and especially a hub, is just not there.

Heathrow and Gatwick have each spent about £30 million lobbying and advertising. Imagine if £60m had been available to make the counter-argument that any major airport expansion is unnecessary, reckless because of climate change, and damaging to the local environment and health.

Or if the case is there, it needs to be part of an integrated transport policy. Which all governments seem to be totally p*ss poor at implementing.

Also, if the case of Heathrow is so overwhelmingly good, why do we have two Mayors of London, from a very different political and personal background, who are against it?

All the major international hubs that I can think of are at major international cities (e.g. Amsterdam, Paris, New York, Dubai). I suspect there are sound business reasons why you can't put a hub in a minor* city like Birmingham or Manchester.

*From an international perspective before anyone flames me.

I wonder if there are business reasons or is it just because that's the way aviation has grown over the years? You would need a sufficiently large workforce to service the airport but both Birmingham and Manchester are large enough cities to do that.

Not finished reading the thread yet. My thoughts so far though are:
I have some sympathy for them, but there's been an airport there for years, so anyone buying there after the airport was built must've been aware that there would be a chance of expansion at some point. So my sympathy is less than it was for other options. For example:

No one seemed to care when the airport was planned for Boris island. 100s of homes would've had to be demolished and many more devalued by the noise, etc.

The difference is: there's never been an airport there previously, so people buying there wouldn't assume it was a possibility and probably bought there because it's quiet and rural.
Also, there's a lot of wildlife (including endangered) in that area as well as areas of scientific importance that would've been seriously affected by an airport and had their habitats destroyed.

I personally think Manston would've been a good idea. I just don't think that where there's already an airport, people living nearby can be that shocked or surprised when it wants to expand. It's the way of the world after all; always striving for bigger, better, more

Dubai has a population of about 2.5 m. It is a deliberate hub - it makes sense as a hub as there's no huge population to fly over and the hub business is a good source of work there in the absence of a varied economy otherwise. None of this applies to London.