Why is Heathrow so small compared to other airports around the world?

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Elegant_Mind7950@reddit

London has Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, even Southend is ‘London Southend’. It’s got plenty of runways.

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cragglerock93@reddit

Busiest city airport 'system' on earth by some distance.

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Heliotropolii_@reddit

I work at Heathrow, and there is a lot of people who live nearby who believe they are entitled to not be disturbed by an airport that existed long before they moved here

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Spare-Machine6105@reddit

The point is in your statement. Heathrow run astroturfing groups to manufacture the idea that locals support expansion. Some do and some don't.

Night flights are not banned by Heathrow and this pisses off local residents. Also the pollution caused by ground traffic to Heathrow causes health issues for local residents.

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They don't have to live here, everyone who lives locally was aware of the airport operation when they moved in, they are also very aware of the decades old campaign for expansion, most people either work at the airport, or they took advantage of the cheaper house prices,

There is a night jet ban, If we have a delayed/late flight that will likely depart after 11pm it's a real headache, airlines sometimes will ignore the ban and fly anyway, but it's not that common anymore

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metrize@reddit

they’re also getting a fuck ton of money to simply fuck off somewhere else too, people complain way too much and need to learn to put up and shut up for the sake of the country and not just hold things up just for their sake

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Spare-Machine6105@reddit

Did you see how many times the business case was revised for the third runway, like T5? Have you seen any credible external source back up Heathrow's data?

Who bears the cost of increased health problems for people in the area for instance?

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metrize@reddit

they are being bought out they can simply move, nobody asked them let alone forced them to live near an airport. i live in west london and planes are completely fine

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Spare-Machine6105@reddit

Good for you. Not all houses being affected are being bought up. Only the houses that will need to be demolished to create the third runway.

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metrize@reddit

so why did they move near an airport in the first place if they’re that worried

and anyway who cares, i’d rather be a prosperous country in general that grows and builds even if a very very very tiny minority have to sacrifice in some form

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Spare-Machine6105@reddit

I'm not saying it a zero sum game. We can have prosperity with things other than polluting and noisy airports.

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metrize@reddit

we don’t even build hs2 so i think not, big infra projects like this shows people they can’t be nimby and increases tolerance for everything else

just like a baby needs to be introduced to different foods which they won’t/cannot do by themselves

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Spare-Machine6105@reddit

The difference I guess is that Heathrow is a private airport that needs public money compared to hs2 which will be a public asset.

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Spare-Machine6105@reddit

According to heathrow there is no ban: https://www.heathrow.com/company/local-community/noise/operations/night-flights

When Heathrow asked for terminal 5 they promised to drop demands for an extra runway. https://policy.friendsoftheearth.uk/insight/heathrow-terminal-5-and-runway-3-chronology-worthless-promises

Heathrow has been disingenuous over the years with its policies so I wouldn't say people have had good consistent advice to base their plans on.

Also some people like me where born here we didn't chose to move here.

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whatmichaelsays@reddit

My personal theory is that the people who live near Heathrow are either AvGeek plane nerds, or people who are actually really pleased that they've got a much cheaper house than they would have otherwise got. It's just that when there's a prospect of compensation on the horizon, it's very much in your interests to make out that you hate planes and that living there is a tortuous burden.

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connolan1@reddit

Won't last long. I've got a friend who's a good 10 min walk from Heathrow and his road is apart of the expansion and have agreements to all be bought out

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Harrry-Otter@reddit

As a country, we’re really, really, bad at actually building infrastructure.

The Heathrow expansion has been talked about since Brown was PM, but between NIMBYs, costs and environmental concerns it’s not happened.

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ARobertNotABob@reddit

My father was a BEA pilot, switched from prop to jets in the late 60s and during his exams was told there was to be a third runway.

Interestingly, Heathrow was originally 6 runways in a hexagram, but increased runway lengths for bigger aircraft and prevailing winds obliged the East-West ones extended, and the rest were subsumed as taxiways.

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TomLondra@reddit

Heathrow Airport used to have several intersecting runways arranged to handle different wind directions. Over time, those were closed and replaced with the current setup of two long, parallel east–west runways, designed for higher traffic and more efficient operations.

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bradpitt3@reddit

It has not been possible to add another runway at Heathrow because successive governments have been dissuaded by local objections to noise and congestion and no expansion plan has ever been approved.

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Spare-Machine6105@reddit

I think the better question is why is Heathrow so poor at doing things that others can do well.

Why is public transport so badly indicated to and from the airport over car travel?

Why are night flights not banned?

Why don't they enforce sharp take off and landing for early flights?

Why do passengers have to check in 2-3 hours before their flights?

Why are there no local or non chain brands that benefit the local economy in the airport?

Why have they removed the visitor centre and have nothing in the airport for the local community?

Why is travel around the terminals so confusing and not run by the airport?

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CPD1960@reddit

I think a more accurate headline would be ‘Why does Heathrow have only two runways?’ because it certainly isn’t ‘small’. Heathrow is the largest and busiest airport in the U.K. and was the 7th busiest in the world last year.

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RedditToCopyMyTumblr@reddit

As people say, it is met with opposition. But what isn't being mentioned is why (other than the environmental opposition which almost any other airport would struggle with).

Heathrow is in London, not near London. It is the largest and busiest airport hub in the UK, and the busiest in Europe. But it is IN London.

While most airports can expand into fields, Heathrow's expansion would be into places people live in. They also would expand in such a way which would cause more disruption to the daily lives of the millions of local residents. Presently a plane flies over every 90 seconds and has it's approach over a lot of South and West London.

A new Runway is going to make that more frequent.

London Heathrow was a great airport for its proximity to London, but being so close to London is also why it is not a good airport to expand in the current day.

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Daewoo40@reddit

How many European cities are in the same situation as London, though?

Heathrow has 2 runways.

Ignoring Gatwick, Stansted and London city.

Luton isn't too much of a hastle to get to anymore, either, just don't park there.

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Kian-Tremayne@reddit

And don’t forget London Southend airport too!

If you live in some alternate universe where Southend is even vaguely close to London…

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Sad-Wrap6555@reddit

sounds more lke a route than an airport ...how long till we have London Aberdeen

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Daewoo40@reddit

Without knowing where Southend is and having just looked it up.

I'm surprised as to how far North it is..

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L-0-T-H-0-S@reddit

Because it was built as a military airfield in the 1940s and has since become surrounded by some of the most densely populated urban areas in Europe.

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Spare-Machine6105@reddit

This isn't the whole story. It was requisitioned at the end of the war and never saw military use.

It is a big mystery why it is there in the first place and there objections at the time which said that expansion would be problematic.

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noodlyman@reddit

The world really needs to stop our addiction to flying. Climate change is real, and a real threat to humanity. Pollution from flying is not the largest contributor, bit it's growing very fast. There's probably no such thing as carbon neutral aircraft fuel, as it all takes energy to produce somehow. Biofuels still have a decent carbon footprint as well as using land that can't then be used for food.

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snowmanseeker@reddit

Heathrow has been given permission for a third runway.

Also, Heathrow is not London's only major airport

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Belle_TainSummer@reddit

They've been building that new runway for as long as I can remember. The original generation of people fighting it because "our house prices will suffer, we didn't know there'd be a new runway" are long dead, and the current gen fighting it for the same reason knew they were buying the house to fight a new runway.

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Nimbyism

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