Heathrow... how many runways?

[Workingman]

Quoting runway numbers does not tell the whole story.

Schipol has six, with three parallel and into the prevailing weather. It has two crossing runways and one inter-connect. The max number of runways at any one time is three. It is effectively the only major airport in a country the size of East Anglia and the S.E..

Orly has there runways but one is a crossing runway so the max in use at any one time is two.

CDG is a special configuration. It has two pairs of runways with each pair having one take-off and one landing runway. It is more efficient, slot wise, but they can only be compressed so much because of separation rules.

However, take Germany as an alternative. Last time I looked it was a thriving economy. Its main airports by passenger numbers are Frankfurt, Munich, Dusseldorf, Berlin Tegel, Hamburg and Berlin Schoenfeld.

Frankfurt has four runways with three parallel and one crossing. It is a sort of CDG halfway house with one take-off and landing runway. One landings only and one take-offs only. Munich, Dusseldorf, Berlin Tegel each have two parallel runways with Hamburg and Schoenfeld being of an 'A' frame design.

Germany does OK without putting all its eggs in a "Hellthrow" basket.

[Suff]

You did notice that the country the size of East Anglia services more passengers per year out of it's main hub (it has 11 airports with IATA codes, including The Hague, Maastricht and Eindhoven), than the largest airport in Germany?

[Workingman]

Yes.

I also noticed that after Amsterdam the next biggest is Eindhoven at about 5 million, then Rotterdam with about 1.75 million and then the cliff edge - Maasticht at about 200,000 and the rest falling further. Two of the eleven are not even in the Neds, they are in the Caribbean.

I also noticed that Germany's top nine airports (As per Neds) serviced 149,383,376 passengers shared out N. S. E. and W. around the country so that everybody gets a slice of the pie.

London, on the other hand, gets about 54% of all UK traffic from just four airports. It gets worse if you count City (4.5 million) and Southend.

[Suff]

Of the 65 million (conservative estimate), people who live in the UK, the population living in southern England is 28 million. Even more further west of London which do not count as "southern England". The London Airports catchment zone has somewhere near 35 million people living in it.

So London having 54% of the flights is no real surprise is it?

People often forget just how many people live and work within the zone of London airports.

[Workingman]

Make that about 17.5 million for London and the S.E.. Where the figure of 35 million comes from is anyone's guess.

Not that the numbers matter because the third runaway is not about London. It has never been about London. The official line, sold to the gullible who are prepared to buy it, is that it is for the country, the whole of the UK and the UK economy. It wil benefit Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Leeds no end. We will all be up to our necks in gold and precious stones.

Or are we being sold a pup via a crate of red herrings?

Maybe we should all move down to London and leave those other places to the rodents, spiders, cockroaches and beetles.

[Suff]

Maybe we should all move down to London and leave those other places to the rodents, spiders, cockroaches and beetles.

Only as long as you are willing to sleep 5 to a room and stand with your head in someone's armpit for an hour on the train....