Quoting EPA001 (Reply 38): Quoting AirbusA6 (Reply 35): Apart from anything else, surely it's misleading comparing LHR to AMS and FRA as they are ONE airport cities, which London isn't. For the people of London, it's a massive benefit to have LGW, STN, LTN and LCY as alternatives, rather than having to trek to a 4 runway single hub airport. I do not think it is misleading at all. LHR is serving Greater London, which lies on a relatively small island (Great Britain) compared to continental Europe. Due to this fact London needs much more air traffic then cities/areas like Greater Paris (which also has two large(r) airports), the whole Frankfurt or Amsterdam and the Randstad area. But LHR is by far the main airport, the main hub for London and its direct surroundings. And can therefore in my opinion be very well compared to CDG, FRA and AMS without misleading anyone.

But LHR isn't the only London airport, and that's a key difference to AMS and FRA.
From wiki for 2011
LHR 69m passengers

LGW 34m
STN 18m
LTN 10m

Thus the 3 other main London airports combined carry near as many as LHR, and all have space to grow. If FRA was to overtake LHR for example, it still would be well below the total for the London region. Combined the 4 airports carry 130m passengers from 5 runways. Why is this considered inferior to a single airport with 5 runways, when the majority of passengers aren't transit passengers anyway?

Quoting PanHAM (Reply 44):

BA also offer UK connections via LHR at other regional airports than the ones you've mentioned:- NCL, LBA, ABZ, BHD.

Of course with a third runway BA (& possibly VS) could expand domestic (CTA) connections, particularly those not on the mainland; IOM, JER and GCI have no service. But is there sufficient demand with enough yield for these connections to be profitable use of new slots that a 3rd runway could offer? Direct HS rail connections with [BA / VS etc] code shares into LHR would probably be a more efficient use of slots for certain UK mainland cities that don't warrant, by distance, connections by air: Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester.

Quoting cmf (Reply 48): FRA is a much better hub with the 4th runway and extended night ban than it was before.

Tell that to the people who got stranded because their aircraft had to taxi back to the stand at 23h01. last night they were lucky, winter weather and de-icing delayed a flight but the bureaucrats were merciful, they allowed taked off at 23:00:04 and that is no joke, 4 seconds needed clearance by the state of Hesse.

Quoting PanHAM (Reply 52): Tell that to the people who got stranded because their aircraft had to taxi back to the stand at 23h01. last night they were lucky, winter weather and de-icing delayed a flight but the bureaucrats were merciful, they allowed taked off at 23:00:04 and that is no joke, 4 seconds needed clearance by the state of Hesse.

Talk with the people who used the additional daytime movements.

The last 3 times I went to the UK this year, I flew through FRA, CDG, and AMS....and one of the times I was going to LON.

I avoided most of the APD bite on J class tickets with a little jaunt in Y, and avoided the hassles of LHR as well, using LCY when going to LON, and otherwise flying into GLA and EDI.

FRA will become more marginalized in the future as a hub due to their slot restrictions/curfew.

CDG is just a terribly designed airport....almost as bad as LHR.

AMS and DXB are rapidly becoming the defacto international hub airports for most of the UK that are not LHR captives..

The downside to AMS being the long walks.

I cannot ever see LHR ever getting a third runway now? The governments not got the balls to do it. It's laughable because creating a third runway, creates employment, keeps LHR up with AMS, FRA ect..Actually by the time a third runway was built LHR would still be behind...They really need at least two or three runways not a short one planned at Simpson..All these do gooders complaining about environment issues and noise,blah blah blah, these are the people are holding us up.I bet the same people complain because in 15' 20 years time there is no employment or import,export in the country.Just do what France,Germany do, bloody build it...We are a laughing stock in this country sometimes...

Quoting AirbusA6 (Reply 50): But LHR isn't the only London airport, and that's a key difference to AMS and FRA.

It is, but you are missing the point here. I requote what I said:

Quoting EPA001 (Reply 38): LHR is serving Greater London, which lies on a relatively small island (Great Britain) compared to continental Europe. Due to this fact London needs much more air traffic then cities/areas like Greater Paris (which also has two large(r) airports), the whole Frankfurt or Amsterdam and the Randstad area.

The geographical situation of England (or Great-Brittain) is what makes more then one airport for the greater London area necessary. But that has nothing to do with the hub-function LHR, CDG, FRA and AMS have and where they are in a battle with each other.

Quoting AirbusA6 (Reply 50): Why is this considered inferior to a single airport with 5 runways, when the majority of passengers aren't transit passengers anyway?

It is not considered inferior. Again I am afraid you missed the point of what is being discussed here.

Quoting DLPMMM (Reply 54): FRA will become more marginalized in the future as a hub due to their slot restrictions/curfew.

Well, they are building the new terminal so that they can accommodate up to 80-85 million passenger per year. That is by no means "marginalizing" in my book.  .

Quoting factsonly (Reply 56): So this discussion is not about the size of the market - London is by far the biggest - but about the 'connectivity' offered by the four airports.

It is exactly that.

Quoting factsonly (Reply 56): This is were LHR misses out.

Well, not missing out. Not by a long shot. But LHR is starting to loose market share as a central hub in Western Europe.

[Edited 2012-12-05 08:57:50]

The only direct economic benefit to be derived from hubbing (as opposed to O&D) is to the airlines that hub at the airport, to the airport itself, and to the tenants and other service organisations supporting the hub. There is very little direct economic benefit outside of the immediate airport area from hubbing passengers as, by definition, hubbing passengers don't go out of the airport and spend money or do business in the local economy. LHR, supporting by far the biggest O&D market of those mentioned, is best positioned to sustain air services to the majority of destinations regularly demanded by O&D passengers. For anyone else outside of the LHR catchment area, hubbing (or a ground journey) is already a fact of life and they might as well hub in AMS or FRA or DXB than LHR. Whilst passengers prefer direct flights, surveys have shown that most are quite prepared to accept one connection to get to their destination - and in this case that could be someone travelling from the UK regions connecting in mainland Europe, or indeed a LHR originating passenger who may have to connect in a foreign capital to get to a foreign regional destination. LHR will sustain a core set of high demand routes without the O&D traffic and if those who wish to connect do so elsewhere then that leaves room for growth of O&D traffic without growing the airport significantly. I do believe that a third runway at LHR is needed, but primarily to reduce congestion not only on the ground but also at the holds at BNN, BIG, BPK and OCK etc... I don't think that the UK should be investing in massive airport expansion at LHR just to support travellers who feel like connecting through the UK

Quoting Eurohub (Reply 25): With successive governments shying away from a third runway, can you really imagine one pushing a new-build high speed line through the South East?

My imagination is running on overdrive with thinking about the high-speed line running from LHR to the SE England and may be not only SE England but also the entire southern portion of the Island. The expansion of the railway station at LHR if that is possible would accommodate the extra traffic but I don't think that expanding the railway station at LHR is not feasible.

Quoting factsonly (Reply 56): Why do airports and hub airlines chase connectivity, because each additional flight lowers the cost of the entire system and translates into direct and in-direct jobs and general economic activity and welfare.

  

Quoting AndyEastMids (Reply 58): The only direct economic benefit to be derived from hubbing (as opposed to O&D) is to the airlines that hub at the airport, to the airport itself, and to the tenants and other service organisations supporting the hub.

Money gained by all the above is benefit to the country's accounting... or it isn't ?

Another illustration of the state of affairs is seeing the relative importance of each airportt.
Thus, we could identify what the traffic growth is hiding ( in this case the decline of LHR importance compared to the western Eu trio ).

In 2000, in terms of passengers,
LHR : 64,606 x1000
CDG : 48,246 74.6%
FRA : 49,360 76.4%
AMS : 39,606 61 %

In 2005,
LHR : 67,915
CDG : 53.798 79.4%
FRA : 52,219 76.9%
AMS : 44.163 65.0%

In 2010,
LHR : 65,884
CDG : 58,167 88.2 %
FRA : 53.009 80.4 %
AMS : 45,271 68.7 %

As 2010 could be a fluke, due to the "drop"' in traffic at LHR (industrial movements ), these are the figures for 2011 :

LHR : 69,433
CDG : 60,970 87.8 %
FRA : 56,436 81.3 %
AMS : 49,754 71 %

The future ? CDG and FRA are planning on 85 to 95 million passengrers' traffic, AMS could grow... LHR is at 95 % + on runway utilisation.
But, hey ! if they're happy with O/D traffic only, who am I to complain ?
Of course, there's a final question experts will have to answer about the same picture but the UK outside the EU..........

[Edited 2012-12-05 09:40:58]

Quoting Shuttle9juliet (Reply 55): I cannot ever see LHR ever getting a third runway now? The governments not got the balls to do it. It's laughable because creating a third runway, creates employment, keeps LHR up with AMS, FRA ect..Actually by the time a third runway was built LHR would still be behind...They really need at least two or three runways not a short one planned at Simpson..All these do gooders complaining about environment issues and noise,blah blah blah, these are the people are holding us up.I bet the same people complain because in 15' 20 years time there is no employment or import,export in the country.Just do what France,Germany do, bloody build it...We are a laughing stock in this country sometimes...

But then it's not London that has the unemployment problem, but rather the rest of the UK. How would 2 new runways for LHR help, say Scotland or the North of England more than, say BA trying to create a hub outside of London?

What benefit does the UK get from even more people flying via London, other than a bit of spend in the terminals? If LHR was located in the middle of a desert, or the sea (as per Boris Island) it would cause little nuisance, but it isn't. It's in the middle of a highly crowded urban area, the flightpaths affect large parts of London with their noise and pollution. Expanding LHR, just so that BAA and BA can make more money from people who never even leave the airport is rightly not going to be waved through.

Quoting Gonzalo (Thread starter): London Heathrow Airport has lost its position as Europe’s primary hub airport, due to its runway capacity shortage, and the better performance of direct competitors as FRA, CDG and AMS.

Quoting raffik (Reply 5): Quoting factsonly (Reply 4): PASSENGERS - last 12 months upto July 2012: That completely contradicts the poster's claim that LHR was losing the battle.

No it does not. Bisignani's statement was referring to LHR's position as a "HUB" which implies connectivity. A much higher proportion of LHR passenger traffic is O&D which by definition is originating or terminating their trip at LHR, compared to FRA/CDG/AMS where the proportion of connecting traffic is higher than LHR.

Connectivity also requires a large number of destinations. All 3 of the other airports mentioned have had far more directly-served destinations than LHR for many years, meaning far more one-stop connecting markets than when connecting via LHR.

Quoting AirbusA6 (Reply 62):

Hi AIrbusA6

Yeah I see your point ,I know that LHR is in a highly built up urban area, flight path over the city ect ect, but it does seem that everything we do in the U.K takes years of political wrangling ( T5) example , now another runway.

Also I am sure the government does make a bit of a benefit through passengers going through Londons airports, it's called APD. I totally agree though that there should be another hub also...Anyway most people in the north,Scotland too, tend to avoid LHR and filter through various Middle East hubs with the help of their local airline... 

Aviation policy has missed a trick really... HS2 should go straight underneath LHR and offer links to Birmingham, Manchester, the East Midlands, Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Then, ban domestic flights and use the freed up capacity for international route development. With checkin and bag drop at HS2 rail stations, even Glasgow wouldn't have a significantly longer travel time by rail compared to air when the journey into/from the city to airport is included.

The third runway is going to remain a huge political football due theirs environmental impact. The only other sensible solution I can see is to build a secure terminal at Northolt, a high-speed secure rail link between the LHR terminals and Northolt, and treat the Northolt terminal as another airside facility for LHR with checkin and bag reclaim done at LHR itself (I.e. no landslide access at Northolt). Then, move some narrow-body services over to Northolt.

I like t5, but they lack the same thing that AMS does, a proper steakhouse haha! , joking aside. I pick AMS because like CPH, it's easy to get around, although trains underground of AMS would be nice. Long walks. Or more quicktracks like in YYZ. Those walkways are ace! Noisy but quick! I rarely pick LHR now. As BA screwed me over, I see no point. Plus AMS has everything most travellers could want.

Quoting AirbusA6 (Reply 62): What benefit does the UK get from even more people flying via London

I think you may have answered your own question:

Quoting AirbusA6 (Reply 62): Expanding LHR, just so that BAA and BA can make more money

These are both British companies. They employ British workers - more business, more income, more jobs. They pay British Corporation Tax. Their employees pay British Income Tax and National Insurance. Their employees spend most if not all their income in the UK paying VAT to the British government on all their purchases excepting expenditure on food, children's clothes and reading materials.

When a traveller flies from, say, Canada to, say India, with BA then the expenditure (with BA) on their ticket is significant. A ticket from YYZ to DEL flying out on 6 and back on 22 January can be booked today for:

Y Class: Canadian $ 1,070 (£672)

W Class: Canadian $ 2,233 (£1,402)

J Class: Canadian $ 5,160 (£3,240)

So if three J Class passengers every day were to book to fly BA between Canada and India at the above (mid-week and therefore not the highest) fares the British economy (in the form of our GDP) would be approximately £3.25 million larger than if they did not. So the expendiure by such passengers on their tickets and on anything spent while transitting LHR directly adds to the size oif the Britis h economy.

It is simply not true that if the above happened - and it does - that it would be "just so that BAA and BA can make more money". If it were then the same could be said by any money spent in the UK by you, me or any other British resident. But in this case the expenditure made in Canadian Dollars is even more important than our own local Sterling expenditure. We need foreign currency to buy imports ranging from food to raw materials for our manufacturing industry. Without suchforeign income these would be necessities that the UK could not afford.

It has been suggested elsewhere in this thread that LHR is an O&D operation and handles less transit traffic than other European hubs. I have no current data that disputes this. However in a Press Release titled "A new British Airways takes off today" dated 10 June 1997, BA claimed that 60 per cent of their passengers werre not British. At the same time they claimed that 40 per cent of BA passengers arriving a LHR on an international flight connected to another BA international flight without going land-side.

In looking at the O&D situation this is clearly an understatement of the proportion of BA passengers then using LHR as a hub. There are two reasons for this. It clearly excludes those passengers arriving at LHR and spending the night at one of LHR's many hotels before boarding another flight the following day. It also excludes all passengers arriving at LHR on a BA domestic flight and then immediately departing on a BA international flight and, of course, those arriving on an international flight and then departing on a domestic flight.

Quantifying the numbers falling into these two groups is difficult. Suffice it to say that approximately ten per cent of all BA's passengers fly on domestic routes and that a far from insignificant proportion of those passengers are likely to be transferring to or from an international flight.

As I mentioned above it has been claimed in this thread that the proportion of O&D traffic at LHR is significantly higher than at other European hubs. As my data is both limited and is 15 years old I would much appreciate a source for the data on which these claims are based.

According to the CAA the number of passengers travelling to and from LON on scheduled flights in 2011 was 126,966,767. This seems to me to be a very high figure if it is overwhelmingly O&D traffic. Compare it with, for example, the number of scheduled passengers handled at the UK's next busiest airport, MAN. There the equivalent 2011 figure was around one-tenth of this figure at 13,614,261. And if a significant proportion of LON traffic is transfer traffic, I would expect most of such traffic to be at LHR where the transfer opportunities are much greater. Further the operations of airlines like FR (who are dominant at STN) and U2 (who are by far the largest LGW and LTN operator) simply do not attract transfer passengers.

Six months ago I did a thread on the most connected airports. Scoll down to post #29 for the updated table:
Airports With Greatest Number Of Connected Cities (by lightsaber May 14 2012 in Aviation Polls)

To be blunt LHR no longer has so many connections as to be the 1st choice for a connecting passenger.

Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 63): No it does not. Bisignani's statement was referring to LHR's position as a "HUB" which implies connectivity.

   LHR is becoming an O&D airport. So be it... I think not expanding is silly, but that is just my opinion.

Lightsaber

Quoting VV701 (Reply 6): Finally note that on historic projections the airport that will actually decline most in RELATIVE importance is CDG which has (in my figures) been overtaken by FRA by 2022 and will be overtaken by AMS in 2023. And it is also 2023 when FRA edges ahead of LHR in terms of passenger numbers. But that is a long time away.

One year doesn't mean much. I have no idea what will happen but one thing is certain, CDG is not capacity restricted by a long shot.

Quoting finnishway (Reply 8): I disagree. That would take years or even a decade to develop. New terminal 2 will help LHR, but third runway is necessary. There is many ways to make this situation better, but they need a new runway, if they want to keep LHR as a Europe’s primary hub.

The third runway itself is a decade away if it happens, a new airport, we're looking at 2030's at best.

But opponents make any prediction difficult, right now there are anarchists from all over the world stopping the start of the building of Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport to replace NTE . That project started 40 years ago.

Quoting AndyEastMids (Reply 65): Aviation policy has missed a trick really... HS2 should go straight underneath LHR and offer links to Birmingham, Manchester, the East Midlands, Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Then, ban domestic flights and use the freed up capacity for international route development. With checkin and bag drop at HS2 rail stations, even Glasgow wouldn't have a significantly longer travel time by rail compared to air when the journey into/from the city to airport is included.

That is what should happen, like FRA airport has a decent high speed railway line in to it where people not only transfer from train to plane but from train to train, a proper transport hub. This should happen at LHR but the useless politicians have decided that initially HS2, if it ever gets built, will by pass Heathrow and people will be forced to change trains near central London, which is an unatrractive proposition.

Quoting factsonly (Reply 71): The Netherlands, France & Germany have a strong national transport policies focussed on public transport mode integration (bus, train, airplane) thus building connections and easing the use of (cheap) public transport. Their continued investment in runways is based on the believe that good global and regional connections facilitates trade and industry and thus jobs and public welfare.

I wish we had such a policy. But here Public Transport is expected to compete with itself even where it wouldn't benefit the passenger (and where there have been mergers/transfers that would give network benefits they seem to get blocked by the authorities)

The main rail route from London to South Wales and the West of England passes about 1.5 miles from the Northern Perimeter, yet there is no station with transit link to the airport. Passengers either have to change at Reading for a coach or go into London and catch an airport train back to the airport.

Quoting miaintl (Reply 3): The only solution to London's LHR problem is for them to build a new international airport near the Thames estuary which will replace LHR. The terminal layout in LHR is a pain for transiting passengers unless your transiting within terminal 5.

Problem there is Heathrow also serves the Southern half of England, so while access from Kent might improve the rest of the South will be adversely affected

Quoting factsonly (Reply 73): I did find the below data and failed to find a lot as well

But a good effort none the less, and adds some factual perspective to the discussion   

It shows why LHR (54M O&D = more than 50% bigger than the nearest contender) has less need to be focused on being a hub than the other European major airports.

In addition LHR shares the London O&D with LGW, STN, LTN, LCY etc. (and can compete against those for increased O&D market share - for example LTN has 10M O&D, STN has 18M O&D - without even worrying about winning transfer pax) while AMS has all the Amsterdam O&D and so has no more local market share to secure.