What the expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton means for passengers
Share:
Environmentalists are appalled at the prospect of higher emissions, noise and congestion. The government is poised to give the go-ahead to extra runways at the UK’s busiest airports, Heathrow and Gatwick. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to back expansion at the two biggest London airports, as well as increasing capacity at Luton. But such moves would cause controversy – with residents, environmentalists and Labour politicians.
As travel correspondent of The Independent, I’ve been reporting on airport expansion plans since the last century – here are the key questions and answers. Very. London is the world capital of aviation, with far more flights and passengers than any other city in the world. But that has been achieved with airport runways that are barely changed since the Second World War. Heathrow is the busiest two-runway airport in the world, and Gatwick – just around the M25 and down a bit – is the world’s busiest single-runway airport.
When things are working, they are testament to extracting a quart from a pint pot. Heathrow has landings and take-offs every 80 seconds or so, while air-traffic control at Gatwick can get one plane down and another taking off every 65 seconds. But when things go, as they say in aviation, Tango Uniform, plans unravel very quickly.
Over Christmas and the New Year bad weather caused many hundreds of cancellations affecting tens of thousands of passengers. We will probably see the same later this week with the predicted “weather bomb”. Build more capacity, get more resilience is the mantra from Heathrow and Gatwick.
