According to Wikipedia, Airbus's upcoming A350-1000 is supposed to carry 412 people in a two-class configuration. That isn't very far off from 450 passenger mark and A350 will have only two engines.

Oil is today $131/barrel, down from $147 last week, up from about $20 ten years ago. ALL major airlines are cutting services, jobs, planes at these prices. Several large airlines are expected to go bankrupt within a year. The price isn't going down significantly anytime soon, and there is NO practical alternative fuel source. The UK is heading into deep recession, and is facing acute energy shortages in terms of oil, gas and electricity within ten years. Demand for aviation is unlikely to be coming back to recent levels within a generation.

And then there is the peak in the world's oil supply...

To invest in new runways in the current economic/energetic crisis is economic insanity.

I fully expect the government to force this through within months.

What I don't understand is why so many people talk as if they have some god* given right to fly as and when they please.

(*apostate/atheist here - no particular god as such)

Hopefully the price of oil and credit crunch will start to have an affect on the number of flights people take and reduce the number of aircraft flying - though just be be balanced - I do realise that this affects the poor first.

"It isn't at all clear that the rest of us, who don't live near Heathrow, should submit to having brakes put on our national economy just so that local residents can have untroubled barbecues and weekend lie-ins. That benefit is purely for them - but we would all share the costs"

Thatcher would be proud of you. Isnt this a case of reverse nimby? ie. as long as its someone else's patch its fine? Whats the recommended sleep period vs operating times? Yeah screw those young kids they dont need to be asleep before midnight.

Exactly what are these mystery benefits? or do you mean that company x makes an extra million pound profit which goes to the upkeep of the MDs private island, rented out to your MP at mates rates?

Limited runway space will ensure priority to its use, rather than just another plane load of chavs off to Spain which drains money out of the UK.

Seems you can do anything these days if it brings in a couple of cleaning jobs and a HR department.

What happened to government for citizens rather than the big corps??

"GTFs use a gearbox rather than a fixed shaft to link their compressors and turbines, allowing better fuel efficiency - perhaps as much as 12 per cent."

Is that 12% efficient? Or 12% better than the current average? Or both? :o)

If you're 90 years old and live (near LHR) in the house you were born in then, fair enough, you're probably entitled to complain about the noise.

Everybody else - if you don't like the sound aeroplanes make, why did you buy a house next to a fucking airport?

This will get everyone nicely wound up and generate page hits (are you on a variable pay rate?).

Building a business case on dodgy numbers is not good practice or even ethical. I'd like to think that all of our tax money will be well spent. Hahahah, anyway....

More than 2 millions people will be affected by increased noise generated by the additional planes. This is not a "few" people.

Besides, if those of us who live "near Heathrow" (an area encompassing Putney to Windsor) affected by the flight paths don't want a bad business case put together by a company that owns way too many civil servants and ministers meant to police said business case, maybe you should build the airport in your back yard and you can 'reap the benefits'.

Building for the future is an excellent idea! Why not build an airport that will be able to cope with the required traffic in an area not surrounded by people like the Thames estuary. The econmic impact will be felt by all taxpayers when one plane lands a little short.

You can't move to somewhere near an airport then complain about the noise! Heathrow has been there a good while and it probably there when most people moved in, so get used to it. Don't like aircraft noise? Don't live near a f**king airport. The UK is a big place, move somewhere else and let us demolish your house to build a new runway. Less queues and cheaper flights all round. (Almost) everyone is happy.

"Noise is the reason that BAA has an actual political fight on its hands, as the vocal property owners of wealthy, economically successful southwest London often feel they have quite enough racket already."

This and another later comment in your article really sticks out somewhat. In fact, while some of southwest London is economically successful, I would hazard that it's actually Hounslow and Osterley that are the major sticking points - neither economically successful nor particularly pleasant places to live, partly because of the noise of Heathrow. There is also some research that claims increased morbidity rates in that part of the city due to Heathrow's fumes, although it's not conclusive.

And, of course, expanding Heathrow is just not the cleverest idea, given that another runway would involve completely razing to the ground at least one village, amongst other things. Stansted and Gatwick may not be as easy to get to from London, but they have the huge advantage of being in the middle of wide open space, on which building could be undertaken fairly inexpensively. For some reason BAA has no interest whatsoever in doing so, preferring to gouge airlines and passengers alike for the pleasure of spending increasing amounts of time in the seventh circle of Hell, sorry, Heathrow. And it's for this reason, amongst others, that breaking up BAA makes so much sense

"Actually, correct that, there are less tits in The Sport."

Actually, correct that: *fewer* tits in The Sport.

-- Jon

It's certainly the worst I've been forced to use on a relatively frequent basis. The T5 fiasco just makes the point better than I ever could.

Almost half the people travelling through Heathrow are using it as a transit airport, they're travelling to *and* from somewhere else. These folks don't *want* to go through Heathrow, so why force them? Oh, I remember, it's because BAA run most of the sizeable UK airports and BAA can make more money if they and the airlines force folk through LHR.

Renationalise BAA and shoot the managers.

"And anyway, by most estimates aviation accounts for less than five per cent of global carbon emissions."

....bingo, I knew it was going to be there. I hereby inaugurate the new sport: Register Climate Change Percentage Bingo. Every time one of the unchecked-development-apologists now apparently colonising the Reg uses the "anyway, industry X only accounts for desultory percentage Y of global carbon emissions" argument to suggest that we should let industry X do whatever the hell it likes, take a shot.

In case it's not pathetically obvious, here's the flaw: *no* single operation or industry accounts, all by itself, for a significant percentage of global carbon emissions (or - if we could get off the bloody focus on carbon emissions which one side likes to push because it's simple and the other likes to push because it's not actually that important, hence supporting their argument - consumption of energy, pollution etc etc, much more important than bloody carbon emissions). If it did then it would probably be a damn sight easier to reduce energy consumption, air pollution, damaging impact on biodiversity and - if you really insist - carbon emissions.

Fact is, though, that we do about ten zillion things which cause these problems. Hence, obviously, none of them *on its own* adds up to a significant proportion. The argument that we shouldn't do anything about any given issue because it only represents a small percentage of the problem has an obvious flaw in this case: it applies to every single thing we do that causes the problem, and hence to take the Reg's position to its logical extension, we can never do anything to reduce energy consumption and pollution because we can never address any single cause of it because each single cause, in and of itself, is comparatively insignificant.

If I wasn't so bleeding lazy I'd go back through the archives, note every time the Reg had used this argument, and add up the percentages deployed. But I am lazy, so I won't. Consider it a thought experiment.

Yes, yes YES to Maplin (and M12/M13).

Didn't Boris Johnson make approving noises about such a plan recently?

Spot on, this kind of comes with the terroritory. I have lived next to an RAF base and under the approach to Heathrow so I have experienced it, the benefit is usually cheaper housing

@MG

BAA doesn't set the flight paths but the CAA. Council input is limited but not excluded. The reason is because other things have to be taken into account, spacing from other aircraft (not just other airliners), weather, etc. all the things that keep flying safe.

The studies I have seen for an airport in the Thames Estuary involved building on a bird santuary, how is this greener than expanding Heathrow? It just moves the airport out of sight and this is what Lewis is driving at.

The number of runways doesn't necessarily define the pollution, Paris CDG has four runways and Amsterdam Schiphol has six. Both of these are hub airports and both have large number of transit passengers, this is inevitable with a hub and spoke system as run by most of the major airlines.

The main impediment to an extra runway (in terms of actual position anyway) are some medieval buildings in one of the villages, why doesn't BAA pay to move them instead of letting them be demolished? Sony did this in Berlin when they built the Sony Centre, moving the few remaining parts of a famous hotel from the 1920's, preserving them for the future.

Personally I would like the third runway but with the number of flights kept similar to today. Then the delays would mostly go away (can't do anything about the weather). It would be nice to see high speed trains in the UK to reduce the number of regional flights and from London to Paris but I would take the train today anyway. However for flights going further into Europe than France it would still be quicker to fly.

I live in London so know all about the aircraft noise problem. I've lived all over and in every spot aeroplanes have woken me up at one point or another but then that's city life I suppose.

However I am firmly against the Heathrow plans. I worked on the consultation and to be honest it's the biggest stich up I've seen in my career. Professional advice was not taken in order to fudge some data and i had a real problem with that attitude from those who are supposed to be there to look after our interests. To be honest i don't know how some people sleep at night.

There's no way, without a massive unforseen change in the way aircraft work, that Heathrow can ever meet it's noise and air pollution limits. The third runway is going to happen not because it's right or because there's a strong economic case but because of lobbying by those who stand to gain hand over fist (BAA) while others without such powers stand to lose out (Local residents, air travellers).

At the end of the day people may choose to live near an airport but it is unfair to suddenly start exposing people to aircraft noise when there are viable alternatives (e.g. the many Thames Estuary proposals) and it is certainly not on to take risks with people's health with very optimistic predictions on additional NO2 pollution. Wherever people live surely they have a right to an environment which has pollution below dangerous levels even if this means that BAA are going to have to look elsewhere for profits.

I recently flew on a new Embraer jet, which had fuel consumption and CO2 production figures on a card in the seat pocket.

For UK domestic flights, it uses almost as much fuel taxiing, taking off and landing, as it does flying from Gatwick to Belfast.

So landing at an airport like Heathrow and changing planes wastes fuel and increases pollution.

Instead of expanding Heathrow, allow airlines to increase the number of direct, point-to-point flights (as long as they can fill them with passengers). Unfortunately for BAA, these airports are owned by others.

If anyone wonders what my positive suggestion is, it's this: sod all the airports and build trains. Yes, the airport situation will become increasingly nightmarish. That's the idea. Heathrow's already a hellhole, the more of a hellhole it becomes, the more people will want to avoid it. Re-route all the cash and effort from expanding airports into building a proper European high-speed rail network.

Properly handled, high speed trains are by far the most sensible way to get around Europe from all points of view. They're very energy-efficient, produce very little pollution, are much quieter than airplanes, require far less development room, are much less of a security nightmare, are far nicer to travel on (I honestly prefer spending 24 hours on a decades-old train which never gets past 60mph to get from Vancouver to San Francisco than getting on a plane, so you can imagine how much more preferable Eurostar is to a plane ride...), and with the technology we have available these days, would be only slightly slower, the same speed, or even faster than a plane trip. It's a bit of a bleeding no-brainer, really.

The Eurostar people clearly understand this - anyone who's been to St. Pancras will have noticed that it's about ten times larger than it needs to be to handle the current level of use...

Anyone remember that old game Transport Tycoon? Up the the 1950s or so, before any planes with more than 50 passenger capacity showed up, you built almost all train routes. Then from the 1950s-60s through to the 1990s you built a ton of planes. But when the TGV, Eurostar - and later maglev - trains show up from the 1990s onwards, it suddenly stops making much sense to buy planes, and you start building train routes again. I always thought that was pretty much on the button with how it should be.

So, yes, I propose complete neglect for the air travel industry, much as happened to the trains from the 60s to the 90s. Don't give 'em any public money, don't give 'em preferential planning treatment, don't give 'em sod all. Active sabotage a la Dr. Beeching would be fine also, but not really necessary. If we just stop propping it up and start developing the logical alternatives, it'll do a fine job of going away on its own.

A high-speed rail network across continental Europe could be built within a decade or so, reasonably cheaply, and provide reliable, well-priced, extremely energy-efficient and environmentally sound service from England right across to the eastern E.U. states with a journey time of a few hours and far superior comfort and overall experience to what you get in the travel hell that is the air industry these days. I don't know anyone who actually *enjoys* air travel. Why wouldn't we go for this? Heck, you could rebuild the bloody Orient Express (the real one, not the much-reduced service operating under the name today) and make a profit doing it, I reckon.

If you want to get really advanced, there was a Bruce Sterling (I think) book whose name I forget which was set in a world where there were super high speed trains running intercontinental via vast undersea tunnels. We're not quite at that level of engineering yet, but you could do Europe now. All it needs is the political will to get off the 1960s technology that is the passenger jet.

Aircraft are a noisy, polluting nuisance. However, they are at present the only viable means of intercontinental travel and of domestic travel in bigger or lower-density countries.

Further, IME, most European regional flights operating from Heathrow are in smaller, less noisy planes like 737s and A320s.

So the question then, if noise is the problem, is really about volumes of intercontinental travel.

Now, onto London. In the post-Imperial age, London owes its continued economic power and prosperity to its role as a hub of various kinds. It's not like the UK has any major domestic manufacturing industry, or an automated inflow of stuff from the colonies, so London secures its place in the world by being a place of connection -- financially and culturally -- for world business and anglophone culture in general.

In a very real sense then, London's airports are what enables it to maintain its status in the world, and its levels of prosperity. The life of the city which you who live there choose(!) to call home stems from it being a place where people from all around the world choose to do business, congregate and visit for personal of professional reasons.

So you are called to make a compromise, and the question for you guys is, what is London's status as a global hub worth? It's not just about ongoing flights -- it's just as easy to connect through, say, Frankfurt or CDG. It's about how easy it is to keep your city a global hub of money and culture.

You don't get to have both prosperity and peace & quiet.

Ssshhh! It's a cunning plan by HM government. By convincing everyone that they're *not* interested in Maplin airport eventually it'll become surplus stock, Maplin will reduce it by 40% and bundle the M12/M13 with it for free*.

*if we're really lucky we may get some toy helicopters, solar patio lighting and CCTV kit thrown in too.

Look here mate, Heathrow is rubbish, BAA are Rubbish and a virtual monopoly as well and thats never been good for us lot now has it!

My solution:

1) force BAA to sell of 3 of 6 major Airports including Heathrow or Gatwick. They can repay their debts, invest in their airports and stop screwing us.

2) Move all non passenger, i.e. air freight, to a new purpose built airport outside of London and the M25, connected with rail, road and anything else links.

3) This will increase efficiency in air freight, reduce local air and road congestion and allow for passenger flight expansion without building another runway. Maybe even make Heathrow usable or at least less painful.

Speccy guy as i am being sarcastic, its a easy win solution.

You people are friggin kidding. I live in Streatham Common, at least 15km from Heathrow, and frequently get to experience long-haul planes going overhead making enough noise to drown out normal conversation at a sunday barbecue.

According to the grauniad BA 26 (5 am every morning) hits two million people with at least 50 decibels. The idea that everyone who is inconvenienced by LHR noise is some sort of nimby is just ludicrous.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/19/pollution.theairlineindustry

It would appear that supermarkets are just as dodgy:

http://www.morrisons.co.uk/today/

Morrisons claim that they have "today" saved enough energy throughout their stores to power 18 million 3 bedroom homes for the whole day. As there are only 25 million dwellings in the UK this seems a little fanciful from the off

http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/facts/index43.aspx?ComponentId=12642&SourcePageId=19659

Morries have 375 stores http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrisons

So that's 48,000 homes per store.

From http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=7287 a typical household uses 1960kg oil equivalent per annum. **Note at this point that households use gas as well as electricity, but it's all power**

So lets be generous and say that a 3-bed home would only use 1000kg oil equivalent (or 1 tonne, in energy circles known as a TOE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton_of_oil_equivalent ) per annum.

To save any messing about working in single days, we'll consider one year for each store and its 48,000 associated homes.

48,000 homes @ 1 TOE pa = 1 store at 48,000 TOE pa

Now, 1 TOE is equal to 11.630MWh so in a year the store is saving 48,000 x 11.630 = 558240 MWh per year,

If we divide by 365, and then 24 we get a figure of ~63 MWh per hour, or an energy rating of 63MW for each store. (assuming constant load through the day and year)

back to our figure of 375 stores and that's 375 x 63 = 23.6GW for them all. And that's just the power they've saved, we've never even thought about what they've used. That means we could close down nearly 6 Drax Power stations, but as Drax is about 7% of our national generating capacity that seems fanciful - it means Morrisons claim to every day to have reduced their power consumption by 42% of the electricity on the national grid. And they're smaller than Tesco, Asda, and Sainsbury's. Imagine if they did decided to help in the same way, we could switch off all our power stations!

Now I know each store will be supported by a whole load of other infrastructure that uses up energy, from the diesel in the trucks to the plant at their depots. But they say in their stores and even so....