Adding to London's Heathrow Airport is the most cost-effective way of delivering extra capacity to the capital's busiest but most constrained airport, its owners are asserting. In the next fortnight, airport managers will deliver evidence to the U.K. Airports Commission outlining their ambitions to expand the Heathrow site. Long gone are plans to take a fresh look at new locations west of Heathrow, plans suggested in consultation documents and since discarded (AW&ST April 22, p. 36). Politicians have no appetite for a new-build facility east of London in the Thames Estuary, an idea originally mooted by London Mayor Boris Johnson. In their report, Heathrow: Best Placed for Britain, Heathrow and architectural and planning consultants Aecom and Quod say the U.K. is best served by a single hub airport, rather than splitting hub operations between Heathrow and an expanded Gatwick or Stansted, and that any delays caused by indecision are having dramatic effects on U.K. earnings. "Any delay is critical, as the UK. is losing some £14 billion [$21 billion] a year in trade and export earnings due to constraints in aviation hub capacity," says the report.
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