Suburban Chimp - Finance & Social Commentary

So BAA not content with a fifth terminal at Heathrow Airport, there is now talk of a third runway and a ‘six’ terminal before they have even finished the fifth. Up to 300,000 more flights a year are mentioned, (I’ve been reading the BBC).

The justification for this is that Heathrow is running at full capacity and all these additions are required to aid economic growth, blah, blah, blah. I used to live near Heathrow and I can tell you, pollution aside the noise is already dreadful and I really feel for millions of people who live in the surrounding area who have to put up with it. When a plane is flying over your house every few minutes it’s not much fun.

I now live closer to Gatwick and there is resistance to expansion at that particular airport too and since I’m a NIMBY, I agree that it shouldn’t be expanded.

Back to Heathrow. My maths is shocking, but if there are an additional 300,000 flights a year, and these are passenger flights and not freight (I don’t know the breakdown), how many passengers does this equate to? If we are really conservative with the figures and say that on average there are a 100 people on each flight, doesn’t that mean there is an additional 30 Million passengers per year, on top of what’s already coming into Heathrow? Can the Piccadilly Line really handle that, or the Heathrow Express? I’ll tell you one thing which won’t be able to handle it as it is already at breaking point- the road system. The A4, A30 and M25 are struggling already, congestion around Heathrow is already a complete joke and is only going to get worse.

Suburban Chimp say’s Stop Heathrow Expansion- Heathrow is big enough already, is causing misery to millions already, has had it’s day already, so find another solution.

And lets not start on the polution Pollution ramifications , just so we can ‘aid’ the economy, apparently.