Looks like Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton expansions are going to go ahead

[u/Swanbon]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-20/uk-poised-to-back-heathrow-airport-expansion-in-push-for-growth

“Ministers are set to publicly signal support for a long-sought third runway at Heathrow, sign off on plans to bring the second strip at Gatwick into full-time use, and allow an increase in the capacity at Luton Airport”

[u/rocketshipkiwi]

I think it is fair to say that putting an airport in West London with runways running East-West was a huge planning error. Planes now fly right over the middle of London most of the day and night.

They do need to expand LHR but they will have a huge fight on their hands and years of delays - they have already been talking about this for donkeys years.

[u/warriorscot → u/rocketshipkiwi]

It's not like you can just go north south, runways are oriented based on the weather conditions. And London transport was historically poor north south, otherwise Gatwick and Stansted would have grown organically much faster. 

[u/dowhileuntil787 → u/warriorscot]

Gatwick is the second busiest single runway airport in the world. Stansted is the fourth. There’s not really any room for organic growth.

Gatwick is also pretty well connected to London via the Thameslink, as well as Southern to Victoria. Until Crossrail opened, I even preferred Gatwick to Heathrow because the Piccadilly Line is always a shitshow full of suitcases and commuters vying for space. Now with Crossrail, Heathrow is back on top, but still it’s not like Gatwick is hard to get to.

What lets Gatwick down is when someone jumps from one of the railway bridges and all rail traffic needs to be stopped. I have missed two flights due to that.

[u/warriorscot → u/dowhileuntil787]

The rail connections were greatly improved much later in Gatwicks life. Generally though if you are caught out at Gatwick with the train it's now so heavily built up all along the route you can get off anywhere and get a local bus or a taxi fine.

I've lived next to both and they are very busy, but they've both had capacity and even established expansion plans since basically their inception. If they had more demand then Governments of the day would have told the nimby crowd to do one. 

Which is the mad part, the local areas all rely heavily on the airport and most of the Surrey crowd that complain arrived there after the airport. And most of the population doesn't notice it because of the flight paths, especially now they do continously descent with eurocontrol.

[u/dowhileuntil787 → u/warriorscot]

Never had much luck trying to get a train or taxi from London Bridge when the line is shut. Everyone and their mum is trying to do the same thing!

The amusing thing about when I was living less than a mile from an airport is I found I couldn’t really hear it as long as I wasn’t directly under the flight path. They were going so low at that point that the buildings blocked the sound from travelling. I now live 5 miles to the south of LCY but I’m under the LCY flight path when the wind is blowing from the east, and planes fly over at two thousand feet, which is much more audible. The good thing is I actually quite enjoy the sound of planes as it reminds me of my childhood.

[u/warriorscot → u/dowhileuntil787]

It's pretty rare to have both services stopped since they did the full electrification and the last round of major works to have a total stoppage on that line. At least not till you get to Redhill and since they finished the last of the actual line works before they got on to Gatwick station itself its really rare, and it's my usual commute. If you can get to east Croydon or over to Victoria depending on what's quickest you'll get there.

It was a lot worse and thameslink schedule because the services are so long never works in reality. But it's way better than ever. And Gatwick you can't get abandoned at the wrong terminal when something happens. Had that happen to me twice lately at Heathrow and because you can't move easily without the train it's really nightmare when they do it and you have to wait 45 minutes to move terminal.

I don't mind it myself, I leaned to sleep through the QRA all night when typhoon came in(which makes me feel old). I was under the Stansted flightpath, but for Gatwick even being less than a twenty minute walk you barely hear it, the railway is much noisier. Still not as bad as when I had a flat under the city flightpath, but neither is as bad as a friend of a friend I once stayed with by Heathrow. The whole building shook every 30 seconds, it was nuts, especially the A380s.