| Topic: | Re:All Day Flights ‘Worse Than Third Runway’ | |
| Posted by: | David Farmery | |
| Date/Time: | 20/10/08 15:06:00 |
| Heathrow grew like topsy, and even after the partial privatisation of the British Airports Authority no one planned it logically. It's in it's present location because it was an RAF base half way between Whitehall and Windsor with the odd York taking off and landing using the best runway, of which there were many, into the prevailing wind (usually SW). Even now a surprising number of movements are military. The deciding factor in the location of T5 was that the most important statistic in international airtravel is the time from touch down to baggage in hall. BA doesn't have to taxi far to get onto a jetty served stand. I worked on T5 in the early days of it's design, and Richard Rogers and team have made a brilliant building. Go and sit in the Cafe Nero in departures as a Singapore Airways A380 takes off towards Windsor! (They wouldn't have built the castle there if they'd known Heathrow was going to get to 90 mppa.) It's a shame London's main airport is not the other side of town, as it would have made Crossrail and a good night's sleep viable 25 years ago. |