Why London’s Broken Airport Is IMPOSSIBLE to Fix
Video Overview & Insights
While both Atlanta and Shanghai operate with five active runways, Heathrow has only two. And the problem is, for almost two decades, those two runways have been operating at full capacity, leaving virtually no room to handle delays, bad weather, or growing passenger demand. As more people pass through Heathrow than ever before, the airport is inching dangerously close to its breaking point. And if it fails to keep up, there is a real risk of losing the Crown as Europe's busiest airport within a decade, with serious consequences for the entire British economy. And it is not as though Heathrow does not want to expand. In fact, the plan for a third runway was first proposed back in 2003. But for the past twenty years, the project has been mired in controversy over environmental concerns, political fistfights, and fierce opposition from surrounding communities whose villages would be wiped off the map entirely.
in your cometary you fail to mention that London has 3 International airports (Heathrow, Stanstead, and Gatwick) and a slightly smaller airport just north on London in Luton, not including London City airport. This current idiotic government gave the go-ahead with a third runway which will consume more than two square miles of green land, and reduce the air quality in the area, which is currently one of the worst in Europe.On top of these factors, the airport itself is $16 Billion in debt, and the new runway will cost up to $63 Billion without a single aircraft taking off or landing from it until 2050. Fundamentally, Heathrow is a transfer hub, with the only people benefitting from the new third runway being passengers transiting through the airport to a follow on destination, while destroying the environment in the surrounding area.
When the project finally received formal approval last year, the Mayor of London threatened to take the government to court. And even if that hurdle is cleared, the engineering reality is daunting. Building a new runway in the middle of a live, operating airport, hemmed in by one of Europe's busiest motorways, will be one of the most complex construction challenges in British history. So with Britain's aviation future hanging in the balance, will this runway ever be built? And more importantly, can this $65 billion dollar gamble save the UK from an aviation crisis it has spent twenty years creating?
This residential area is one of the reasons the concord was put out of service btw
More User Perspectives
480 is not 1/3 of 740. Hate to be THAT GUY, but that math ain't mathing
@jimmytwo-toesbrown102814:15 bro is happy about something
@ProfessorNiffwickWhat they need to do is run high speed direct rail between LHR and the other london airports, with transfers available airside. Make all the airports work together as if they're different terminals.
@CD3MCHeathrow will never get a 3rd runway.
They're better off channeling their efforts to get Getwick, Stanstead of Luton another runway, which at least would be do-able.
Sounds like UK built the best airport ... for HK, the Hong Kong International Airport
@wanchben2The UK is in terminal decline, and by 2060 will be a majority muslim country under shiria law. There will be no need for all that airport capacity when we are living back in the darkn ages.
@Regent1509Thames is pronounced "tems"
@Regent1509This is the dumbest thing I’ve heard Atlanta isn’t the busiest airport in the world dumbass Heathrow os by far the second busiest international airports in the world fact also British air traffic control is arguably the best at it to we haven’t had problems with it operating 2 runways and most residential areas where built after Heathrow was built so that there problem moving to an areas where your gonna be in the flight path of arriving and departing aircraft
@connorsmall6909brilliant video. thank you
@anetakocisova1123Heathrow has had a huge problem with connecting satellite buildings and terminals together sometimes. My mom missed a flight once over there because of problems with the underground walkway. Adding more satellite buildings like new T2 will become a major nightmare for passengers.
@The_PilotKidSadiq Khan is the worst thing that has happened to London since the great fire of London in 1666!
@MarushDenchevNo delays in Heathrow? 😂😂😂
@2drcstnThere is another obstacle to the proposed location of "Boris Island" for a new airport. Just offshore is the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery, a WW2 cargo ship containing 1400 tonnes (1500 short tons) of unexploded bombs that were intended to be dropped over Germany. The water is so shallow that the ship's masts remain above the water. The constant vibration from jet engines might cause an explosion (approximately one-tenth as strong as the Hiroshima atomic bomb) that would produce a tsunami as high as 5 meters travelling up the Thames, flooding London. Removing the explosives is risky, so for 8 decades the UK has followed the seemingly sensible course of action: do nothing and hope the wreck deteriorates slowly.
@JPMaddenA third runway is incompatible with climate commitments and shouldn’t go ahead. Even considering it in a climate crisis is ridiculous.
@AlasdairMacCaluimLabour will fix it with a new runway. That's how smart they are.
@kquat7899if the third runway construction is supposed to be one of the most daunting challenges in HISTORY of British Architecture, then this country hasnt achieved JACK SHIT.
@commanderrhexenor5898It's pronounced TEMS, not TAMES.
@Jack-hy1zqHeathrow. The only airport in the developed world I have been to that is worse than LAX.
@KhoaVo-z3nI think what boris proposed is more realistic and beneficial economically long term as long as the location he proposed gets changed if you look at asia many big airports are built like that in places like china and india and overtime it contributes alot to the economy as a whole
@shehbaazzzz121As if the 5 airports London already has were not enough to be connected. Anyone advocating for more pollution and noise is simply mad.
@sarahsarah2534How stupid can one be to advocate for more runways on a planet dying of pollution.
@sarahsarah2534Well, I guess the video didn't explain all the arguments against the expansion in detail, but that's fine. As a foreign visitor, I'll be flying into Gatwick this week and would have very much preferred the more central Heathrow. But would I be depriving Londoners of their sleep for this?
I don't think Boris Johnson's idea was bad as such, but it seems tricky to implement. The high speed rail connection idea in particular is a good one. Imagine the airport being a hub not only for flights, but also for high speed rail travel. The interconnectivity here is a very high value proposition. The general idea of "compensate for proximity to the city by high-speed rail" is also sound (think Oslo, Shanghai as examples). But you don't want the city's airport capacity to be split too much over different airports - unless the airports themselves are linked very efficiently. That's a pretty tall order.
PS: Now if Gatwick just had a fast rail link to Heathrow... that would much improve my personal "use case"
We should have built the Thames Estuary Airport instead in 2010.
@wildsurfer12Theyre so busy colonizing that they didnt build a proper airport 🙄😂
@nonameseptemberWait, london is third world??? 😢😢
@nonameseptemberHeathrow is a mess. In the EU I try to via Frankfurt (inner Europe), Madrid (Americas) and especially Istanbul (all east and actually nice!)
@RonSommarSo I’m guessing people just want London to fall behind then? Why the fuck are they protesting against this 😂😂😂. Deluded
@SkyReport_360On a flight through Heathrow 2 years ago, there were only 2 screening staff for a plane load of passengers. And for the first time in over 10 years of travel to both developing and developed countries, I had to take my liquids bag out of my handcarry - all the other airports had advanced scanners that didn't require this. Sadly, the most disappointing thing of all was how incredibly rude the Heathrow airport staff were. I think this surprised me the most as people from the UK I've met in the past have always been polite, funny and charming.
@JustSam0107For a country with a Navy that has more Admirals than ships, the third runway seems impossible.
@bryandevries7210The official reason Heathrow can't have a 3rd runway is environmental impact.
Yet HS2 was allowed to carve through hundreds of miles of countryside and green belt.
Whether by vested interests or institutional dysfunction, the outcome is the same - Heathrow slots remain artificially scarce and valuable, Britain's main global gateway remains capacity constrained whilst rival international hubs continue to gain ground.
A strange strategy for a country that says it wants economic growth, almost as if it's engaged in a form of self-sabotage...
If they do not have sufficient economic capacity to simultaneously proceed the Heathrow new runway and HS2, they'd better trade the Heathrow new runway for a more complete HS2 – I mean, including the Birmingham - Leeds section, and consider extension to Edinburg, in order to replace domestic short-haul flights.
What's more, they'd better consider add a sufficiently high speed (≥310km/h) new bypass mainline in the south of London, which replaces the original mainlines of HS1 and HS2, turning the originally mainlines into branch lines, in order to satisfy demands like Paris - Manchester, and replace short-haul flights.
Well i believe a new airport would be the way to go, in Greece we had to do the same as the 2004 olympics were closing in and the main international airport had only one runway and one terminal being similar to a regional airport but also surrounded by residential neighbourhoods, what they did is that they built a new airport on the outskirts of the city and they linked it with affordable and fast public transport, because in general even if the third runway plan comes to pass it will be a relatively temporary fix because it will not allow room for additional expansion. In the past it was common to have an airport close to the city when air travel was a luxury for the few it was convenient and not a big problem for the local residents, it is one thing having planes arriving and departing every few minutes and another thing to have planes departing and arriving every couple hours. But now with much more demand for air travel and much more frequent planes landing and taking off it is more unbearable for the local residents, that's why now international airports are on the outskirts of the city which allows a reasonable room for expansion but also allowing take offs and landings at all times of the day without much inconvenience to the local residents.
So in short i believe the best bet would be a new international airport, sooner or later it will need to happen.
Which was built first? The Airport or the houses?
If they can demolish houses for stadiums and compensate they can definetely do so for something that can boost your economy...look what Emirates did for DUBAI...England needs the money they must not act like they dont!😂😂😂
Nice video questioning every expansion possibility.
IMO Heathrow expansion or the only real thing to do.
Otherwise they will debate it over the next 30 years, as the other airports are just way too far out for people who need to get into London quickly.
Other possibility would be to expand gatwick and make this airport primarily a hub-airport for connecting flights and in return bring the flights of people who really need to go to london over to heathrow
Just saying as the spelling is unhelpful:
The river Thames is pronounced "Te(h)ms".
Speaking as an Englishman, the real reason Heathrow doesn't already have a third (and fourth!) runway is we are incapable of delivering infrastructure projects on time and on budget...
...the cost of a staggering overrun on expanding Heathrow is more than this country can afford and everybody knows it. Then there is of course the very much related British political disease of short-sighted selfish indecision. Why do anything that might cost voters today?
PS: I don't understand why the proposed new runway has to be built over the motorway. If it lined up with the other two fewer changes would have to be made and the airport would take up less space.
Interesting but missed the night time closure of Heathrow. Also a bit repetitive.
@toveycanem1we need more trains - bring in the Chinese they built a complete nationwide system in a dozen years, no need short haul flights.
@anoxicmoronHeathrow just works for shareholders, not passengers, classic capitalism,.
@anoxicmoronTerminal 3 - 3 charging points working! the rest ( maybe a dozen only) unplugged. Heathrow sucks,
@anoxicmoron2035! That's years after Dubai completes the expansion of DWC in 2032 which accommodates 260 billion annual customers
@tutorialmadness3836The simple solution is do what’s right for the nation’s economy and prosperity. Ignore all the environmental and noise arguments, and build what needs to be built, not just for now, but for years from now. Build the next two expansions now. There should be no mechanism for environmentalists and NIMBYs to stop infrastructure projects.
@Cat10980True story. In 2015 when I told my dad that my roommate worked for Heathrow, specifically the third runway project, he said to me "they're still talking about that? They were talking about that when your mother and I were still together". They divorced in 1995.
@renegadeoffunk32They might as well just build a new airport. Forgot Heathrow it’s too constrained.
@86wellacreLet us 🇨🇭 digg a tunnel for you 😊
@MFCH-1291It’s pronounced “temz”
@DumboSanchezWhen are they going to provide Oxford and Swindon with an Airport?
@digeroo1234Can’t fix the pothole issues, like this’ll ever happen. UK government is in la la land
@Sunsetmerchant