

Six reasons why Heathrow is not the UK's hub airport - chippy
http://tomforth.co.uk/hubairports/

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PhantomGremlin
Strange that nowhere in the article does it mention that LHR only has two
parallel runways. Compare to other hubs. E.g. Atlanta's ATL has five, and
Dallas's DFW has seven.

As Wikipedia puts it [1]:

    
    
       With only two runways, operating at over 98%
       of their capacity, Heathrow has little room
       for more flights 
    

It's hard to be "the" hub airport until that problem is solved.

Edit: just looked up Amsterdam's AMS runway situation. They have six. It's
hard for me to understand how someone writes an article like this without
understanding such very very basic facts.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathrow#Regulation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathrow#Regulation)

~~~
welshguy
The author just chose to look at the externalities - few passengers choose an
airport because of the number of runways. They make their selection based on
various criteria, many of which the author captured in this article. The
number of runways is just one of the factors that percolate upwards and result
in a score for price, connectivity, local transport etc.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
It's true that the number or runways is "just one of the factors", but it's by
far the most important one. The author's list doesn't really matter if
Heathrow's runways are fully utilized.

So when the author says

    
    
       From Heathrow you can fly to seven places
       in the UK. From Manchester you can fly to
       thirteen. It's hardly a hub airport if you
       can't use it as a hub is it?
    

his argument is pointless. You CAN'T grow from seven places to thirteen places
without being able to take off or land the planes!!!

The author keeps making the same mistake when he says

    
    
       You can fly from Amsterdam Schiphol airport
       to a whopping twenty-four airports in the UK!
    

Well, duh! Schiphol has seven runways, Heathrow has two. That's the biggest
problem with Heathrow. It's full.

