London Heathrow to get a third runway as rival airports throw in the towel

It has taken over four decades for London Heathrow Airport, which once had six runways, to be able to say that its planned and government-authorised third parallel runway is now "shovel ready".

In reality, that is not the case, because it still has to wear the millstone of planning applications, objections and appeals that stultify the British judicial system, and that will remain so even if the government passes more legislation to speed things up.

Already opposition is brewing and the London mayor has said that he will sue to prevent the runway being built - the same helpful approach that characterised the actions of his predecessor, who wanted to close Heathrow down in favour of a new airport floating in the River Thames, on the other side of the UK's capital city.

London is peculiar in the way that it handles traffic, with six airports in total bearing its name, every one of which, apart from Heathrow, sports only a single runway.

Just about all of them pitched in (in one way or another, and along with several of the senior provincial airports) for a piece of the action when the Airports Commission examined the need for another runway in the UK, over a decade ago, and eventually selected Heathrow for that honour.

Not a single one of them has so far even commented on what could adversely affect those airports. It is, indeed, as if their corners have thrown in the towel as the boxer is counted out on his feet.

But will it actually be built? Ever?

Heathrow itself talks in terms of a 10-year construction project; there will be expensive surface transport works involved with indeterminate financiers for them, there is a plausible alternative proposal that is gaining traction, and the public opposition is mounting.

Perhaps the clue lies in the comments from Ryanair, which would love to operate there if the price was right, and the operational deficiencies overcome, despite what its Group CEO says. He reckons it would not open before 2040, and who knows what the air transport outlook will be by then?