previously on unfinished London London
has six airports Heathrow Gatwick
Stansted Luton South in city but the
biggest and most important by far is
Heathrow here it is in 1945 it used to
have six runways arranged in this shape
and here it is in 2014 two of the
runways have been in bigand so that
today's massive planes can use them the
terminal has been completely rebuilt and
new ones added here here here and here
the four old runways haven't been used
for decades because they're too short
now but they can still clearly be seen
from above you can see just how huge
Heathrow has now become today Heathrow
has become the busiest International
Airport on the planet more than a third
of the 70 million passengers who use
Heathrow every year are not even
visiting London they're changing planes
on all sorts of improbable journeys from
Hong Kong to Honduras must go to Miami
and Aberdeen to Abu Dhabi why should we
care about all these people who use our
Airport without even popping in to say
hello well they bring in cash from the
airport tax they bring in cash for
British Airlines passengers with a long
wait for their connecting flight we'll
spend a night in London contributing to
the local economy and it makes London
the best place to do business but not
for long
Heathrow with its two runways is
starting to fall massively behind its
rival hub airports in Europe such as
Paris shell de Gaulle which operates 24
hours a day
madrid-barajas which has four huge
runways and outer dam Schiphol that the
staggering six runways and still room to
expand further if it wants to everywhere
you look around the world this is what
modern airports are supposed to look
like in 2014 and Heathrow is starting to
look helplessly small
poor Heathrow can't expand because its
location in what's now become the middle
of the suburbs means it's hemmed in by
thousands of disgruntled neighbors so
what's it like living next door to the
world's busiest airport
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to placate the residents of Hounslow
Richmond and Windsor the British British
Aviation Authority has a number of
restrictions on the airport no flights
are allowed between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.
so the locals can get some sleep but
during the day planes can take off every
46 seconds if a slightest delay occurs
the knock-on effects can go on for hours
and landings really tricky too in such a
crowded Airport planes often have to go
round and round in circles waiting for
the runway to be free isn't that just
typically British just like with our
trains and our sport we got there first
and now we're the worst in 2001 a plan
was put forward to get Heathrow back in
competition and it was one of the most
controversial British plans and British
planning history plans they suggested
building a third runway north of the
current - all they had to do to make
room for it was destroy an entire
village very unsurprisingly the local
residents were furious and terrified a
massive don't expand Heathrow campaign
was started fact by Greenpeace the
Conservative Party and celebrity
impressionist alistair mcgowan so the
designers apologized and came up with a
better plan extending the current
runways to the west where the only
things in the way are the m25 and a
reservoir again why didn't they just
think of that in the first place but the
protesters still weren't happy the point
was an expanded Heathrow would become
the biggest producer of co2 in the
country a pretty irresponsible move
given how serious we now know the issue
of climate change to be expanding
Heathrow would be a disaster but if he
throws stage at its current size it
would lose its hub status within a
decade
if Heathrow falls behind London falls
behind and if London falls behind the UK
falls behind and that simply couldn't be
allowed to happen
ow a massive do expand Heathrow campaign
was started back by Airlines trade
unions and celebrity business beard
Richard Branson not expanding Heathrow
would be a disaster
it seems that no matter what the
government decide to do they'll be
pissing off a lot of people how on earth
do you reconcile the demands of the
locals the economy the airlines and the
environment one man who thinks he has
the solution to everything is Tory Mayor
of London Boris Johnson
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Boris Island like many other things
named after him wasn't actually his idea
but I have to admit it is a really
catchy name
it's basically the same idea as the one
suggested in the 1970s by captain stupid
name and building an airport on
reclaimed land in the middle of the sea
has been done loads of times before the
Japanese do it all the time
Kansai Narita chubu Nagasaki the
advantages of borås island can be most
clearly seen from Google Earth the site
is huge there space for four runways
plus plenty of really the sea for a few
more planes can take off and land 24
hours a day because it's over water
rather than land so there's no one
nearby to complain about the noise at
least no one who matters but the scheme
has plenty of disadvantages to Boris
Island raises more questions than it
answers such as how are people going to
get from London to the new airport more
trains onto the already crowded
high-speed one a new motorway there's
not much room for either of those what
about the environment is no better for
co2 emissions than an expanded Heathrow
in fact it's a lot but how long is it
going to take if Boris island does go
ahead it won't be finished for at least
another 30 years and I don't plan to
live that long and finally the biggest
question of them all who's going to pay
for it
sources estimate that the entire scheme
will cost more than a hundred thousand
pounds while the politicians bicker
about whether or not Boris Thailand will
ever actually be built there's something
I'm particularly fascinated by that no
one seems to have mentioned if Boris
Island replaces
throw and he throw gets closed what are
they going to put in its place we've
already seen what happened to London's
first generation of airports that closed
in the 50s but he throws different from
all of these because it's huge it's
3,000 acres of totally flat land served
by the Piccadilly line and cross rail
and the m4 and the m25 and millions of
people already living nearby so what
would you do with Heathrow farming
mostly West London needs a green lung a
massive lawn with an angry guy telling
you to get off my land a house big
enough for your mum solve our prison
overcrowding problem by building an
offender's village gave of Thrones land
this is all nonsense it'll basically be
another canary ball I've a geography
teacher Nando's hashtag Nando's hashtag
I love Nando's disappointingly it turns
out that if they build Boras Island
Heathrow is staying open anyway so if
Boris Islands too radical and expanding
he throws too unpopular then what else
could we do to solve the capacity
problem started and Luton have both
offered themselves up from beginning
arrogantly thinking they can replace
Heathrow Gatwick wants to build a second
runway and there's even talk of
connecting up gap with to Heathrow with
a new railway in the naive assumption
that travellers will be willing to use
both airports as a super inconvenient
double hub there is a fourth option
doing nothing after all is London
justified in wishing to remain an
international hub if you actually look
at the economic argument it's all built
on potential future business
suspiciously everybody who says that
London needs an international hub stands
to make quite a lot of money from it is
it just possible that he throws future
as a decent sized Airport really
wouldn't be so bad in any case it's not
up to me going on right now as we speak
is a commission to answer the question
once and for all so Howard Davis the
modern-day equivalent of raw skill has
until the general election in 2015 to
come up with the answer whatever he
decides we won't know if he's made the
right decision until about 2050 3 when
it'll be really obvious what he should
have done
the future has always been about flying
a simulation that the future doesn't
look right unless it's got things
whizzing through the air but what does
the future really hold for air trouble
will there be bigger planes vertical
take-off space travel the end of
civilization before technology has time
to improve we have no options but to
guess we've been getting it slightly
wrong for the last hundred years and it
looks like we'll continue getting it
wrong for many years to come
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