So the masterplan is revealed, including the third runway:
It just strikes me as fucking stupid, really. Heathrow is an awful place for a busy airport, it should be somewhere further away from built-up areas. The third runway is further away from the terminals, which is forced due to the geography.
But ultimately it’s too little, too late. @68rednose 's comments about Schiphol are interesting: in 2010 it was the 20th busiest airport in the world, in 2017 it was 9th, and ahead of Heathrow. Why would anyone fly to Heathrow unless they are flying to the UK? Schiphol (and Paris CDG) means you can get to loads of countries much easier.
So we are left with an expensive kludge to an old airport in the wrong place, that will never recover its place in the world. It’s an analogy for the whole country.
I think you’ve missed the point of why it’s the most popular airport we have. A zillion people (people who can afford to pay for lots of expensive flights) love it precisely because they can be home 80 minutes after touchdown. When I used to fly regularly getting to Heathrow was easy. Gatwick was a pain. Luton was dreadful. There were no words for Stansted.
This. For the last few years of our time in Australia I would usually fly into Schipol or Frankfurt and then change planes to wherever I was going. Often I was better off to do this and fly into Stanstead or City to get to Cambridge given the shambles at Heathrow and the M25/M11 nightmare into Cambridge rush hour traffic. Heathrow is an absolute disaster. I haven’t used it once since 2008, despite being an extremely frequent long and short haul flyer.
Private vs public spending. When the private sector smells a certain profit they are in it to the hilt. I suspect there was little, if any, private money in Swansea.