A UK govt committee has selected a third runway at London Heathrow as the best option to boost capacity in the UK south east. The third Heathrow runway was chosen as the best of 3 potential solutions. The other options were extending Heathrow’s northern runway (Heathrow Hub), or adding a runway at London Gatwick. The decision has been pending since the Airports Commission released its conclusions in 2015. Heathrow said the runway allows for up to 40 more long-haul destinations, as well as improved domestic connectivity, when it opens in 2025. However, Gatwick remains unconvinced that the complex and costly Heathrow expansion is deliverable and remains ready to step in. “We are ready to deliver within 10 years of being given the green light,” a Gatwick spokesman said. <br/>
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Southend airport, seeking to become London’s sixth hub even though it’s almost an hour away on the North Sea, will operate its own flights in a bid to demonstrate the viability of an expanded timetable to carriers frustrated by capacity curbs at the far bigger Heathrow and Gatwick bases. The services to cities in mainland Europe will employ planes from Southend’s sister company Stobart Air, tapping unused slots outside of peak hours with the aim of showing customers including EasyJet that the timings can be profitably utilised, a company spokesman said. Southend aims to lift its passenger tally above 2.5m by 2018 from less than 1m in 2015 as a lack of operating slots elsewhere presents an opportunity for expansion. <br/>
Passenger traffic at Dubai International in September reached 7.09m, up 10.3% compared to 6.4m recorded in the corresponding month last year. This year the airport has welcomed 62.9m passengers to date, up 7.2% from the 58.69m recorded during the first 9 months of 2015. Eastern Europe was the fastest-growing market in September (up 23.6%), thanks to additional capacity and new services launched by a number of carriers. It was followed by the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, Asia, and the Indian Subcontinent. India remained the top destination country (909,102 passengers), followed by the UK and Saudi Arabia. London was again the top destination city with 323,515 passengers, followed by Doha and Kuwait. Baku (up 184.2%) topped the list of cities in terms of percentage growth. <br/>
Dubai International has introduced a new measure to make the best use of its increasingly busy airspace. The airport is already the world’s busiest in terms of international passengers. The steadily growing number of movements at DIA and neighbouring airports at Abu Dhabi, Al Bateen and Sharjah are adding to congestion in this sector of the lower Gulf. Local air navigation service provider (ANSP) Dubai Air Navigation Services (dans) is seeking methods to maximise airspace and airport capacity under its Transform the Sky program. As part of this scheme, it has introduced an approach peak offload (APO) procedure. Under this procedure, aircraft with lighter wake vortices are allocated to just one of Dubai International’s two runways, 30R, during peak arrival periods. <br/>