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Heathrow to hit limit on flights

Sunday 18 Nov 2007 9:06pm

London Heathrow Airport is limited to 480,000 fights a year and this limit was agreed as part of planning requirements when the go-ahead was given for the new terminals. At the time of writing, Heathrow is close to their limit with only 3,000 flights "available" over the winter period. In summer 2008, airlines are expected to have increased flights which will take them to the maximum 480,000 flights a year. The UK Government is due to reveal the consultation documents on the Heathrow Airport extra and third runway on Friday 23rd November. IATA, the world airline trade body has always encouraged governments to tackle infrastructure issues at airports, and Heathrow reaching the maximum number of flights is expected and hoped to sway the governments decision on increasing capacity at Heathrow. A two-stage plan is expected to be announced of which the first stage will mean a change to how the runways operate which will immediately allow an increased 70,000 flights per year - taking the airport up to 550,000 flights per year. However, changing the operation of the runways will result London residents seeing more overhead flights for flights to Europe and beyond, or even flights to New York. The second stage of the plan expected to be announced involves the construction of a third runway at Heathrow. This new runway will increase capacity by an extra 200,000 flights per year but it unlikely to be complete by 2015 at the earliest.

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