The number of airline passengers increased annually in the past decade according to the conducted studies. This has put a great strain on this means of transportation. There has been a need to expand the airport facilities and at the same time build new airports this is brought about by the escalating volume of freight and passenger flows. The airport design and operation are closely related, though, in previous instances they were dealt with separately. This is evident by the fact that if poor designs are implemented then this affects operations adversely. At the same time a proper comprehension of the operation is required in order to attain good design (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009). There are several factors to be considered when it comes to the design and operation of the airport and, hence, to the expansion of the airport.
There are various ways to expand an airport by adding a runway and a terminal. The expansion could also be in terms of how the airport is used and the direction of flights, the number of take-offs and landings. At the moment, London Heathrow Airport operates in the segregated mode this means that the arriving traffic is allocated to a certain runway and the same happens to the departing traffic. The expansion could mean that the use of the runways is altered within a certain period of time. This increases the number of take offs and landings. This is known as the mixed mode. It improves flexibility, reduces delays and at the same time has the potential to provide extra capacity (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
Factors to be considered in the expansion of an airport
The transport policy
This is a brief history of the airport and all the information about any expansions that have been made previously to the time it was constructed. This includes an overview of the surface access issues of the airport. In the case of London Heathrow Airport, it has undergone several expansions since the Second World War. The transport policy should include the policy initiatives in addition to the decisions made by the Government previously (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
London Heathrow Airport was officially opened in May 1946 and this was after it had been transmitted from the military to civilian control. At that time Heathrow Airport was designated as a long-distance airport making it an international airport. The airport has 5 terminals terminal 3 was expanded in 970 and this was to accommodate the new Boeing 747. In 1976 operations began and in 1986, Terminal 4 was opened. All Terminals opened progressively till the last one which was opened in February 2008 (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
In 2007, London Heathrow Airport had 67.9 million terminal passengers. This was recorded as the highest number of passengers in any of the European airports in addition to being the third highest around the world. Out of the 67.9 million a good number, 62.1 million were on international flights. This was also the highest number out of the all the airports world wide. In 2007, London Heathrow Airport accounted for about 31 percent terminal passengers at the airports in the United Kingdom.
However, the growth of the London Heathrow Airport was recorded to be relatively slower than other airports in the United Kingdom it had an increase of 17 percent more passengers as of 2007 as compared to 1997. All the other airports had an increase of about 66 percent over the 10 years and this would be a good motivator to have the airport expanded. In 2007, London Heathrow Airport had 476,000 air transport movements and this included landings and take-offs. It catered to 24 percent of the United Kingdom total population in addition to being the highest of all the airports. However, the air transport movements had been slower in 2007 as compared to 1997 it had 11 percent more flights as compared to other United Kingdom Airports that had an increase of 44 percent. London Heathrow Airport also handled other cargo excluding passengers luggage and mail and this amounted to about 1.3 million in 2007 and this was 58 percent of the United Kingdom airports total (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
The argument in favor of the expansion of London Heathrow Airport should be that it would facilitate the fullest possible use to be made of the Heathrows runways at the same time give the resident airlines room for expansion. This makes sense to allow traffic at Heathrow to build up to its full potential, because it is rather obvious that the demand would grow. Reports show that since Heathrow is an international airport, it would afford a greater benefit to the air transport passengers and the industry.
Other information that would be put into consideration when expanding the airport would be the number of airlines that fly and to how many destinations. For the London Heathrow Airport, it had 92 airlines to around 187 destinations that are diverse. It has created employment for 70,000 people and supports 100,000 other jobs indirectly (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
When expanding an airport the aims should be well defined for example when the London Heathrow Airport got Terminal 5 in 2008, it was presented with an opportunity to assist alliances and airlines relocate. In addition to all that there was redevelopment and improvement in the rest of the airport. Expansion of the airport should potentially afford capacity to amplify the movement in the night period. Currently the night movement or rather the night flights are controlled strictly between 2300 and 0700 hours. This includes limits on the permitted numbers of flights landing and taking off in relation to the total amount of noise allowed at night.
Economic impact
London Heathrow Airport is very important to the national economy of the United Kingdom and it has a very unique function as a major hub airport. Regardless of the fact that over the years, 1997-2007 the increase may not be as much as that of other airports in the United Kingdom, it is the busiest international airport worldwide. It is recorded that in 2005, about 35 percent of its passengers were business travelers. These are the people that support the economy and the international competitiveness of London. London has highlighted Heathrow as vital for the economy and to investors that are international. The demand at London Heathrow Airport is said to be in excess of the five runways capacity. In the past five years the growth the passengers flow was 5 percent in comparison to the overall 27 percent in the United Kingdom airports. Heathrow is said to be in an increasingly uncompetitive situation and this is in relation to other UK airports. This means it has less runway capacity in comparison to other airports. As a result, its network is principally motionless. At this point the London Heathrow Airports competitiveness would be decreasing at the disadvantage of the UK economy (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
Increasing the capacity would be of credit to the economy, but the economic benefits need to be compared to the environmental disadvantages of the expansion of the airport. The officials, including the government, should support the development of the airport. There are factors to be conditioned for example a noise limit this means that there should be increase in the size of the area that should significantly affect the aircraft noise. The air quality limits is the second factor to be considered the air quality limits should be met around the airport and to be exact for nitrogen dioxide which is said to be the most significant pollutant around London Heathrow Airport. The third condition would be to make sure that the public transport access to the airport is improved. It would be senseless to expand the airport and not have it accessible to the public (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
Surface access
Currently, London Heathrow Airport is accessible through the London Underground, through the Piccadilly Line, taxis and private hire cars, private cars, Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect from Paddington, buses and coach services from other towns and London. The expansion of this airport would outrightly mean that the pressure on the transport system that moves people from and to the airport should be increased. London Heathrow Airport should connect to the rest of the United Kingdom and the Central London. The passengers unfortunately bear with congestion and traffic to and from the airport a reporter remarked that they spend more time in their cars than in the planes (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
The surface access has been an issue for a very long time in the 1950s there were discussions of supplementing the then surface transport with a helicopter service to link Gatwick, Heathrow and Southend. In April 196, before terminal 4 was opened, the Government commissioned a study on the Heathrow surface access. In 1995, there was an announcement about the formation of a high-level group which would examine the scope and how to improve the rail and road support to and between Londons airports (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
It is the job of the airports operator to come up with a surface access strategy for the expanded airport and this is part of the comprehensive transport assessment which should be ahead of any planning application. This is inclusive of working with the local authority and Highways Agency. They should help the operator to identify any demand management measures that would be needed to address road traffic congestion around the airport (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
This should be a condition to be fulfilled in order for the expansion to be allowed by the authorities. There should be major improvement in the public transportation. In the near past major improvement in rail access have been announced. This included an increase in the capacity of the Piccadilly line and the introduction of cross rail services from 2017. This should provide a maximum capacity of 6,000 passengers per hour in return this will cover the demand for rail access to an expanded airport. There should also be progress in providing direct rail access to the airport at the added terminals and runways to avoid too much congestion.
Problem statement
The additional expansion of Heathrow would place strain on the already packed roads and rail networks. Currently, the government has not made known any plans to further widen the motorway in this area beyond that which was made known in July 2003. The solution would be to improve the public transport. This requires the operators of the airport to spend several hundred million pounds on new-fangled rail infrastructure. Other factors to be considered would be to introduce a road user charging. This is by charging those who want to enter the airport or rather a pricing across a wider area (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
Focusing on the future, the prospective departments should work with the operator of the airport and the Network Rail to consider schemes that should provide better connections to the Great Western main line at the same time maximize the efficiency of the few railway lines. To this effect the department already put up a company, High Speed Two Ltd. It advises the Ministry on the credibility and feasibility of all the plans the operator comes up with.
Environmental Issues
Without a doubt, there would be debates on the environmental issues that relate to the expansion of an international airport for example the London Heathrow Airport. Some of the issues would reflect on the carbon emissions and how to tackle them. Others issues to address would be the impact of increased flights on levels of noise and air pollutions in addition to the impact of augmented greenhouse gas emissions on atmosphere change. A runway is estimated to produce approximately 3 million tones of carbon and this is just in one year. The local air quality standard of the area surrounding the airport is immensely affected by the aviation. It is said that the impact of aviation has been noted and the pollutants include carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and soot. In addition to the emissions from the planes, local air quality is said to also be compromised by the pollutants from the vehicles that provide access to the airport through the road network (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
The health impacts include both morbidity and mortality effects, whereas environmental impacts range from effects on crops, damages to the buildings and forests it reduces visibility and effects of the ecological unit. This issue has been so serious because in previous expansion projects, the residents campaign groups have been joined by national campaign groups, around 21 local authorities and politicians and environmentalists to protect against any airport expansions. Recently, the Hounslow Council aired its views that London Heathrow Airport had reached its limits of sustainability and any expansion through the mixed mode and another runway would have severe impacts on the people. Some of these problems can be addressed by increasing efficiency by reducing the weights and using of larger airplanes. This results in the reduction of emissions per passenger, although the number of landings and take-offs will increase. While putting the expansion of the airport into plan, the Climate Change Act should be put into consideration. This is because it sets lawfully binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions in the United Kingdom. It states that by 2020 the reductions in carbon dioxide emissions should be at least 26 percent (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
The planning process
There are several ways to go about the process of expanding an airport of such considerable importance as London Heathrow Airport. This is the process that involves the application of the project to the respective authorities. The application for an expansion whether it is another runway or another terminal would be decided by a procedure in the Planning Act 2008. This procedure is deemed faster than what was used before. This means that most applications for infrastructure of national importance would require a new consent form known as the development consent. This Act should contain the ideal definitions of major infrastructure projects and this would include the expansion of an airport. The applicants are required to have had a lot of pre-application discussions with the Infrastructure Planning Committee before the actual submission of the application. The IPC should make assessments of the issues and concurrently meet the applicants and all other interested parties. There should be open floor meeting and the examination should not consist of very long sessions. The Act is unambiguous about the time that the procedure should take. The examination done by the IPC should be over in about six months from the starting day. The IPC should not be going back to the start in deciding whether to meet requirements for higher airport capacity. It should take the National Policy Statement as its starting point.
Statistical analysis
Cost benefit analysis
In the process of assessing the expansion of the London Heathrow Airport, a technique known as the cost benefit analysis is used. This involves the analysis of the relative benefits and costs of a project over a certain period of time and is expressed in terms of money. This includes both fundamentals usually expressed in financial values for example profits and those that are assigned a monetary value for example pollution. The benefits that are considered are benefits to the passengers, the airport operator, the government in terms of the economy and the air freight users. The key factors that are benefits, but are not included in the cost-benefit analysis, include the wider economic benefits, reduced delays and greater airport resilience. The costs put into consideration are infrastructure costs, noise, local air quality, accidents and greenhouse gases. The costs not put into consideration in the cost-benefit analysis are the landscape and townscape, community severance, road congestion and noise, biodiversity and historic environment. Community severance means the implication of the expansion on the people who live near the airport. These people, without a doubt, would be affected and they should be compensated because there interests are affected (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
There are several factors to put into consideration using the cost-benefit analysis all the estimates should be positive. This means that under no circumstances considered should the cost of the expansion of the London Heathrow Airport exceed the benefits. The estimated net monetized benefits should be given a range so that variations are put into consideration. There should be a sensitivity analysis and the operator should be ready for any combination of factors for example high radiative forcing factor, higher oil price or a lower GDP. These factors can reduce the benefits expected from the expansion, all other factors held constant. At the same time the combination of factors that in reverse help to increase benefits are hardly put into consideration.
Projection of the benefits and costs
A range of statistical models and econometrics should be used to estimate the costs and benefits of the expansion of London Heathrow Airport. The two most important forecasts include the forecasts of air passenger demand and the forecasts of the emissions of carbon dioxide. There should be sufficient demands in the future for flights in order to justify the costs incurred for example infrastructure at the cost of the emissions emitted (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009). The air passenger demand is forecast using the National Air Passenger Demand Model. Projections of the economic data are combined with the projections of the air fares which have been consequently estimated through the projections of duty rates, carbon charges and fuel costs. The second method would be to come up with the constrained demand which is derived from the National Air Passenger Allocation Model. Allocation of passengers to airports is done taking into consideration future airport capacity constraints. The air passenger demand in the United Kingdom has revealed a strong uphill trend over the years putting aside the short term fluctuations. These are associated with oil price shocks and recessions. Projections shows that the projects that inhibited United Kingdom air travel demand would double from around 228 million passengers per year in 2007 to 445 million passengers per year by the year 2030.
The research shows some patterns there has been a rapid growth in 2004 and 2005 in air travels, giving a movement average of 6 percent yearly growth of the total number of the United Kingdoms airport passengers. It also shows that the movement was slower in 2006 and 2007 but it was still positive. In November 2008, there was a fall in the numbers of demand there were 9.8 percent fewer passengers a compared to the same month in 2007.these recent falls in passenger movement should not necessarily mean that long term projects of expansion are not necessary. For example, in the last recession in 1990, the number of air passenger movement increased steadily through 1991 (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
Anther type of projections that should be considered is for the costs to be incurred due to the expansion of the London Heathrow Airport. The projections of inhibited air passengers feed into their carbon dioxide forecasting model through the fleet mix model, which in turn takes into account the projected fuel effectiveness of the air fleet. It is estimated that the United Kingdom emissions due to aviation would rise hastily from 37.9 Mt carbon dioxide in the year 2007 to 50.3 Mt carbon dioxide in 2020 (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009) .
Other projections
There are other projections that are required in order to estimate the net benefit due to the expansion of the London Heathrow Airport. These should include the estimates of the capital, land and construction costs that should be related with the expansion. The second estimate should be that of financial worth of the air quality implications. There should be an assessment of the visual impact and the landscape. The operator should get an evaluation of the historical environment impact in addition to the assessment of the possibility of having massive biodiversity implications (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
There are various ways to expand an airport by adding a runway and a terminal. The expansion could also be in terms of how the airport is used and the direction of flights, the number of take-offs and landings. At the moment, London Heathrow Airport operates in the segregated mode this means that the arriving traffic is allocated to a certain runway and the same happens to the departing traffic. The expansion could mean that the use of the runways is altered within a certain period of time. This increases the number of take offs and landings. This is known as the mixed mode. It improves flexibility, reduces delays and at the same time has the potential to provide extra capacity (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
Factors to be considered in the expansion of an airport
The transport policy
This is a brief history of the airport and all the information about any expansions that have been made previously to the time it was constructed. This includes an overview of the surface access issues of the airport. In the case of London Heathrow Airport, it has undergone several expansions since the Second World War. The transport policy should include the policy initiatives in addition to the decisions made by the Government previously (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
London Heathrow Airport was officially opened in May 1946 and this was after it had been transmitted from the military to civilian control. At that time Heathrow Airport was designated as a long-distance airport making it an international airport. The airport has 5 terminals terminal 3 was expanded in 970 and this was to accommodate the new Boeing 747. In 1976 operations began and in 1986, Terminal 4 was opened. All Terminals opened progressively till the last one which was opened in February 2008 (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
In 2007, London Heathrow Airport had 67.9 million terminal passengers. This was recorded as the highest number of passengers in any of the European airports in addition to being the third highest around the world. Out of the 67.9 million a good number, 62.1 million were on international flights. This was also the highest number out of the all the airports world wide. In 2007, London Heathrow Airport accounted for about 31 percent terminal passengers at the airports in the United Kingdom.
However, the growth of the London Heathrow Airport was recorded to be relatively slower than other airports in the United Kingdom it had an increase of 17 percent more passengers as of 2007 as compared to 1997. All the other airports had an increase of about 66 percent over the 10 years and this would be a good motivator to have the airport expanded. In 2007, London Heathrow Airport had 476,000 air transport movements and this included landings and take-offs. It catered to 24 percent of the United Kingdom total population in addition to being the highest of all the airports. However, the air transport movements had been slower in 2007 as compared to 1997 it had 11 percent more flights as compared to other United Kingdom Airports that had an increase of 44 percent. London Heathrow Airport also handled other cargo excluding passengers luggage and mail and this amounted to about 1.3 million in 2007 and this was 58 percent of the United Kingdom airports total (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
The argument in favor of the expansion of London Heathrow Airport should be that it would facilitate the fullest possible use to be made of the Heathrows runways at the same time give the resident airlines room for expansion. This makes sense to allow traffic at Heathrow to build up to its full potential, because it is rather obvious that the demand would grow. Reports show that since Heathrow is an international airport, it would afford a greater benefit to the air transport passengers and the industry.
Other information that would be put into consideration when expanding the airport would be the number of airlines that fly and to how many destinations. For the London Heathrow Airport, it had 92 airlines to around 187 destinations that are diverse. It has created employment for 70,000 people and supports 100,000 other jobs indirectly (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
When expanding an airport the aims should be well defined for example when the London Heathrow Airport got Terminal 5 in 2008, it was presented with an opportunity to assist alliances and airlines relocate. In addition to all that there was redevelopment and improvement in the rest of the airport. Expansion of the airport should potentially afford capacity to amplify the movement in the night period. Currently the night movement or rather the night flights are controlled strictly between 2300 and 0700 hours. This includes limits on the permitted numbers of flights landing and taking off in relation to the total amount of noise allowed at night.
Economic impact
London Heathrow Airport is very important to the national economy of the United Kingdom and it has a very unique function as a major hub airport. Regardless of the fact that over the years, 1997-2007 the increase may not be as much as that of other airports in the United Kingdom, it is the busiest international airport worldwide. It is recorded that in 2005, about 35 percent of its passengers were business travelers. These are the people that support the economy and the international competitiveness of London. London has highlighted Heathrow as vital for the economy and to investors that are international. The demand at London Heathrow Airport is said to be in excess of the five runways capacity. In the past five years the growth the passengers flow was 5 percent in comparison to the overall 27 percent in the United Kingdom airports. Heathrow is said to be in an increasingly uncompetitive situation and this is in relation to other UK airports. This means it has less runway capacity in comparison to other airports. As a result, its network is principally motionless. At this point the London Heathrow Airports competitiveness would be decreasing at the disadvantage of the UK economy (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
Increasing the capacity would be of credit to the economy, but the economic benefits need to be compared to the environmental disadvantages of the expansion of the airport. The officials, including the government, should support the development of the airport. There are factors to be conditioned for example a noise limit this means that there should be increase in the size of the area that should significantly affect the aircraft noise. The air quality limits is the second factor to be considered the air quality limits should be met around the airport and to be exact for nitrogen dioxide which is said to be the most significant pollutant around London Heathrow Airport. The third condition would be to make sure that the public transport access to the airport is improved. It would be senseless to expand the airport and not have it accessible to the public (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
Surface access
Currently, London Heathrow Airport is accessible through the London Underground, through the Piccadilly Line, taxis and private hire cars, private cars, Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect from Paddington, buses and coach services from other towns and London. The expansion of this airport would outrightly mean that the pressure on the transport system that moves people from and to the airport should be increased. London Heathrow Airport should connect to the rest of the United Kingdom and the Central London. The passengers unfortunately bear with congestion and traffic to and from the airport a reporter remarked that they spend more time in their cars than in the planes (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
The surface access has been an issue for a very long time in the 1950s there were discussions of supplementing the then surface transport with a helicopter service to link Gatwick, Heathrow and Southend. In April 196, before terminal 4 was opened, the Government commissioned a study on the Heathrow surface access. In 1995, there was an announcement about the formation of a high-level group which would examine the scope and how to improve the rail and road support to and between Londons airports (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
It is the job of the airports operator to come up with a surface access strategy for the expanded airport and this is part of the comprehensive transport assessment which should be ahead of any planning application. This is inclusive of working with the local authority and Highways Agency. They should help the operator to identify any demand management measures that would be needed to address road traffic congestion around the airport (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
This should be a condition to be fulfilled in order for the expansion to be allowed by the authorities. There should be major improvement in the public transportation. In the near past major improvement in rail access have been announced. This included an increase in the capacity of the Piccadilly line and the introduction of cross rail services from 2017. This should provide a maximum capacity of 6,000 passengers per hour in return this will cover the demand for rail access to an expanded airport. There should also be progress in providing direct rail access to the airport at the added terminals and runways to avoid too much congestion.
Problem statement
The additional expansion of Heathrow would place strain on the already packed roads and rail networks. Currently, the government has not made known any plans to further widen the motorway in this area beyond that which was made known in July 2003. The solution would be to improve the public transport. This requires the operators of the airport to spend several hundred million pounds on new-fangled rail infrastructure. Other factors to be considered would be to introduce a road user charging. This is by charging those who want to enter the airport or rather a pricing across a wider area (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
Focusing on the future, the prospective departments should work with the operator of the airport and the Network Rail to consider schemes that should provide better connections to the Great Western main line at the same time maximize the efficiency of the few railway lines. To this effect the department already put up a company, High Speed Two Ltd. It advises the Ministry on the credibility and feasibility of all the plans the operator comes up with.
Environmental Issues
Without a doubt, there would be debates on the environmental issues that relate to the expansion of an international airport for example the London Heathrow Airport. Some of the issues would reflect on the carbon emissions and how to tackle them. Others issues to address would be the impact of increased flights on levels of noise and air pollutions in addition to the impact of augmented greenhouse gas emissions on atmosphere change. A runway is estimated to produce approximately 3 million tones of carbon and this is just in one year. The local air quality standard of the area surrounding the airport is immensely affected by the aviation. It is said that the impact of aviation has been noted and the pollutants include carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and soot. In addition to the emissions from the planes, local air quality is said to also be compromised by the pollutants from the vehicles that provide access to the airport through the road network (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
The health impacts include both morbidity and mortality effects, whereas environmental impacts range from effects on crops, damages to the buildings and forests it reduces visibility and effects of the ecological unit. This issue has been so serious because in previous expansion projects, the residents campaign groups have been joined by national campaign groups, around 21 local authorities and politicians and environmentalists to protect against any airport expansions. Recently, the Hounslow Council aired its views that London Heathrow Airport had reached its limits of sustainability and any expansion through the mixed mode and another runway would have severe impacts on the people. Some of these problems can be addressed by increasing efficiency by reducing the weights and using of larger airplanes. This results in the reduction of emissions per passenger, although the number of landings and take-offs will increase. While putting the expansion of the airport into plan, the Climate Change Act should be put into consideration. This is because it sets lawfully binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions in the United Kingdom. It states that by 2020 the reductions in carbon dioxide emissions should be at least 26 percent (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
The planning process
There are several ways to go about the process of expanding an airport of such considerable importance as London Heathrow Airport. This is the process that involves the application of the project to the respective authorities. The application for an expansion whether it is another runway or another terminal would be decided by a procedure in the Planning Act 2008. This procedure is deemed faster than what was used before. This means that most applications for infrastructure of national importance would require a new consent form known as the development consent. This Act should contain the ideal definitions of major infrastructure projects and this would include the expansion of an airport. The applicants are required to have had a lot of pre-application discussions with the Infrastructure Planning Committee before the actual submission of the application. The IPC should make assessments of the issues and concurrently meet the applicants and all other interested parties. There should be open floor meeting and the examination should not consist of very long sessions. The Act is unambiguous about the time that the procedure should take. The examination done by the IPC should be over in about six months from the starting day. The IPC should not be going back to the start in deciding whether to meet requirements for higher airport capacity. It should take the National Policy Statement as its starting point.
Statistical analysis
Cost benefit analysis
In the process of assessing the expansion of the London Heathrow Airport, a technique known as the cost benefit analysis is used. This involves the analysis of the relative benefits and costs of a project over a certain period of time and is expressed in terms of money. This includes both fundamentals usually expressed in financial values for example profits and those that are assigned a monetary value for example pollution. The benefits that are considered are benefits to the passengers, the airport operator, the government in terms of the economy and the air freight users. The key factors that are benefits, but are not included in the cost-benefit analysis, include the wider economic benefits, reduced delays and greater airport resilience. The costs put into consideration are infrastructure costs, noise, local air quality, accidents and greenhouse gases. The costs not put into consideration in the cost-benefit analysis are the landscape and townscape, community severance, road congestion and noise, biodiversity and historic environment. Community severance means the implication of the expansion on the people who live near the airport. These people, without a doubt, would be affected and they should be compensated because there interests are affected (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
There are several factors to put into consideration using the cost-benefit analysis all the estimates should be positive. This means that under no circumstances considered should the cost of the expansion of the London Heathrow Airport exceed the benefits. The estimated net monetized benefits should be given a range so that variations are put into consideration. There should be a sensitivity analysis and the operator should be ready for any combination of factors for example high radiative forcing factor, higher oil price or a lower GDP. These factors can reduce the benefits expected from the expansion, all other factors held constant. At the same time the combination of factors that in reverse help to increase benefits are hardly put into consideration.
Projection of the benefits and costs
A range of statistical models and econometrics should be used to estimate the costs and benefits of the expansion of London Heathrow Airport. The two most important forecasts include the forecasts of air passenger demand and the forecasts of the emissions of carbon dioxide. There should be sufficient demands in the future for flights in order to justify the costs incurred for example infrastructure at the cost of the emissions emitted (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009). The air passenger demand is forecast using the National Air Passenger Demand Model. Projections of the economic data are combined with the projections of the air fares which have been consequently estimated through the projections of duty rates, carbon charges and fuel costs. The second method would be to come up with the constrained demand which is derived from the National Air Passenger Allocation Model. Allocation of passengers to airports is done taking into consideration future airport capacity constraints. The air passenger demand in the United Kingdom has revealed a strong uphill trend over the years putting aside the short term fluctuations. These are associated with oil price shocks and recessions. Projections shows that the projects that inhibited United Kingdom air travel demand would double from around 228 million passengers per year in 2007 to 445 million passengers per year by the year 2030.
The research shows some patterns there has been a rapid growth in 2004 and 2005 in air travels, giving a movement average of 6 percent yearly growth of the total number of the United Kingdoms airport passengers. It also shows that the movement was slower in 2006 and 2007 but it was still positive. In November 2008, there was a fall in the numbers of demand there were 9.8 percent fewer passengers a compared to the same month in 2007.these recent falls in passenger movement should not necessarily mean that long term projects of expansion are not necessary. For example, in the last recession in 1990, the number of air passenger movement increased steadily through 1991 (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
Anther type of projections that should be considered is for the costs to be incurred due to the expansion of the London Heathrow Airport. The projections of inhibited air passengers feed into their carbon dioxide forecasting model through the fleet mix model, which in turn takes into account the projected fuel effectiveness of the air fleet. It is estimated that the United Kingdom emissions due to aviation would rise hastily from 37.9 Mt carbon dioxide in the year 2007 to 50.3 Mt carbon dioxide in 2020 (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009) .
Other projections
There are other projections that are required in order to estimate the net benefit due to the expansion of the London Heathrow Airport. These should include the estimates of the capital, land and construction costs that should be related with the expansion. The second estimate should be that of financial worth of the air quality implications. There should be an assessment of the visual impact and the landscape. The operator should get an evaluation of the historical environment impact in addition to the assessment of the possibility of having massive biodiversity implications (Ares, Barclay, Butcher 2009).
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