Another thing about the Airbus A380 is that it could be a very significant plane locally, depending on how the air travel industry turns out. If long-haul flights from Gatwick change to larger capacity planes like the A380 we could see the increase in passenger numbers at Gatwick, helping to bolster the local economy, without having more plane movements. As the A380 is supposed to be quieter than a 747 it could mean getting the local economic benefits with less disturbance for those in the North of the town.

On the other hand, if an expansion of the airport (ie more runways) ever got forced upon us, the chances of a close parallel runway, within the existing airport boundaries would be even less feasible due to the larger wingspan and the resulting separation needed for the runways.

Personally I think that more passengers is good locally, but more runways is bad, and larger planes like the A380 might be a way to square that particular circle.

I spent some time on the Gatwick Consultative Committee and was exposed to all the arguments for and against different runway configurations. My own conclusions were that extra wide-spaced runways come with too great a price for the town. BAA and the Department for Transport don’t like close parallel runways because they cannot deliver as much of an increase in movements as a wide-spaced one. For them it is a matter of capacity versus cost, and for little extra cost they get twice as much extra capacity, but for the town itself, the (relatively) smaller increase would be more than enough.

The political situation here is that any expansion is resisted on principal. One good reason for this is the feeling that once a close parallel runway is conceded, it would be like letting a salesman stick his foot in the door. Local feeling is that BAA and the DfT would end up with the bigger option. If, however, there was a close parallel runway it would mean that there would be no way physically to get a wide-spaced one built in the future. I think that would be best, but pursuing that option could lead to getting more than we bargained for. So its a risky business whichever way it goes.

Of course, in Broadfield we are as far from the airport as you can get in Crawley, so the economic aspect carries slightly more weight at this end of town.