The goverment seems still in bed with BAA, although I hoped this would end with the Spanish takeover.

Heathrow is one of 5 London airports and the worst located one because dominant westerly winds force aircrafts to approach over the Capital -a health hazard to over 2 millions people and as the BA038 crash-landing shown, a huge safety risk as well.

It's time to either think about a new airport in the Thames estuary or develop Stanstead, Gatwick and Luton.

Ludovic Windsor, richmondtransits.blogspot.com, UK

It is good news that they are determined to build a 4th runway before the 3rd is even built, because it means we are right to oppose ALL their expansion plans, BAA ride roughshod over everybody, and soon we will have planes landing on the goddam M4 if the Spaniards have their way. It was once promised that a 5th terminal would never be built. The writing is on the wall everybody. City Airport is perfect for business people. We certainly do not need Heathrow. Transit passengers who do not get off the plane, and that is a majority at Heathrow, can land anywhere in the world.

pam, London, England

Some years back we had a plane crash on the Medes. A few seconds further on & it would have ploughed into a densely populated area. All on board died. This should have been a wake up call, but how many MP's who would grant compulsory purchase orders even remember this crash?
A few days ago a plane scraped the boundary fence after passing over densely populated areas & a very busy road & crashed. A 2nd wake up call, yet BA still want to destroy more homes and communities, & make lives miserable for even more people. We do not have the airspace for BA to almost double the number of flights nor the infrastructure to cope with extra ground traffic. The MP's should stand out near Heathrow for 24 hours and watch the planes circling over densely populated areas.. At night you can see them coming in right on top of each other. How many near misses haven't we been told about? The nearest A&E to Heathrow has been closed too!
Where are the Heathrow workers going to live?

Beryl, Windsor, England

A bit ambitious, the Third Runway hasn't even been built yet.

marting, reading, uk

Say what you will, these Iberian peninsula types don't give up easily.
Unless the latest Lisbon 'non-treaty' has a cunning clause buried in it, I don't think Spanish owned BAA actually controls English decision-making yet: see one Armada, you've seen them all.
Mr Stewart, don't worry about them lengthening the third runway, our man has just proved you can put even a 777 down on a sixpence, so it just needs Boeing to stiffen up the undercarriage a bit and they'll be able to fly in/out of City Airport : )
What we really need is an overwhelming national petition to build at Foulness, where it was going to move 40 years ago.

MikeM, St. Albans, England

If the government stops getting involved by forcing home owners to sell then BAA would have to plan ahead and would not be able to expand Heathrow. This airport is at maximum capacity and the surrounding infrastructure cannot support many more cars.

It would have been better to find a solution that had the flight paths over a minimal amount dwellings. We could have built an airport on reclaimed land as per Hong Kong instead we blight thousands of peoples lives.

joe, Edinburgh, Scotland