The team has been hard at work completing the analysis for the Optimal Location of the Airside Cargo Facility in the planning phase of the new London Thames airport. Our final report is now published and available for your perusal in the following document:
London Thames Airport Planning Commission: Technical Report 17 [pdf]
Highlights:
We hereby recommend relocating the cargo center from its originally proposed location to the west of the runway and passenger terminal complex to a new location between the two runway pairs toward the east edge of the platform.
This move is estimated to save £133mn in annual fuel costs, reduce taxi time for cargo aircraft by 119 hours per day, and reduce the carbon emissions of the airport by 37%.
An airport for Britain’s next thousand years
In 2014, Foster+Partners released Inner Thames Hub Estuary Feasibility Studies, their bold, innovative, and comprehensive plan for a new hub airport in the Thames Estuary. The question of whether this airport will be built is a certainty; the only question is when will London’s leaders acquire the political will to ensure London’s place on the world stage for the next thousand years. For more about this project, visit the Thames Hub project page.
From a cargo pilot’s perspective, I quickly noticed a glaring flaw in the architect’s original proposal. The cargo facility is relegated to the far southwest corner of the airport platform. Not only will this location result in excessive taxi times for heavy cargo aircraft, it will also present congestion issues as the only taxiway access passes through a busy intersection leading to the passenger terminals. I decided to solve this problem by relocating the cargo facility to the eastern edge of the platform equidistant from the twin runway pairs. In exchange, we relocate the maintenance hangars, which do not see nearly as much traffic frequency as the airside cargo stands.
Based on expected winds, traffic patterns, and runway allocation, taxi time from the original cargo location would average 18.3 minutes outbound and 15.8 minutes on arrival. In the new location, taxi out would average just 6.6 minutes and taxi in 13.5 minutes. Since departing aircraft are laden with jet fuel, reducing taxi out times is crucial in lowering fuel costs. Relocating the cargo facility to the eastern end of the platform, nearer to the departing runway thresholds during typical west flows, is a much more efficient location.
Fly, Farmer, Fly! 