COMMENT: Heathrow”s Opening Hours
First of all the good news. Attempts by the Mayor of London, called by
some an egomaniac, to get his hands on Heathrow have been so far
thwarted. And now the bad news. On Saturday mornings the Tube trains
are to start one hour later from May 2007 and operate 30 minutes longer
on Fridays and Saturdays. You may ask why is this bad news? Night
revellers will be able to come home later after a Friday or Saturday
excursion.
Nothing wrong with early morning Tubes at all. After all in many of
the world”s great cities the Metro, or its equivalent, operate all
night.
The problem is at Heathrow. The Mayor, as is sometimes the case, has
not thought it out properly. The world”s most popular international
airport (as defined by passenger numbers) works on a seven-day week
basis, each day”s schedule much the same as the next. Aircraft arrive
and depart at the same time, staff come to work at the same time, and
passengers get involved at the same time. You just cannot change
things around one day per week.
The Board of Airline Representation (BAR UK), the representative body
of the airlines at Heathrow, is leading a vociferous campaign to
ensure a better solution for late night and early morning travel
arrangements.
A total of 26 weekend flights, carrying 35,000 passengers, would be
affected by passengers either not being able to reach Heathrow in time
to check in, or finding that there would be no Underground services to
take them from Heathrow into London. These figures will increase
substantially once Airbus A380 operations commence in 2007.
Mike Carrivick, chief executive of BAR UK, said ”Underground services
are a vital element in the airport”s infrastructure. It is not
acceptable that thousands of passengers and airport staff will be
forced onto the roads instead, and goes against all the environmental
polices of Government and the Mayor of London”.
The answer to ABTN seems simple. Instead of a cursory 30 minutes on
the weekend evenings let the Tube run until 0200 so that people can
stay out late and not use the car. Recruit more staff. But leave the
Underground starting time alone. They are sacrosanct. If London is a
true 24-hour city then the transport should reflect this and if other
countries can run a 24-hour service why cant we!
POSTSCRIPT
Just in case you are wondering what this has to do with the Mayor the
reasoning is very simple. His name was first on the official press
release. He has a campaign to put Mayor of London on all that used to
be called ”London Transport” property. He”s happy to promote ideas
that he once opposed typified by the London City Airport extension of
the DLR. And he fully intends to use every ploy to ensure re-election.
Readers from overseas should note that there are two mayors of London,
The Lord Mayor, representing London”s financial centre and the mayor of
London, a political position whose mandate covers Greater London.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk