2015年经济学人 伦敦机场容量接近饱满 如何扩容？

Aviation capacity

Limited skies

Expanding airport capacity in the south-east is a bet on the future of travel

EVEN before Sir Howard Davies, an economist¹ mulling where to put extra airport capacity in Britain,

rejected the idea of building a big new hub in the Thames Estuary², the backlash had begun.

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London and an enthusiastic supporter of the Thames plan, spluttered in advance, then branded the decision “myopic”.

NIMBYs opposing the expansion of Heathrow and Gatwick groaned³, knowing that the remaining options all involve building or extending runways at one of those airports.

Sir Howard's final recommendation, due in 2015, is sure to run into heavy fire.

To make matters worse, he and his team must hazard a guess about the future of air travel.

Heathrow and Gatwick are both full, or close to it, and want to expand. But the two airports presently serve quite different parts of the market.

Some 37% of passengers at Heathrow transfer between flights. Nearly a third of its customers are on business.

By contrast, only 13% of Gatwick's customers are business travellers. Most are going on holiday.

Just 7% transfer there—a proportion that has fallen by half over the past decade.

Heathrow's shiny new Terminal 2, which opened in June, is full of expensive shops and restaurants run by Michelin-starred cooks to entice⁴ rich passengers.

At Gatwick, recent improvements reflect its popularity with holidaygoers: a wider lane at a spruced-up security gate has been set aside for families,

while an area in the southern terminal is now reserved for elderly passengers, with comfy seats and a small duty-free shop.

The airports' managers also hold entirely⁵ different views about the way the airline industry will develop, and its place in the broader economy.

Much of the argument for expanding Heathrow rests on the idea that hub airports are, and will remain, vital.

Without further expansion, boosters argue, fewer flights to far-flung places such as Wuhan and Xiamen will be available to businessmen.

If the capacity crunch⁶ persists, domestic flights are more likely to be delayed or cancelled. European airports will pick up those passengers instead.

“That's our GDP leaking out,” says Jon Proudlove, the general manager of air-traffic control at Heathrow.

Not surprisingly, Gatwick takes a different view. Over the past ten years the growth of low-cost airlines has been explosive,

points out Sir Roy McNulty, chairman of the Gatwick group. People are travelling in different ways, with more “self-connecting” to keep costs down.

Although connections with emerging markets are important, Europe and North America will remain Britain's largest trading partners, he argues.

London will be a destination in its own right, but a British hub may not be able to compete with the mega-hubs emerging in the Middle East.

Boosters for a second runway at Gatwick point to the rising number of orders for aircraft which could offer “hub-bypass” services,

flying people directly from one city to another. British Airways⁷ (BA), the largest British carrier, has ordered 18 Airbus A350s and 36 Boeing 787s,

which efficiently⁸ ferry a smaller number of people over longer distances, making some secondary markets more viable⁹.

But betting on orders is tough: BA also has six huge A380s on order, each of which flies around 500 passengers between congested hubs, to add to six already in stock.

Sir Howard and his team will have to base their final recommendation on a good deal of guesswork about future trends that perplex people in the airline industry.

That will make it easier for politicians to argue over their decision—particularly the ones who answer to the residents of west London,

rattled¹⁰ by jets arriving at and leaving Heathrow. And as Sir Howard considers his options, both Heathrow and Gatwick grow ever busier.

1 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

2 estuary   

n.河口，江口

参考例句：

• We live near the Thames estuary.我们的住处靠近泰晤士河入海口。
• The ship has touched bottom.The estuary must be shallower than we thought.船搁浅了。这河口的水比我们想像的要浅。

3 groaned   

v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦

参考例句：

• He groaned in anguish. 他痛苦地呻吟。
• The cart groaned under the weight of the piano. 大车在钢琴的重压下嘎吱作响。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 entice   

v.诱骗，引诱，怂恿

参考例句：

• Nothing will entice the children from television.没有任何东西能把孩子们从电视机前诱开。
• I don't see why the English should want to entice us away from our native land.我不明白，为什英国人要引诱我们离开自己的国土。

5 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

6 crunch   

n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声

参考例句：

• If it comes to the crunch they'll support us.关键时刻他们是会支持我们的。
• People who crunch nuts at the movies can be very annoying.看电影时嘎吱作声地嚼干果的人会使人十分讨厌。

7 AIRWAYS   

航空公司

参考例句：

• The giant jets that increasingly dominate the world's airways. 越来越称雄于世界航线的巨型喷气机。
• At one point the company bought from Nippon Airways a 727 jet. 有一次公司从日本航空公司买了一架727型喷气机。

8 efficiently   

adv.高效率地，有能力地

参考例句：

• The worker oils the machine to operate it more efficiently.工人给机器上油以使机器运转更有效。
• Local authorities have to learn to allocate resources efficiently.地方政府必须学会有效地分配资源。

9 viable   

adj.可行的，切实可行的，能活下去的

参考例句：

• The scheme is economically viable.这个计划从经济效益来看是可行的。
• The economy of the country is not viable.这个国家经济是难以维持的。

10 rattled   

慌乱的，恼火的

参考例句：

• The truck jolted and rattled over the rough ground. 卡车嘎吱嘎吱地在凹凸不平的地面上颠簸而行。
• Every time a bus went past, the windows rattled. 每逢公共汽车经过这里，窗户都格格作响。