Could the idea of ​​a second track at Stansted take off?

Q We have heard new track plans for Heathrow and Gatwick airports this week. I live near Stansted and I am interested, as much as a store as a user, if talking about a second track is now dead in the water.

Chris b

TO I feel that I have been covering the debate on the expansion of the airport in the southeast of England almost from the dawn of time, and I have surveyed all possible places for new clues.

Stansted Airport, northeast of London, is the third largest that serves the capital after Heathrow and Gatwick. In terms of resilience and soft operations, Essex’s airport could certainly use a second track.

Its brother airport, Manchester, manages approximately the same number of passengers, 30 million annually, and has two clues. Manchester Airports Group has both facilities and knows the advantages of having additional capacity. But it has no intention in the next decade or two to begin the long, expensive and uncertain process involved in the search for permission to build a second track in Stansted.

However, like other airports of a single race in the southeast of England, Stansted plans to increase flights and passengers to extract more productivity from its beautiful asphalt strip. In September 2024, the airport announced an update that includes extending the main terminal, improving one of the two slightly odd satellites and making the filming stairs more efficient.

In addition, access to the surface should improve with updates on the road link from the M11 highway and the Stansted Express rail service from downtown London. All this is intended to increase the annual number of passengers by up to 70 percent in the early 2040s to 51 million. As a comparison, Gatwick currently has about 45 million passengers a year.

Therefore, Stansted will certainly be more busy, and hope is that there will be many more options beyond the current range of European destinations (and proportionally less dependence on the dominant airline, Ryanair). From a passenger perspective, you can expect more options and competition.

Open the image in the gallery

Q Our daughter is working in Kobe, Japan, for five months. We want to go to see her for about 10 days at the end of April. Can you recommend where to visit more broad? We will fly from Manchester airport.

Gary r

TO Ten days is long enough to make the most of a portion of Japan. Whenever you do not try to squeeze too much, they guarantee you a fun and fascinating visit.

I will start with flights. Fly to Kansai, the incredible airport of the island, very close to Kobe. But buy open mandate tickets, traveling in Tokyo (choose the practical Haneda airport in the capital instead of distant Narita if possible). To keep travel time as short as possible and the low cost, consider a Chinese airline. Transporters of the Popular Republic fly over Russia between the United Kingdom and Eastern Asia, drastically reducing the flight time compared to Western airlines.

Kobe is an excellent introduction to Japan: a medium -sized port city, with much interest. It is also conveniently close to the imperial wonders of Kyoto and the smallest and most beautiful Nara. You will be there at the end of the Cherry Blossom season, and we hope that the trees will continue to make a show.

Next stop, by the hyperefficient bullet or a cheaper coach: the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, an excellent location to appreciate the volcanic landscape. A high -speed narrow caliber train will take him to Tokyo, where he could easily spend more than 10 days without seeing everything.

My outstanding aspects in a city where simply wandering is a constant joy: Shinjuku, the quarter of greater height, a study on human hyperactivity. The East Gardens imperial palace, a study in order. And the monorraíl of the retro science fiction of the sixties to the Haneda airport, an adequate way of finishing its trip.

Open the image in the gallery

Q I read about the Australian couple who had to sit next to a passenger companion for hours on a flight to Qatar. Do airlines have protocols for this type of tragic situation?

Supplied name

TO This sad event took place on a programmed flight from Qatar Airways from Melbourne to Doha, a trip of approximately 14 hours. The couple, Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin, were on their way to a vacation in Italy when a woman collapsed in the hall after going to the bathroom. The accounts say that the cabin crew performed professionally and bravely when trying to revive the passenger, which is in line with the Council of the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

The cabin crew is required to continue with CPR until they intervene turbulence or other flight safety problems; or until the plane has landed and the attention is transferred to emergency medical services; Or are too exhausted to continue; Or, as in this case, the person is presumed dead.

If there is a death on board, the first concern is naturally with the dignity of the deceased and the care of anyone who travels with them. The key issue is the best way to deal with the person. They are generally sitting, with the safety belt subject, far from other passengers, and covered with a blanket. On a complete flight, it is a particularly difficult situation; The Iata Council is: “If the plane is full, replace the person in their own seat, or discretion of the crew, to another area that does not obstruct a corridor or exit.” In this case, it seems that the seats were available, and if so, it is surprising that the couple did not move.

Why didn’t the plane deviate? Well, amusements for medical emergencies occur quite frequently, often with positive results. But in the case of a confirmed death, the standard practice is to continue with the flight. While that may seem indifferent, the alternative at the Qatar Airways trip stage when the woman died would be to deviate to an airport in southern India, Kochi or Mumbai probably. That would have caused massive logistics problems for the airline and its passengers, few of which would have permission to enter India and, nevertheless, everyone would be trapped because the crew would have been “without hours.”

Open the image in the gallery

Q Did all the money and time spent on the security scanners improved in the United Kingdom airports achieved something?

Chris McM

TO Most of the airline passengers find that the worst part of any trip is the airport’s security control at the exit, in particular, the low limit of delays (liquids, aerosols and gels) in the cabin luggage, as well as the obligation to extract electronics such as laptops and tablets. The rules of liquids were hurriedly introduced worldwide in 2006 as “a temporary measure” to protect against explosives that are assembled in the board planes. Despite the repeated promises of lifting them, they remain in their place.

After a series of extended deadlines, all the main airports of the United Kingdom were supposed to have new elegant scanners in June 2024 that allowed up to two liters of liquids and that the devices remained in place. They use computerized tomography, the same technology as medical scanners, to analyze the molecular structure of the content of the passenger’s bag. Some airports completed the deadline, but the four large centers of the United Kingdom, Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted, were late. All of which was irrelevant because progress in aviation security was actually reverse.

Last summer, the Department of Transport ordered airports with the new team to restore the old limit of 100 ml in delays. This was described at that time as a “temporary movement” to “allow more improvements to be made in the new control point systems.” The new team seems to mistakenly identify many harmless articles in the luggage of the passengers as a threat. The reintroduction of the old rules means that the new scanners can pass bags that would otherwise be rejected. The objective is to accelerate the process and reduce queues.

In practice, dozens of millions of pounds spent on new teams have made life a little easier: the bags of toiletries and laptops generally do not need to be extracted when their possessions pass through one of the new scanners. But in aviation security, “temporary” can be a lot, a long time.

Send your question by email [email protected] or tweet @simoncalder