New Thames Estuary Airport and Dubai’s Competition

If there’s one thing we need in this world, it’s more airports. Forget about the riots and protests that were going on in England earlier this year, London needs to use their money where it’s needed (airports) and not in silly things like education or tuition costs. £50 billion ($68 billion) is a small price to pay for Thames Estuary (where the airport will be built) residents to get the chance to experience more traffic, more highway construction and more noise pollution.

The proposed airport would have FOUR runways, a rail hub connecting to the UK and Continental Europe to transport 300,000 passengers daily, a tide-powered energy system to power the entire airport and a flood barrier to protect the surrounding residents. All my airport has is an undecipherable passenger drop-off system and a reputation for losing luggage. With all these features the airport is likely to surpass the world’s fourth-busiest airport (Dubai) in passengers per year. That is, if it is ever built. If Heathrow (currently London’s biggest airport) was denied the construction of a third runway it doesn’t seem likely that the city would approve building an airport that would have four.

Dubai likely saw these plans and got jealous because they now plan to expand their already 50 million passenger per year clientele over to Hong Kong and London. Currently Dubai Airport supplies 250,000 jobs and is worth $22 billion, but by 2020 the city plans to double that worth and expand jobs to up to 370,000 workers. 370,000 jobs versus London…sounds like Dubai has some tough competition.