London’s Insane $76B Plan for a Floating Airport

London's airports are in crisis Heathrow the busiest of them all has been stretched to its limit for nearly 20 years Boris Johnson had a radical solution forget expanding the old and build something entirely new a $76 billion state-of-the-art airport in the river temps the only issues foggy weather flocks of stubborn Birds oh and a sunken World War II warship packed with explosives hey I'm your host Regis and today we're uncovering a project that could have reshaped British Aviation if it ever left the drawing [Music] board so why does London need a new airport in the

first place well to understand that we need to look at its existing Aviation Network the United Kingdom's capital is the world's busiest Airline Market serving thousands of flights daily across six international airports whether it's a downtown location like London City airport or a focus on European flights like stanstead Airport each has a unique role connecting London to the rest of the world but Heathrow is the biggest and the most well-known Heathrow Story begins in 1930 when British engineer Richard Ferry bought a 150 acre plot for about $73,000 in the village of harmonsworth it started as

a simple grass runway for testing aircraft and was used as an RAF base during World War II then it launched its first civilian flight in 1946 a converted bomber that took 35 hours to reach buenos areis from there the airport grew quickly with the Boom in commercial Aviation and by 1961 all those military tents had been replaced by modern terminals these days heo connects over 200 destinations across 884 countries handles 80 million passengers every year and is the UK's largest port by value more than 40% of Britain's non-european Union exports flow through its terminals so

you can see how it's pretty vital to the nation's economy the trouble is the airport faces a serious problem for almost two decades its two runways have been operating at full capacity leaving it with almost no no room to handle delays bad weather or growing passenger demand and the situation is becoming more and more Urgent by 2050 demand for all of London's airports combined could reach 400 million passengers per year more than double today's Total Lines will get longer fairs will shoot up and passengers are likely to pay a lot more for Long Haul flights

yeah that's not exactly ideal so what's the solution to all of this well one option is expanding London's other airports both Gatwick and stanstead sit in less densely populated areas making expansion potentially easier another proposal suggested creating a super hubp by connecting heo and Gatwick with High-Speed Rail but the plans fell through there's also an idea to build a completely new airport in less populated areas like Oxfordshire or maybe give a bigger role to region airports across the United Kingdom this would help to share the load somewhat and reduce the cost of travel overall there's

even a do nothing option which would use capacity constraints to naturally limit aviation's environmental impact the most straightforward option is adding a third Runway to he thr itself it's a plan that's been hinted at for years the proposed 22 billion doll expansion would increase the airport's capacity from 480,000 to 74 ,000 flights per year adding 40 new routes and creating up to 77,000 local jobs but there are a bunch of challenges first of all it would require demolishing almost 4,000 homes diverting rivers and rerouting the M25 Motorway through a tunnel environmental concerns are also pretty

big here he thr is already the UK's largest source of carbon emissions while the project received government approval in 2018 legal battles and the pandemic have delayed progress and as of 2025 construction hasn't even begun [Music] yet but none of these Solutions captured the Public's imagination quite like the plan to build a completely new airport in the temps and before we take a look at this insane new airport concept we quickly want to thank our long-term partner cyber ghost VPN for sponsoring this video with over 38 million users worldwide and over 20,000 excellent reviews on

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partially in the temps Estuary capable of handling 150 million passengers every year and if you're keeping score that's nearly double he throws current capacity the project earned the nickname Boris Island because then London mayor Boris Johnson was such a huge fan he brought together Architects Marine experts environmental Specialists and Aviation professionals to develop the $76 billion proposal at the time a lot of people considered it a fantasy but some saw it as a modern vision for British Aviation the main obstacle being finding the money to fund it all Boris was optimistic that International investment possibly

from China would help to fund the project so what would this temps airport look like it would be constructed on the edge of the aisle of grain the easternmost point of the H peninsula in Kent the design focused on avoiding many of the problems that traditional landbased airports have to deal with for example there would be no need for aircraft to fly over densely populated areas of London which is one of the biggest complaints about Heath row instead takeoff and Landing would all be overwater it would also be a carfree airport with all access provided

through High-Speed Rail tunnels there would be multiple passenger terminals spread across London's train stations so instead of checking in at the airport itself all that could actually be handled at new purpose-built points in the stations there would be one at es Fleet International train station next to the High-Speed Rail Link and another at St panr International train station in central London they even suggested building one at the Royal docks in East London Logistics operations would be based at sheerness with an upgraded a249 providing the new M2 connection the runway configuration would allow three or four

planes to operate simultaneously 24 hours a day something that's not possible at Heathrow due to noise restrictions over London the concept of an estuary airport isn't new it was first pitched way back in the 1970s over the decades a bunch of different plans were proposed from floating platforms to artificial Islands but it wasn't until architect sir Norman Foster the guy behind the new Wembley Stadium unveiled his detailed Vision that the idea really took off there is no reason why this cannot be done now and present Generations can have the benefit of it but it is

a true investment for the future his Consortium T's Estuary research and development or test rad believed that they could build it in just 7 years the project would be pretty similar to Japan's Kanai international airport but with some unique British challenges while Kai proved that you could build an airport on an artificial Island the temp's project would need to deal with stronger Tides busier shipping lanes and of course that pesky unexploded warship yeah we'll get to that one in a minute according to testr the $76 billion investment could even be recouped through the Redevelopment of

heathrow's current site yeah they actually envisioned completely replacing Heathrow Airport they wanted to turn the old area into a New London burrow with 300,000 houses the temps airport would also be pretty huge for Britain's position in global trade London is perfectly positioned 94% of global GDP is produced within a 13-hour Flight of the city while heo is currently Europe's busiest hub airport in Paris Amsterdam and Frankfurt are expanding fast without more capacity London risks losing its Crown if the new airport got anywhere close to 150 million passengers it would be far more than its European

Rivals okay sounds great so what's the [Music] problem well building an airport in the temps seems like a perfect solution but the reality was Far Messier the airports commission warned that the project would face huge risks with costs likely Rising well past that $76 billion estimate for starters it would require building a new temp's flood barrier to protect the facility then you'd have to create connecting infrastructure and solve some unusual problems perhaps the most dramatic of these is the SS Richard Montgomery that sunken warship that we mentioned which lies near the proposed site and has

over 10,000 unexploded bombs on board for over 70 years everyone's been happy to just leave this warship and its dangerous cargo alone and you can see why trying to move 1,400 tons of old explosives isn't exactly a job anyone's rushing to take on but you can't build an airport around it either the wreck would need to be dealt with one way or another and that's just the engineering challenges the environmental concerns were just as daunting as you can imagine a river like the temps attracts thousands of birds and yeah birds and planes don't mix all

that well a single Collision can destroy an aircraft engine while the plans included creating new nature reserves away from the airport there's no way to guarantee that the birds would actually use them moving entire ecosystems is tricky enough but keeping them away from flight paths would be an even bigger challenge you can't just politely ask thousands of birds to take a different route to work weather was another major issue the Met Office said that the area would see three times as much fog as he throw throughout the year reducing the airport's capacity for aircraft to

land the location posed other risks as well for starters the airspace was already pretty crowded with existing flight paths and the nearby aisle of grain is home to one of the largest liquefied natural gas terminals in the world huge containers of Highly flammable gas right next to a new airport no wonder the head of National Air Traffic Services called it the very worst spot you could put one and while the new airport might reduce noise pollution over London it would create a different kind of problem remember how they proposed just casually replacing Heathrow well over

the years countless businesses have set up shop around the airport a lot of them are international companies using heo as their European base building the main London Airport in the temps Estuary instead of expanding Heathrow means that businesses would face a tough choice relocate to the new site stay put with reduced International connections or move their operations to other European airport hubs altogether when you add up all of these challenges the explosive Laden shipwreck the fog the birds the crowded airspace and the massive business disruption it's easy to understand why Boris Island faced such an

uphill battle [Music] so you might be wondering what's the answer for London's airports ultimately the floating airport in the temps never made it off the drawing board now attention has shifted back to Heath's third Runway proposal the airport is still straining at the seams in fact last year was the busiest of all time with 84 million passengers heathrow's chief executive is pushing for a fin decision on the third Runway by the end of 2025 the expansion has had its own share of controversy including Boris Johnson declaring that he would lie down in front of the

bulldozers to prevent it but it's looking more and more likely that it's going to happen so what do you think about the temps Estuary airport would you prefer to see an ambitious new project like Boris island or does expanding Heathrow make more sense let us know your thoughts in the comments down below and if if you want to try cyber ghost VPN make sure that you use our Link in the description cyber ghost VPN will protect your data while you browse and give you full access to all blocked content on the Internet it's a great

VPN just like their current deal for $23 a month and 45 days money back guaranteed so it's totally risk-free as always thank you so much for watching and we'll see you in the next video [Music]