wrote:
London TravelWatch published yesterday a report on improving surface
access to London's airports. It can be found at:-
http://www.londontravelwatch.org.uk/news/view?id=497&x[0]=news/list

Thanks for coming and posting that

That covers most of the comments I might have made. In particular, if the
balance shifts towards expansion of Gatwick then thoughts need to be made in
terms of interconnecting Gatwick and Heathrow in a better way than the
National Express bus crawling along the M25. Electrifying the North Downs
line plus Airtrack seem sensible ideas, though there's a question about
whether airside transfer is going to be a necessity of running two hub
airports: a long of transfer passengers won't have visas for the UK.

Another point is about access from north of Stansted - that's still a
problem for access to London airports, just not from London. The train
service, consisting of Cross Country from Birmingham, is essentially run to
suit Birmingham not airport passengers: the first arrival on Sundays is
1444, and doesn't run sufficiently early in the morning or late at night to
match the kind of flights that operate out of Stansted.

Also ticket machines need some serious work to rationalise the user
interface for people who are unfamiliar with UK ticketing or restrictions.
All they know is 'London', and are confused by the options for Super
Off-Peak TOC-only Travelcards and all the permutations.

It also should be remembered that contactless payment is not an option for
people with non-UK cards (and, for credit control reasons, may continue that
way).

Theo