OVER the weekend, several newspapers suggested that Britain's Conservative government will finally be making a decision on where to build a new runway for London and the South East of England. This has become an urgent issue as the two runways at Heathrow, the capital's biggest airport, have been operating at more than 98% capacity since 2003 and cannot add any more flights or routes. In spite of this, aviation capacity is an issue that politicians have perennially kicked into the long grass. No new full-length runway has been built in the South East since the second world war. Mainly due to opposition from local residents, plans to increase airport capacity have repeatedly been shelved: at Cubbington in Buckinghamshire in the 1960s, at Foulness in the Thames Estuaryin the 1970s and several attempts to build a third runway at Heathrow in the 2000s. The current two options which the government is deciding between are a third runway to the north west of Heathrow and a second runway at Gatwick airport, to the south of London. Earlier this year, the commission set up to recommend which the government should choose came out in favour of Heathrow. The case for it is largely based on the idea that hosting a hub airport, connected to a large number of destinations and with much through traffic, would benefit Britain's economy more than simply building the same amount of extra capacity at a smaller airport such as Gatwick. Pooling passengers from many different points of departure, boosters argue, makes it