ATC delays at Heathrow

This will be the first of two “ranting postings”. I have been traveling a lot over the last six weeks to and from Heathrow. Heathrow is very congested and there are four “stack” or holding points for the airport, there are to the “Bovingdon” to the North West of London which is used by all the traffic from the US, “Lamborne” to the North East which is used by all the Asian Traffic, “Biggin” to the South West for the Middle East and European traffic and finally “Ockham” to the South East. Of the city used by traffic from Southern Europe, Africa and South America. All the traffic European airspace is regulated by Eurocontrol, who have a big computer in Brussels that calculates the flow rates to ensure that there is no congestion in the air. Every aircraft is allocated a time to the nearest minute to enter European Airspace and they have to fly at regulated speeds and heights.

How is it then that whenever you arrive at Heathrow you have to go round and round one of these stacks for at least 15 minutes before you are allowed to join the approach for Heathrow? It is adding massive amounts of Carbon to the atmosphere and is creating an increased risk of a collision over London by virtue of the fact that all the aircraft are in one place to mention nothing of the fact that it makes me miss by bus home. Surely we could just let everything depart a few minutes later and avoid the holding as it would appear they are planning to do for the Olympics.