St Helena and its new airport

After hundreds of years of isolation being served only by the regular mail boat from Cape Town every few weeks, St Helena will have an airport (£250m) opening next year. The population is only 4000, wages are low and the opening of the air link is likely to change this small territory for ever. It was once the home of Napoleon after his defeat at Waterloo. Otherwise it has no real claim to fame. It is located in the South Atlantic.

Tristan da Cuhna much further south remains without air transport.
Relatively near Ascension Island has air links with the UK and the Falkland Islands.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31945384 .
See also http://sthelenatourism.com/ .

Thames Estuary airport?

 See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29026484 .

For the moment, they seem to be rejecting plans for an "all new" London airport in the Thames estuary as Boris Johnson would like. It would certainly ruin bird life in the area.

The argument is that in the future existing airports,even with more runways, will not be big enough. Is that true? The arguments for a "Hong Kong" like solution for the longer term makes some sense. I doubt politicians are brave enough to make such long-term decisions. The environmental lobby will be against a new airport: in the end there may be no choice. Heathrow is a daft airport with poor access and facilities. If starting today, you would not build an airport there.