What about Antwerp International Airport?

[foxtrot_lima_yankee]

Most of you people have certainly heard of the problems Antwerp Int. Airport encounters in its expansion programs: "environment protecting" groups are organising campaigns of anti-expansion because of .... a generation of rare kind of birds or vegetation could be severely damaged.
Other critics quote the noise standards difficult to reach because of a close urban area around the airport.
I agree with the last group as we often see the bigger planes such as VLM FOKKER's approach over the center of the city of Antwerp(potential cause might be southern wind directions), causing noise all over the day.
But no one has yet considered another possibility of its expansion:
The relocation of the airport North-West of Antwerp, Near Kielendrecht and Beveren(direction Holland) over the Waaslandhaven and Doeldok: it might be an interesting option to take: There is no important concentration of population, the approaches might be taken from the North over the river of the Schelde over more than 15 miles (starting in the area of BERGEN OP ZOOM, but avoiding this city for noise reasons, by passing largely West of it), or south over the communities of Beveren and its surroundings, areas with less dense population.
The proximity to the port of Antwerp, one of the greatest in the world would be a great advantage for cargo operations, the proximity of highways would be appropriate to manage traffic in the area (certainly after the recent renovations, and the distance of less than 10 kms to Antwerp and less than 30 to Bergen-op-zoom would make it an attractive option for many travellers (We know that if we take the surrounding communities of Antwerp into account, the population of the area might exceed 1 million, although the city itself counts only 500000.).
The travelling easiness for diamond-dealers would be greater, and Antwerp might grow back to the most important city of the world in diamond trading, before New York.
If Antwerp can economically afford itself the construction of a Justice-palace building twice as big as its current airport, it should also be capable of projecting the construction of a new "serious" terminal North of it!
Any comments are welcome!!



Title changed, we are not deaf

[regi]

wishful thinking.
Even the most remote place in Flanders will cause a stirr. Just one strange looking frog, or some copulating bugs are enough to give a bad environmental report.
We all want to travel cheap and fast to places with hobbits , castles and goat cheese. But when it comes to some airport noise, we are very restrictive.
Virtual air travel?