(Corrects location of new runway in sixth paragraph)
By Rhys Jones
LONDON, July 23 (Reuters) - Gatwick airport laid out acheaper and faster solution to London's passenger capacitycrisis on Tuesday, outlining how a second runway at its southLondon site would cost just 9 billion pounds and be up andrunning in just over a decade.
After attempts to expand the city's biggest airport,Heathrow, ran into local opposition, Britain's Conservative-ledgovernment set up an independent commission to examine proposalsand report back after the next parliamentary elections in 2015.
The competing lobbies have launched their detailed solutionsto the issue, with Gatwick, the city's second largest airport,the latest.
The cheapest option put forward for a third runway atHeathrow would cost 14 billion pounds and be ready by 2025 atthe earliest.
Expanding another smaller airport to the north of the city,Stansted, would cost an estimated 10 billion, while Mayor BorisJohnson's plans for a new four-runway hub to be built eithereast of central London on the Isle of Grain or further out inthe Thames Estuary on a man-made island by 2029 would cost atleast 50 billion.
Gatwick, owned by Global Infrastructure Partners, said a newrunway south of its existing site 30 miles south of London wouldhelp reduce the city's dependency on Heathrow as a big hubairport.
"Other world cities, including New York, Tokyo, Paris andMoscow, also operate a multi-airport or 'constellation' system,and handle greater numbers of passengers than cities relying ona single 'hub'," Chief Executive Stewart Wingate said.
The project would be privately financed, he said, and couldbe up and running by 2025.
The government and business want to expand flights tofast-growing economies to ensure Britain doesn't miss out onbillions of pounds of trade. With Heathrow, London's biggestairport, operating at 99 percent capacity, more runways areneeded.
Gatwick presented three options for an additional runway,which can be used in different ways. It also claims itsproposals would have a much lower noise footprint than athree-runway Heathrow, affecting fewer than 5 percent of thepeople Heathrow impacts today.
($1 = 0.6506 British pounds) (Editing by Patrick Graham)
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