This is admittedly, even for me, a strange existential question. Perhaps this is not so unusual. We tend to be interested in the things we spend a lot of time on — thus are born hobbies. In my case, as attested in these pages,that drives me to write about my family, media and technology, financial markets, music, books, soccer, cycling and tennis.

My interests also include major global cities and the airplanes and airports that link them for us. It should therefore come as no surprise that I eagerly awaited the report by the Airports Commission requested by the British Prime Minister and chaired by Sir Howard Davies (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/airports-commission).

First, I should declare an interest. I’m a huge fan of Sir Howard, having known him through his roles heading the FSA and the LSE in London and, more recently, chairing the Risk Committee of the Morgan Stanley Board. Knowing the political sensitivity of the question of adding runway capacity at Greater London airports, I worried that the Commission was being asked to do the impossible — make the case for a badly needed third runway at Heathrow to provide cover for both Conservative and Opposition MPs who had campaigned on the promise not to build another runway.

London is the crossroads of international business and finance, and Heathrow Airport is the second busiest airport in the world after Dubai. Nonetheless, Heathrow has only two runways, while less busy international destinations such as Paris (CDG), New York (JFK) and Frankfurt (FRA) operate four runways each. Even Boston, a former colonial outpost, has four major and two minor runways.

One might think it would therefore not take an intellectual heavyweight like Sir Howard and his commission to figure out that Heathrow might need a third runway. Nor is this a new issue. During the eight very happy years my family and I lived in London, I was visited at least annually by a series of committees, panels and agents all earnestly studying and “taking soundings on” the very same issue. While I do not minimize the environmental impact of air travel, nor the potential health effects and nuisance of constant overflight, most modern cities have figured out a way to balance these factors and compensate residents who must leave their homes or live with airplane noise and pollution. When asked my opinion, I always replied that there was perhaps a legitimate question as to whether Heathrow should build a fourth runway before 2050, but certainly not whether such an important gateway already operating at peak capacity needed a third runway.

British eccentricity (or perhaps air traffic control prowess) may explain why Heathrow should operate with one fewer runway than the international standard, but not two fewer. In fact, until the building of Terminal 4, Heathrow actually had three runways (although in fairness the long-lost third runway was less than fully useful as it ran across the two remaining parallel runways).

So I applaud the Davies Commission for having had the common sense and political guts to recommend a solution that the last several governments should have figured out on their own.