RE: Air New Zealand B747 lands back at LHR after engine scare!

Unted also do round the world flights. (from LR they go to India, then transpacific via either Singpore or Hong Kong.

As far as ANZ go, they need to make an enroute stop somewhere between Auckland and London, they go via LAX rather than via SE Asia, as most airlines do. It’s their call, at the end of the day.

RE: Tribute.

let’s get them Afterburners going!
Attachments:

RE: Tribute.

Just to add to the collection of liveries Cocorde has appeared in…
Attachments:

RE: BA Concord

as A330crazy says, G-BOAA and G-BOAB have not had certificates of airworthiness issued since the refits after the F-BTSC crash.

BA continues to operate: G-BOAC, G-BOAD, G-BOAE, G-BOAF and G-BOAG

RE: Quake

I didn’t feel it, it was 4.8 on the Richter scale, epicentre around Dudley/Wolverhampton/Birmingham area

RE: Open Skies Agreement

and yes, I’m aware that you’ll never get 14 airlines competing on one route, but it would allow the market to regulate itself, meaning profitable routes have competition on them, and less profitable routes could be niche marketed (if not just cancelled).

Also, I’m aware BA or bmi will never enter full blown into the US domestic market, if anything, they’d cherrypick routes, but it could still give the US Carriers the added competition to improve their Domestic product. At the end of the day, most passengers are just looking for the best price/comfort ratio they can get (if it earns miles through either oneworld, Star or Skyteam, all the better).

This should see prices come down, and the comfort improved as they try to out do each other for amenities.

Here’s hoping.

RE: Open Skies Agreement

gd, I do agree with you that it’s nonsensical. I’ve tried to do a little more background reading into Bermuda II on the web, but haven’t found much up to date stuff.

Basically, in 1946, the Bermuda agreement was signed in Bermuda between the US and UK, pretty much liberalising air transport between the UK and the US. In the early 70’s, when Transatlantic travel became widely avaliable with the introduction of the 747, the UK objected to the amount of freedom US airlines had in their operations to the UK, as, because of the number of US airlines (remember, at the time BOAC was the only major UK airline), the UK airline (ie BOAC) was being swamped in the market. Thus, in 1976, the Bermuda II was signed, limiting the carriers permitted to fly from LHR to the US to three (the fledgling British Airways, Pan American Airways and Trans World Airlines) as of 1977. There were also a limit to the destinations that could be served from London.

There are no such limits from the UK regional airports (although all such services are mainly to the East Coast, particularly Florida) and are (or rather, were the info I looked up was pre 9/11 and I’m not sure how many routes have since been cancelled): from Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow (Glasgow Prestwick until the early 90’s, Glasgow International since) and Belfast (Aer Lingus with en route stop at DUB).

The Agreement stayed pretty much as was until 1991, when Pan Am ceased flying. As a tradeoff for changing the US airlines from PA and TWA to AA and UA, Virgin Atlantic was also granted permission to operate from LHR (Previously, they had been limited to LGW).

Now, that basicaly explains the situation now. With regards to your query about BA’s service to Denver, they did stop serving a few destinations, although I couldn’t tell you offhand which one this was for. I have been able to check up that when BA stoped their LGW-PIT service in 99 (BA had exclusive rights to PIT as a gateway), rather than give the route to US Airways, who wanted a route to London from their Pittsburgh hub, the ‘gateway’ was given to VS, as an alternate UK carrier, who used it to start their flights to Las Vegas.

Now, were there openskies now, VS could have started a route to Vegas anyway, and PIT would still be served direct from LGW (actually, I think US Airways got it later, anyway. I think)

There are (or were when the report was written, anyway) 14 carriers operating scheduled passenger services between the UK and the US:

British Airways
bmi british midland
Virgin Atlantic
American
Continental
Delta
Northwest
United
US Airways
Aer Lingus
Air India
Air New Zealand
Kuwait Airways
Pakistan International Airlines

just think of the choice you’d have if the market was liberalised! 14 airlines, all competing for your custom, trying to offer the best servic and the cheapest price. the market would look after itself, and US airlines could operate European services, and UK airlines could operate domestic services in the US. Again, definate benefit. We all know how poorly the service on domestic US flights is… imagine they had the competition from BA and bmi, whose domestic service on flights that rarely last longer than an hour and a half is of better quality than that of a 4 hour transcontinental domestic flight in the States.

Make sense now?

see also: http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/…

RE: Open Skies Agreement

gd, the current argreement, the Bermuda II, limits not only the number of airlines that can operate from LHR to the US, but also the amount of gateways each airline can serve. So UA can’t serve Denver unless they stop serving one of their other destinations.

This is why I’m saying it is in everyone’s interest that openskies gets given the go ahead.