My wife is shortly going to a conference in Manchester…

Wouldn’t happen to have been the Conservative Party conference she went to by any chance would it?

There was one good thing to see there around that time…David Cameron’s magnificent speech on the last day!:)

In a word…”creepy”!

I think this particular cabin crew person deserves to loose his job!:)

Guess she’ll find out when she turns up at the airport…?

Does it surprise you that they were cut-off on all 3 occasions when requesting a manager; they probably charge extra for the privilege?!:D:dev2:

Hi Irvine,

I happen to work for the ground handling company that handles Continental at London Heathrow, and I have even flown on them myself.

Everthing that ‘sneijder’ says is 100% accurate as far as I can see, and I too would personally recommend Row 7, ABC, but its highly likely that these seats may have already been pre-assigned because unlike other carriers, CO does not charge an additional fee for exit row seats and so they are offered on a first come, first serve basis.

The overwing exit rows (15 & 16) offer a small amount of additional legroom than a normal seat, but defo choose Row 16 as the seats in 15 do not recline!

As for the bags, the $50 second bag fee only applies to bookings made on and after 15th September 2009…so if you can remember when you booked it, you should be able to work out whether it will affect you or not.

Just a piece of advice though if you did book on or after the 15th…it will be better to take two bags and pay the $50 for the second bag rather than taking just the one bag and filling it up to 32kgs, as a bag weighing 23-32kgs would also incur a $50 charge. Why pay $50 for an extra 9kgs, when you can pay $50 for a second bag offering another 23kgs; hope that makes sense!

I have heard nothing from CO to say the $50 charge for a bag between 23-32kgs is going to be reduced!

Hope you enjoy your trip to New York, please feel free to PM me if you want any recommendations as to what to do and where to eat as I have a few to give!;)

• Impose significant tax increases on UK domestic flights that fall into the high speed rail catchment area – i.e. huge flight tax increases on all flights between LHR/LGW/STN/LTN/MAN/EDI/GLA/PIK etc, in order to incentivise traffic from air to rail, thus ultimately freeing LHR slots to aleviate need for LHR 3rd runway and also constraining growth at the other airports

Andy

Not sure what O’Leary would have to say about that suggestion Andy, but I can only assume that the second word would be “off”…?

In all seriousness though, I welcome the possibility of high-speed rail links, no matter where they serve, and I completely agree with points 2 & 5 also made in Andy’s post. The thing that amazes me with this though, is that National Rail have announced this today, but even if its approved, it wont be operational until at least 2030.

Just think, the Olympics will have been held in London, and a further 18 years will have passed after this event before we even get to see it!

(And just to put it into even worse perspective, I will be 44 years of age…now thats a scary thought!):D:diablo:

So, I suppose my ultimate question is why does it have to take so long from the initial announcement to the actual delivery and implementation of these things?

Just incase any of you were wondering, G-MIDC is still knocking around as she was at MAN yesterday and overnight.

It took off quite early this morning, but I wouldnt know where it was heading to?

Now first question, if we do get separated this is a bit unfair as I have offered to pay the extra but unable…

Whilst it is unfair that you may not be seated together, it is a cruise flight, so the cruise operator (whoever that is?) will have chartered Thomas Cook to operate the flight to BGI, so although it is operated by Thomas Cook, using a Thomas Cook aircraft, the airline cannot/will not pre-assign seats unless it is something that the cruise operator decides to offer that service to their customers.

As the advice that you were already given suggests, I would simply look to get to the airport as early as possible so that you can be assured to get seats together.

…what happens to the front section where they have there larger config 2+2+2 I think as it’s an a330, is it first come first served…

As this is a long-haul flight, I would have assumed the front of the aircraft will have a ‘premium’ cabin and thus will probably be fully booked already, although might be worth a call to the cruise operator to see if any upgrades are still available and how much they will be as again, as again I doubt that Thomas Cook will be able to help with this matter as they are literally the ‘third-party provider’ in these kind of situations.

Hope this helps.:)