The whole taxes/surcharges issue is becoming one big rip-off imo; I’ve just been checking some fares with BA and within a ticket costing £75; the flight only costs £32!

T5 certainly looked impressive when I flew into LHR yesterday, but I can see a few problems here:

47 stands are being quoted; will this be enough for even BA alone at peak times? I’m 99% sure that they use more than that at T1/3/4.

Unrivalled access; hardly. By road you still have the fun of the M25 and the rail links will still be 3rd class. Why can’t they offer the same as CDG/AMS/FRA/ZRH? ie. direct long distance services.

Taxiways around T5 may be great but not really relevant when a/c still have to taxi past central area for a 27L/R t/o ie.right to the other end of the airfield.

The fact that it will take until 2008 for BA to get all their services into one terminal is typical; other competitors such as AF/KLM/LH and most US carriers have had this for 10+ years.

They’re also short of a B737-300 at DSA and have been using various Thomsonfly B757s on loco flights.

Nice shot mate, interesting that EC-ISY is still operating out of DSA.

I think that Thomsonfly must be short of a B737-300 at DSA; the 737-800 G-CDZN is actually operating loco flights(instead of the planned IT flights) and EC-ISY is on the IT services.

I can’t see BA starting any new long-haul services from MAN; they’re clearly London-biased. I believe they also used to operate MAN-LAX and dropped the route due to poor loads. Most likely US service imo would be United/BMI to SFO; some demand for point-to-point and UA hub offers good connections for Western USA ie. SEA/SAN/LAX/HNL etc.

One of the Britannia flights op. Humberside-Palma yesterday departed at 2300 last night; it should have left at 1445!

I am quite suprised by this news; AC begin with a Boeing LH fleet then move towards A330/340 fleet to now move back to Boeing products. Why didn’t they order B777s in the first place?

Looks like Farnborough to me.