RE: Ministers plan sixth terminal for Heathrow

The plans to develop a runway in the given location have been around for a while, yet it is unlikely that a new terminal would need to be built to cope with any increase in traffic. The truth is that the current terminals are capable of coping with the planned aircraft movements after the opening of T5 (ie 480 000 movements/year), so the extra 30 million capacity of T5 would probably more compensate for a new runway.

The thing to watch is what will happen in the central terminal area after T5 has been built as there will be a lot of redundant capacity!!!!! (well unless they build the new runway).

As for the planning process…well lessons have been learnt from T5 (which most people agree was a disgrace) and it is unlikely that it will ever take that long again in the UK.

RE: Landing on water

try again..it’s being an nuisance system today..
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RE: Landing on water

I know you decided it didn’t count, but strolling through airliners.net I found a pick of the CAL 744 after being removed from the harbour in Hong Kong.
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RE: A new fresh alliance would be nice

JAL is indeed most likely to join oneWorld, there have been links for a while, but I think that it could be in by the end of the year. SWISS is also most likely going to join oneWorld and they have openly stated their preference for this. They already codeshare with American.

South African seems to have other concerns at the moment, but would be an ideal candidate to get into an alliance. Malaysia Airlines is likely to enter into some sort of alliance with Wings…you forgot to mention them. Also Garuda has strong links with Wings through KLM.

The reality is that wings probably won’t expand anymore and will eventually collapse with the members moving to a more dominant alliance.

By market nature there is a limit to the number of alliances that can operate, the reason that we have alliances is because of ownership rules which prevent international purchasing of airlines, yet there are too many airlines in a market which would be better served by a smaller number of large airlines, and the alliances are a model of this.

I have an interest in alliances and have done work on them,so would be happy to continue this discussion with anyone who’s interested.

RE: Landing on water

here is a quick pic…
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RE: Landing on water

Obviously many aircraft would struggle to land on water due to their approach speeds. However there have been cases of aircraft being evacuated on water. For example in the early 1990s, a CAL 747-400 slipped off the runway at Hong Kong (Kai Tak..proper Hong Kong airport!!) and into the sea. True to form it floated like a luxury liner and was evacuated. If I spend a bit of time thinking then I’m sure I could come up with a few more examples of one form or another.

P.S. The CAL 747 had its tail blasted off and went a bit rusty, so I don’t think it ever returned to service, someone may be able to confirm this I’m sure.

RE: Airplane accidents

Just to clarify though, the comet that comet is talking about (I’m guessing) was indeed a new aircraft, but at that time fatigue was not understood, and until that accident there was no way of testing for fatigue (they invented the big “bath” we use now), so I don’t agree with Comet on that arguement.

HOWEVER, age is not the actual problem, it is more likely to be be hours flown, or the number of take-off/landings an aircraft has made. In the 1980s an Aloha 737 lost part of it’s roof, even though the aircraft wasn’t near it’s design life limit (in terms of number of hours flown…it was being used for short island hopping sectors), but it was experienceing pressurisation/decompresion more often than most airliners (due to island hopping flights), and this was causing fatigue stress on the fuselage and it cracked!

So age is not the underlying key. Also, we could discuss maintanance issues, but that could expand the topic to new heights.