I havent flown Air Asia, so not sure what they are like, but i have flown on Tiger airways another LoCo in the area from Singapore to Perth. Whilst the southbound flight from SIN was ok, and refreshingly the food you could purchase on board whilst not wonderful, it was not expensive like many UK LoCos, the northbound flight from Perth departing at 21.00 was very uncomfortable, you arrive at the Singapore Budget terminal (which actually is fine too) at an ungodly hour.

Air Asia maybe a bit better, all I would say is 5 hours on a LoCo is stretching it.

Just returned from Perth and Singapore, booked with Swiss about a year ago. Connection via Zurich was brilliant, no hiccups and no nightmare LHR, especially now, thank go I didnt travel with BA via term 5.

The subject of regional connections to LHR is a contentious one. My opinion is the reduction of regional connections over the years to LHR is detrimental to the regions and BA as a “National” carrier and LHR as the national hub of air travel. KLM have huge network of regional connections to many airports that once were connected to LHR e.g Humberside, Birmingham and Norwich. There are many other regional airports that have lost their LHR links over the years and there would seem to be more on the way, possibly Inverness, Tees Side, Leeds Bradford.

Heathrow is now on the national rail network, but the only link is to Paddington, so again no help for regional cities. With this in mind many passengers, me included will look to other European cities to make their connections which are very often more convenient.

My point is that that is exactly the same in LHR or ZRH. If you misconnect in either, the airline involved will reroute you. The only difference is you have far more options for getting where you want to at LHR than ZRH if things go wrong (which they do frequently).

well we shall see !!

Unless your inbound from MAN is running slightly late. The MAN flight is a Fokker which uses a bus gate, adding significant time getting into the main terminal. Couple that with the fact that the MAN flight is habitually 15 minutes late and Swiss close their gates 15 minutes-ish before departure and you’ve got an extremely tight connection with limited options for rebooking.

Once you’ve missed a connection in a smaller airport like ZRH you won’t bemoan LHR quite as much as you did before. I speak from painful experience! :p

I still prefer mainland european options over LHR I have never found the MAN-LHR link particularly on-time, as I experienced last Friday evening, with BD (my flight) late and BA having cancelled and delayed services. Two ladies sat behind me transfering onwards to Sydney were concerned about their connection they were on BA. (terminal 5, may improve matters), if i miss the flight in Zurich its down to Swiss.

I do like the MD-11, in fact I liked the DC10s prior to it, and Tristars, 727s, TU 154s and Tridents. In fact Tri-Jets are cool, shame they are disapearing. Not too keen on the colour livery on this MD.

My fav plane of all time however is the Super VC-10 :).

Eastern Airways

I see Eastern Airways are re-starting MAN-STN, now Air Berlin are going. They did this route before Air Berlin started on it. FR finished from Blackpool to Stansted as well, so they should do ok.

I heard Air Berlin will drop MAN-STN too, have used it before, good service, but not very busy. Eastern Airways did do that route before, I wonder if they will go back. No northwest connection to Stansted now, Ryanair dropped BLK-STN. Liverpool has no London link anymore, now VLM have finished, they couldn’t compete with the rail service, and I understand BMI may chop MAN-LHR. The rail now from the northwest to Euston is good, but if you want to connect onwards from a London airport, flying is still easier.

Air Berlin may have been better offering LPL-STN than MAN, less competition than MAN-LON with flights to LGW/LHR and LCY.