I hope you are also factoring in the transit time from the airport car park, the minimum one hour check in, the security hassles, the inability to carry a bottle of Diet Coke with you etc, etc, etc.

I don’t drive and I live close to Manchester Airport, so these aren’t as much of a consideration for me as they would be for others. Diet Coke is vile muck, fit only for making Mentos fountains.

Or one good quality Video conferencing system about two grand,a nice man who asks no more than a good cup of tea and five hundred quid to fit it.
Hay presto better for the daisies,no getting up at silly o’clock to sit on a train with the great unwashed AND your home in time for loose women…

All of our offices are equipped with brand-new hi-definition VC equipment.

Those of us who were responsible for this state of affairs often find the fact faintly amusing as we wend our way to London for yet another pointless bloody meeting….. :rolleyes:

Happy Palestinian Mercenary Day, folks! 😀

The English share their “special” day with the peoples of Aragon, Catalonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, and Russia.

Did you see the genius in one of the papers earlier in the week asking whether the flight restrictions only applied to economy class or whether business class passengers were affected, too?

It was quoted again on Have I Got News For You last night. 😀

Ah. but that’s not taking all costs and all time into account – as PeeDee and I were.

If I need to be at our HQ at 10:30, why would I want to be in London at 07:00? That would be a waste of 3.5 hours of my time, which costs money.

Similarly, if my business at HQ ends at 15:30, why would I want to hang around in London until 19:15? Another 3.5 hours of my time wasted which, as previously stated, costs money.

Once you factor in the cost of wasted time, the train – even hunting for cheap tickets – still usually comes out as the more expensive option.

Obviously, being able to book well in advance makes a big difference. But that’s a luxury often denied to us.

I’m pretty sure Manchester to London is cheaper and faster by rail than plane.

I’ve just had a look at the relative costs of a journey from my home to my employer’s HQ building in London. There’s not a lot in it in terms of overall door-to-door journey time.

Cheapest available tickets between Manchester and London to arrive in London by 10:00 next Tuesday (27th), coming back at 16:40 same day.

BMI MAN – LHR: £97.00 return + tube fare to/from London £9.00 = £106.00.

Virgin Trains Piccadilly Euston (standard return) = £262.00. Add to that the cost of a Zone 1-2 Travelcard and, if you want to be precise, 1/20th of the cost of my monthly local travel ticket to cover the journeys between home and Manchester Piccadilly.

So, you were saying…..?

No. If they block runways, arrest them for criminal trespass.

Why risk damaging a perfectly good aircraft?

Anyone else noticed the irony of Greenpeace advertising their ‘Stop the 3rd Heathrow Runway’ campaign here, on an aviation forum, of all places? :diablo:

At least they pay their way, unlike some of the freeloaders who try to advertise on these forums.

In a democracy they have a perfect right to put their point across, just as we have a perfect right call it a load of old tree-hugging hippy twaddle if we see fit to do so.

………..keep up the good work you naughty bunch of anarchists!:diablo:

And if they did that to your gateposts, you’d be blaming Gordon Brown and demanding the instant return of the birch….. :p