“PLEASE Jet2, start an LBA-LGW service!!!”

If you want Jet2 to survive in the future you need to avoid wishing for this route. Leeds is too well served by rail for flights to London. I know BD do well with LHR but this is because of people flying to LHR, not London.

There is no way Jet2 or anyone else can compete with the train to London.

Just to put this statement into context:

There are currently 33 direct trains a day, each way, between Leeds and London.

Over the next five years this will rise to over 40.

The current average journey time is 2 hours 22 minutes, falling to 2 hours 6 minutes over the next five years.

The cheapest flexible ‘walk up’ fare is about £65 return.

The cheapest restricted ‘book ahead’ fare is £19 return.

Some trains currently have wi-fi internet access, all trains to have it by 2007.

Many trains have a restaurant service, all trains have a buffet service.

All trains have a smoking section (if that’s your thing).

Trains run city centre to city centre.

I know this means very little to aviation enthusiasts but the ordinary traveler will pick the train over the plane any day. If jet2 start LGW service it will not last lone.

All that will be gone in time… Like I said, a chip in your identity document (passport or national id card, etc) will allow a remote reader to identify you. The system to which the reader is connected will then be capable (for example) of retrieving your facial details and displaying them on a screen so a positive ID between you and your picture can be done at a security check (or it could be based on finger prints, iris scan etc), and at the same time the system will confirm that you’re checked in for a flight and that you’re entitled to pass through security. Part of this is already in place at Amsterdam, where regular passengers can acquire a card that identifies them and compares a stored iris scan against the passenger’s eye – what is possible but has not yet been done is that the document identifying the passenger can be read remotely from up to 1 or 2 meters away whilst its still in the passenger’s pocket, rather than there being a need to put a card in a reader.

Andy

I feel this will be a very long time coming, maybe LHR, AMS and some of the bigger US airports may have this system soon but as for smaller airports the cost will not make it workable. Also even if they started putting bio data on passports today it would still be ten years before everyone has one, so for at least ten years you would have to have the old system along side the new. Although I think you are ultimately right that this is a probable future extension I wouldn’t hold my breath!

We have been using the same standard boarding cards for years now, tell that to Exeter Airport, or try Plymouth were the cards are still hand written! There are still many places that have not even caught up to with the current system so a high tech smartcard future is a long way off.

Which loco’s do not use boarding passes? I travel a lot on the cheap but I am always issued a pass, at least FR, U2, WW, LS, BE and WOW have all issued them in the past few months.

They seem to me to be vital document and I can’t see how an airline or airport would be able to function efficiently without them. If you do not have them your booking and identity would have to be confirmed at check in, security, immigration, customs, the duty free shop, boarding gate, aircraft door and finally arriving airport immigration and costumes to name but a few! With a boarding pass your details are checked only once at check in, the pass then has every thing they may need to know on it. It really isn’t for the good of the passenger, other than telling you what seat and sometimes gate you are going to be using.

Can you imagine the queues at security if they had to check with the airline to make sure you actually have a booking on a flight before they let you airside!

Remember 45 million in AUSTRALIAN dollars, that’s only 17.5 million in real money. 2.9 million quid for a 767? BARGAIN!

To be honest there are very few people who that fly with BMi-baby that cant speak English. Whats the point in learning another language (or part of it for that matter) when English will be spoken my 99% if not all. Waste of time and money. They should teach the cabin crew how to speak English properly (pronouncing the “t” in words would be a great start).

Well if you open up your business to people at your destination country you double the number of potential customers. That’s how you create a successful airline, would you want to fly a foreign airline if they couldn’t be bothered to provide English speaking crew?

Its not an airline, i call it the queens plane the aircraft is bsed 2 mins away from me at RAF Northolt in london.

Well then there is no excuse for the flag to be wrong on it! 😮

If you plug your own ‘one plug’ phones in to a ‘two plug socket’ it will still work, only in one ear. Unless of course they are using the old stethoscope type system but I haven’t seen that for a while now.