Rather think bmused has left off the A330 and A320 – the products that are currently selling quite well which should mitigate any large requirement for extra funding for a revamp of the A350 (not that there is any need for it). Indeed, I rather imagine that the A350 is the “stop gap” for the next dozen years, with Airbus no doubt having some cunning plan for a 767/777/A330/A340 replacement, incorporating any significant engineering gains accrued from the early years of operation of the 787.

Back to the point of the thread: The wings will continue to be built in the UK – the name of the employer will be changed from BAe to EADS. It would probably cost too much for EADS to shift wing production (and all other associated costs) to an existing location.

FC Basel’s supporters flights to see their team take one hell of a beating from our bonny Boro.

David

Why didn’t you come over and say “hello!” to me on that day with the Garuda – it was parked on stand 26 I believe.

Most frequent “exotic” diversion was ET-AIZ, seen 3 times in Ethiopian colours and once whilst leased to Air Tanzania.

Best for me was 8/2/92 with 20 747s on the ground at once (19 being diverted), with a total of 30 widebodies (8 operating normal services) noted in the space of 90 minutes.

AS for the lack of decent div days, improved weather forecasting is leading to more planes having excess fuel so that they can handle anything up to 60 minutes in the hold, plus an increased number of aircraft and crew being certified to land in foggy conditions. The only hope for decent days diversions nowadays is to pray for about 18 inches of snow to fall and for it to partially melt and then a sudden drop in temperatures occurs to freeze everything!

Blackpool was closed all day

With most flights operating out of MAN! Isn’t LPL a bit more convenient a diversion airport than MAN when BLK is closed? I do know that FR9697 was a “planned” diversion as when that flight called Servisair MAN, there were told that, for once, passengers would be able to disembark immediately on arrival as coaches had been arranged and that the FR9698 passengers were being coached over.

Oh… that rumour again? :rolleyes:

As usual where things MAN are concerned, believe it when you see it. 🙂

This appears to a little bit more concrete as the BG website apparently includes invites for a tender for the supply of JetA1 at MAN from 31/03/06 to 31/03/07. Remember the 3 “trial” DC10s in 1994?

Indeed, I find it hard to believe they think they can make a success of this route considering all the other operators on it! BA/CO/DL/PK and they want to move in on this market!?

It’ll be aiming for the MAN-DAC market as there is a reasonable Bangladeshi population around the Northwest and Yorkshire regions. Any pax on the MAN-JFK-MAN sector can be considered “Bertie Bonuses”.

David

It sounds like the route that AV8 was due to operate 2 years ago. That route then involved a couple of tech stops.

One of the 2 weekly services went something like MAN-DUB-LPA-CPT; I believe locoflights were tempting customers on the MAN-DUB, MAN-CPT and DUB-CPT secors. The other service I think was non-stop.

Additionally there are even question marks over the NEED for a new runway at STN!!

Really? Have you never, ever checked out the BAA STN arrivals page or Ceefax page 450 to count the arrivals and then doubled it to take account of the departures? As I write this (2308 on 21 Feb) page 3 of 9 on ceefax shows 17 arrivals due in the 40 minutes from 2200 to 2240 which is pretty impressive – and that’s not even peak period! Puiely on traffic grounds alone you could justify the runway. The only thing that will be the drawback for the BAA is that the LHR airlines, correctly, will refuse to foot the bill for STN expansion as it could be easily thought that the STN expansion that has taken place is as a result of cross-subsidisation of STN by the LHR/LGW operations.

However, what the country needs is the 3rd “commuter” runway at LHR so that domestic links will not be harmed as and when more long-haul operations are started (and no, I’m not ignoring the fact that more people are taking the train from Manchester to London so it could be possible to use the slots taken by the 18 or so daily services on this route for long-haul expansion – an awful lot of passengers on BA and BD are connecting, if MAN is to be believed).