Hi Warped
Yes - the standard speeds off the hold work fine (my feeling is that we fit fairly well into the LHR pattern - we certainly have a more flexible decelleration / energy managemnt issue than conventional types as your visual approach experience shows!!!) - the only point I was trying to make was that speeds significantly lower than standard have an out of proportion penalty - "leave OCK heading 090 speed 170kts" would be a problem on minimum flt. plan fuel. Big problem - more track miles at 210 would be better.
No, slot swaps are still used. Thing is, if you own a 737 which burns (say) and extra 30kgs of sector fuel to carry a tonne for holding at LHR and a 747 which needs an extra 500kgs to carry a tonne for holding (and gets less holding out of it) then dynamic management of EATs makes a lot of sense. Keep it within each company, and it disadvantages nobody else - just amounts to efficient use of airtime. It can be even more practical than just cash - you may have an inbound which cannot carry extra for many technical reasons, and a 757 from CDG which can carry oodles - why unecessarily (sp?) drop your NRT 747-400 into LGW at vast expense?