Blythy, when asked about increasing the glideslope, admittedly mainly for noise reasons, one airline manager said, “The short answer to that is no, the aircraft is stable at 3 degrees in that intermediate configuration and just about idle thrust, so it’s about as quiet as it can possibly be and about as fuel efficient. If we steepen the approach we are actually going to have make a dirtier configuration and probably use a higher power, so it’s not feasible on a fuel savings benefit, it’s not good from a noise point of view and therefore there are no benefits from our point view.”
No doubt depends on the a/c type. That airline is a mid range operator. No 330, 340, 380, 777, 747s. etc. But can’t see any airport offering different glideslopes for different a/c anytime this side of the 22nd century.
By the way, who actually paid or will pay for the cost of the lost a/c seeing as it was Boeing’s or Rolls Royce’s (?) ‘fault’? BA, Boeing or a leasing company? I have lost the will to look back far enough in this thread to find the answer.