Ergo the need for RW3 to feed more Long Haul.

Stats would seem to support that conclusion.

While I don't have the time or energy to do a proper destination analysis, if we take narrow- and wide-body as a proxy for the shorthaul/longhaul split (crude, but Heathrow does the same in its reporting), then wide-bodies accounted for 41% of ATMs last month, compared with 36% in July 2013.

Increased % long haul flights, new runway
 

The increasing proportion of longhaul/widebody flights is entirely consistent with the ambition of (particularly) BA to serve more and more N American destinations at the expense of the rest of the world and especially UK feeder flights.
If Heathrow is to continue to function as a hub for the whole UK, and thus a national asset, what it needs is not a new runway, but half a new runway, ie one suitable for short and medium haul flights.

But privatisation, of BA and Heathrow, probably put an end to any such strategic considerations...

Perhaps one could rename British Airways as British Overseas Airways Corporation and Easyjet as British European Airways to reflect the destinations served by each carrier. Or have those names been used before ?

Well, we have a Dan Air out there again. That is a start.

BA hasn't been a 'national' airline for years, and for much of UK LHR doesn't serve as hub, that tends to be DUB going west and a mix of AMS, FRA, IST, DXB etc going east.

DUB is rather limited being only a handful of flights per day to limited places whereas LHR gives you so much choice regardless.
Recently did IOM 》DUB 》JFK, only just worked. If I had done IOM 》LHR 》JFK I could have had loads of choice of flights almost every hour through the LHR hub. I'll add to that choice to other NY airports. EWR from DUB involves a nightstop.

I was thinking of hubbing through LHR by air, rather than using surface transport to get to LHR from other UK airports.

But most "national carriers" have now gone for this approach, having one national hub. With a few exceptions, Air France only do Paris, Iberia only do Madrid. Lufthansa do two, Frankfurt and Munich, but have let go of the rest. ITA have done their long-haul pretty much wholly from Rome. All these have left significant service at Nice, Barcelona, Hamburg or Milan to others, apart from high-frequency to their own hubs from these points. Nowadays with various competition through other hubs it's just financially not worthwhile.

I also notice nowadays that BA has far more transit passengers from other European points through Heathrow than used to be the case.

Exactly what I did Aer Lingus Regional to DUB. Loganair would have done LHR.

yes LHR is almost another NY airport - but it's very expensive and no-one likes changing planes there - the layout is still totally fragmented with 4 geographically seperate terminals cp ATL, CDG, DUB, AMS

We save a fortune by NOT using LHR for long-haul

CDG also has an utter cluster**** of terminals if you're connecting, it's worse than LHR by quite some way. And people usually complain that LHR harms regional UK-NYC because of all the cheap seats offered due to the frequency!

To be fair to CDG... terminals 2B and 2D have now been merged into one big terminal... and since they reopened post-refurbishment, they are reasonably nice to use. Orly has now become one big single terminal (South and West are now joined together). My understanding is that ADP are trying to do something similiar with other parts of T2 at CDG.

Emirates will add 5 additional flights per week from 30th October making LHR 47 weekly.

New flights to be operated winter only with B77W. Seems to be CX slots.

SAS to leave T2 and move to T3 within the next few years ? Or maybe to T4 ?

Why? Is there any concrete info to substantiate this?

SAS to leave Star for SkyTeam after picking Air France-KLM and Castlelake as investors
https://www.flightglobal.com/airline...155224.article

Have a look at which terminal Delta and Virgin use at Heathrow. Then look at which terminal Air France and KLM use

Given you posted it as the news broke it’s obvious people wouldn’t know what you were talking about so perhaps not so much need for the sarcasm. This place is as good as we make it.

SAS have quite a sizeable operation at LHR. I wonder how easy it would be for them to switch terminals. Probably T4 could take them but wouldn’t make connections as nice as BA has (for the services all in T5 at least).

Turkmenistan Airlines
 

Turkmenistan Airlines are to resume flights to London Heathrow from the 04 November 2023.

Turkmenistan Airlines are to move their existing service from Ashgabat to London from London Stansted Airport to London Heathrow Airport. Turkmenistan Airlines previously served London Heathrow until February 2019.

T5427 ASB 12.00 LHR 14.00 73H 6
T5428 LHR 15.20 ASB 02.30+1 73H 6

Presumably TUA will continue throw in the occasional B77L instead, though the B752s appear all to have now been retired.

Virgin Atlantic are to cease flight's between London Heathrow and Austin from the 07 January 2024.

Virgin Atlantic are to increase flight's between London Heathrow and Barbados from 10 January 2024 until 29 March 2024.

Virgin Atlantic are to increase flight's between London Heathrow and Miami from 11 weekly to 14 a week for the 2024 summer season.

Virgin Atlantic will increase flight's between London Heathrow to Dubai from four weekly to daily for the Winter 2024/25 season.

T5A
 

I wonder if anyone would know the following, just to clarify my curiosity.

A number of years ago a flew from T5A on a long haul flight on a B767. Since then I have never seen in all my visits to LHR as a passenger or spotting, a wide body depart from T5A.

Now I know the stand arrangement at T5B/C is designed for more wide body use, but my questions are how many stands at T5A are wide body capable, and was my flight a complete rarity or is there specific uses/circumstances for wide bodies at T5A.

I was flying to NAS when I went from 5A if that makes any difference.

Looking at the charts there look to be 3 stands able to take larger aircraft 514, 516 & 518

Stands 514, 516 and 518 can take 3 x B744s side by side, only seen this once back in Christmas Day 2008 :) That said, 518 seems to be have been used more often in recent years for heavy arrivals. It's more usually 4 x A320 series though, one each on 513 515 517 and 518.
513/514 and 516/517 are on the same gate and airbridge, one's a broken line for an A320 series, the other is a fixed line for a B744/B777 series.
B767-300 stands were 505, 508, 512, 513, 516, 518 and these were commonly used.

Although not ‘type’ of stands (domestic) for widebodies, but think the old domestic 763’s they were often at T5A.

Thats what got me wondering because when T5 was built there was domestic and short haul eu widebodies (767’s) but my surprise was that we were on a long haul 767 and it wasn’t like it had done a euro run before as a sub so it really surprised me! Anyway as I say it’s not important I was just intrigued

What actually is the current long term plan for LHR? Are they still planning to build T5D and T2C, rebuild T3 and then link up the rest of the piers similar to ATL?

That will depend on how many movements they can get into two runways! Sure as heck theere is not going to be an R3, so they won't build more terminal capacity than needed.

The only options for accommodating more movements on the existing runways are extending the operating day and/or introducing mixed-mode operation, either of which are likely to prove no more popular with communities than a third runway.

A bit of a controversial view but exactly what is the problem with noise at LHR.

I grew up very close to Heathrow and in the 60s and 70s noise was an issue. , VC10s and other Conway engined beasts would have woken all of west London on a night easterly departure and the ear splitting scream of JT3s on approach the same.
But life is very very different now , the airport has been there for 70 plus years so no one has suddenly found out that there is an airport near their house. I dont know what the decibel numbers say but the likes of 787s , 350s and Airbus 320s dont make anything like the noise so an extension of operating hours would seem sensible.
Of course that would upset the citizens of Richmond but as there seems to be no other alternative why not give it a try

At his last community engagement prior to his exit in October, JHK stated by 2028 subject to planning permission from Hillingdon council *, and airspace changes, easterlies will be alternated like westerly landings.
* Hillingdon refused the last application but it was successfully appealed, (though LHR failed abide by including it with R3 costs)
The sticking point now is the sound barriers for Longford village.

As I recall it at least for a while the first BA LHR-JFK of the day was a regular departure from one of the A gates, probably 518 (A18)

LHR issues
 

Hi all

Is LHR enforcing movement reductions this morning ?

Im stuck on the MAN shuttle with a 2 hr delay on the ground at MAN

any inside info would be appreciated,. First the crew said weather delays then ATC sickness !!

bang goes my connections, knew I should have driven down !😡

Currently has a slot delay of just below two hours due arrival restrictions at LHR.

Hi
just looked at FR24, the holds are certainly looking busy

A BA 787 Diverted to STN and one to LGW, assume splash & dash for fuel.

Still alot holding in stacks and alot of BA domestic flights canx. Definitely an ATC flow issues
http://BBC News - Heathrow passenger...iness-67468108

I read something briefly on X that there was an exercise taking place between the police and the RAF to prepare in the event of a terroist event

Wasn't that Friday evening with a BA 320 and x2 Typhoons?