Is there anything that compels T1 to be demolished, apart from future intended usage of the land it occupies ? It's going to cost money to knock it down, and I'm left wondering if demolishing T1 can be deferred for a couple of years until LHR's traffic recovers enough that there is confidence new building work on the site of T1 will have a sufficiently high rate of return.

Perhaps money should not be spent on flattening what is essentially a disused building on a brownfield site in west London until somebody can come up with a business plan to make proper money from it

Sell it for apartments?

CC - you really are comparing Apples with oranges here Singapore 3 airports, Canada 500+ you have no choice in Singapore (for anything butt hat's another matter) but a lot of choice in Canada

lgwpave

Ah, thanks for confirming. I did wonder why the works were taking so long but clearly a lot is being done underground.

In terms of the T1 works, isn't the intention that the enlarged T2 would enable the closure of one of T3/T4? If so, then the works might make sense as there would be cost savings with fewer terminals. Of course at the moment T4 isn't needed anyway.

Is this work part of the wider plan for Heathrow East terminal, as shown in page of the document below. The plans show Heathrow East and West terminals connected by underground tracks.

https://www.heathrow.com/content/dam...in_further.pdf

Trinity
The tunnels shown in that report are the existing Heathrow Express & London Underground routes.
The future plans for T2 fit into that overall masterplan - future additional satellite to the East, and others to the West. These will all eventually have underground transit connections.
I imagine that all of these plans will now be put on hold until things pick up again.

As for the demolition of T1, I understand that empty buildings attract Business Rates, whether in use or not, along with maintenance costs. I've seen this within industrial parks where empty buildings are demolished, and the sites left empty until a new client wants something new built.

Empty buildings do attract rates, so demolish. But remember, there is money in demolition, crushed concrete, steel, copper and other metals, sometimes they pay the owner to get the contract.

Looks like BA slowly moving the sun flying to LHR from LGW again for summer, my PFO and IBZ bookings both changed today

UK slot waiver extended through summer season.

I have a vague memory that Conservative party policy (possibly under David Cameron) towards airports, was that the overall number of operational airport runways should not increase. I'm assuming that Manston still *might possibly* return to seeing aircraft flying again....
If Coventry airport closes completely in favour of a Tesla factory, does that mean that there is room for Heathrow to have an R3 (albeit in 5+ years time once air travel demand returns)

there isn't a "national" plan for airports - closing Coventry has no impact on LHR in any meaningful use of the word.

No plans. From Reagan and Thatcher onwards "The market knows best and will produce what the customer wants."

Well, sometimes. But no planning does not permit planning for national emergencies and pandemics. Many companies moved to 'just in time' and 'provide for the average'. On the assumption that, when things were not normal, they could buy in or lease out spare cpacity. Unfortunately, Pandemics are beyond anything like that and having no plan at all, leaves us where we are in the UK. Other countries too. The key being that - there was ALWAYS going to be a massive financial crash, it was only a question of what would trigger it and when. Now we know.

https://www.boston.com/travel/travel...london-flights

United to start Heathrow to Boston.
I wonder if this is a reaction to JetBlue announcing London to Boston, or a part of a wider strategy...

Rumours in the Czech press that CSA might be about to fold. Do CSA / Smartwings own their LHR slots or are they leased from another airline ?
https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/c...bs-threatened/

i don’t believe the slots have historic value attached to them so it’s academic in any case

They are using adhoc slots -they SOLD their own grandfather slots some years back and indeed prior to COVID when adhoc slots became available hadn’t served Heathrow for quite sometime
Indeed the London link was maintained by group company Smartwings into Gatwick.

Heathrow charges
 

Well done Heathrow. Any chance there might have been to see an end to the iniquitous APD charge of £26 on a return domestic flight in today’s budget was blown away by the airport’s decision to impose an additional £8.90 “infrastructure” charge with no notice or consultation. Just the excuse the Treasury needed to avoid change, the previous excuse being that changes were forbidden by EU rules.I hope BA and Loganair make their feelings felt, but I hate to think what effect the charge will have on demand for Loganair’s new services to Teesside. Who will be next? Manchester, Edinburgh?

APD will rise further on long-haul from April`22...long haul economy +£2 with premium economy,business & first class +£5 as announced in the Budget today notwithstanding the planned increase already set for next month.

Hasn't Teesside still got its own charge on departures? If the route is that price sensitive, doubt it's got that much of a future.

I read elsewhere that Uganda Airlines are to fly from Entebbe to Heathrow using a A330-800 neo, is this likely, or a worthy service?